In one of his first actions as the new Spokane Riverkeeper, Rick Eichstaedt puts the state on notice about its foot-dragging on a cleanup plan for a notorious toxin that plagues Spokane River fish.
In the aftermath of a toxic leak into the Spokane River, the Center’s lead water attorney and Spokane Riverkeeper Rick Eichstaedt has dispatched a letter to Washington Department of Ecology Director Jay Manning that highlights a fiendish environmental and regulatory problem for both Spokane River polluters and the agencies that regulate them.
The problem, in a big nutshell, is polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a group of synthetic organic chemicals that are persistent and bio-accumulative in the environment and which, studies show, can cause a variety of health effects. Among other things PCBs are considered a probable human carcinogen by U.S. and international health agencies.
PCBs were banned in the United States in 1976 but continue to enter the environment through spills and from poorly contained waste sites.
The event that got Eichstaedt’s attention is one that is superbly reported by Kevin Taylor in the Pacific Northwest Inlander’s May 14th edition. In it Taylor describes how a wind-toppled power pole on Blackwell Island in Coeur d’Alene crashed down with the power transformers it was holding, causing a leak of PCB contaminated oil from one of the transformers to seep into the Spokane River. Although the quantity of contaminated oil was probably less than 30 gallons, the persistency and potency of the PCBs presented a very serious cleanup issues.
Eichstaedt, in his letter, uses the event as a reminder to Manning that the state has been dragging its feet in issuing a PCB cleanup plan for the Spokane River 
where levels of the substance exceed water quality standards. Under the federal Clean Water Act, the state is required to promulgate such a cleanup plan (known as a TMDL, for “Total Maximum Daily Load”) and Eichstaedt quotes an Ecology consultant recommending that PCBs be addressed concurrently with the TMDL the agency is working on to try to resolve the river’s dissolved oxygen problems. A new EPA report on the state of toxic chemicals in Columbia Basin published earlier this year noted that while PCB concentrations in Spokane River fish have come down since the early 1990s due to pollution prevention steps, PCB concentrations in rainbow trout are still well above the EPA Human Health Guideline for fish of 5.3 parts per billion.
Notably, one of the points that Eichstaedt underscores in the letter is that the law is clear, and a federal appeals court has recently reiterated, that new pollution discharges to waterways that are not in compliance with water quality standards for the subject pollutants (in this case PCBs) are flatly prohibited. Thus, Eichstaedt writes, “any permit issued to Spokane County will need a PCB TMDL that demonstrates that the County will not cause or contribute to PCB violations in the Spokane River.”
It’s clearly a signal from the Riverkeeper that the county’s soon-to-be-under-construction sewage treatment plant could face another thorny legal challenge unless Ecology and river dischargers take the issue with much more urgency than they have been.
“(A)ny permits issued for the Spokane River will need to include water quality-based limits for PCBs regardless of whether a TMDL is completed and the TMDL is the best tool for determining these limits,” Eichstaedt wrote. “The lack of a completed TMDL cannot legally be used as an excuse to delay the establishment of these limits.”
–CFJ
Update: Read Jay Manning’s response, click here.
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