In Part 5 of “Insiders & Naysayers,” Spokane historian Bill Stimson looks at why it took Spokane until 1958 to stop dumping raw sewage into the Spokane River.
By today’s standards, it’s difficult to imagine how a large city like Spokane could tolerate using a river as an open sewer. Yet, even in hindsight, the depth of the opposition to even primary sewage treatment in Spokane is remarkable, especially given that the federal government was anxious to pay most of the cost. The story is part of Bill Stimson’s political history of Spokane, “Insiders & Naysayers,” that is being republished this week (August 24-30th) at cforjustice.org. The following excerpt is from Part 5 of Stimson’s series, in which Stimson cites the Spokesman-Review’s coverage of the sewage treatment controversy as an example of how heavy-handed William H. Cowles I could be in using the paper’s news pages to back Cowles’s political objectives.
To read “Insiders & Naysayers” with Stimson’s new introduction, go here.
To read Part 5, in full, go here.
Here’s the excerpt:
Spokane’s change to at-large, non-partisan elections in 1910 had the effect of routing all of Spokane’s politics through the offices of the Spokesman-Review. A candidate simply had no other way to communicate with an electorate of 100,000 people.
This did not mean the Review could dictate to candidates. But the Review did choose what questions candidates would answer, and how their answers would be portrayed. A candidate had to give some attention to how the Review felt about issues.
The same was true after the election. Elected officials did not always go along with the Spokesman-Review’s view, and the Spokesman-Review did not generally disagree. But when the two were not in alignment, it was sure to be a hard struggle for public officials.
In 1935 the Spokesman-Review neglected to report why city officials favored sewage treatment.
A case in point is the protracted battle over construction of a sewage treatment plant. The Spokane River was being used as an open sewer, with aesthetic and potential health consequences. In 1933 the Spokane city commissioners proposed to build a sewage treatment plant. The Review declared against it and the citizens rejected the bond issue.
In 1935 the commissioners tried again, proposing to use money offered by the federal Works Progress Administration to build the plant. The Review’s news stories about this plan were virtually editorials against it. The first report, carried on page one, column one, was headlined, “Sewage Scheme Rouses Alarm.” Decked headlines read: “Plan Voters Rejected Would Mean Big Cost Yearly,” and “No Health Aid.” The story began, “The WPA’s proposed sewage disposal plant gift to the city is one gift horse that is being looked at in the mouth by residents.” The remainder of the story 
quoted a former commissioner, then deceased, who had been against sewer systems. Current officials were not interviewed about why they were for the plan. Much of the information was incorrect. The story said, “The state board of health has investigated pollution of the Spokane River and has found that it is not sufficient to be a nuisance.” In fact, that very year the state director of health’s annual report said several of the state’s rivers were polluted and needed cleaning, but only the Spokane River was listed as “grossly polluted.” The WPA proposal went down to defeat.
The commissioners brought the sewage treatment plant up again in 1938, and it was defeated again. In 1940 they proposed yet another plan. The Review’s stories on the proposal a week before the vote in March 1940 were headlined ” ‘Sewer-Water’ Trick Exposed” and “Disposal Plant Scheme Shown.” Both stories were cast in a question-and-answer format that gave the reader the proper answers in the manner of a catechism:
“Question – In what respect does the sewage disposal issue coming before the voters March 12 differ from the manner in which it was presented at three former elections?
“Answer – In the other elections the voter was informed as to what was before him, while in the coming election the purpose was at first carefully concealed in the guise of a shift of $30,000 of sewer funds to furnish work for the WPA . . . .
“Question – Is the city council majority that passed the water-sewer merger ordinance last November still trying to conceal its real purpose?
“Answer – The real purpose has now become so apparent that further effort at concealment has been dropped and the city commissioners are talking sewage disposal . . . .
“Question – What has become of the preemptory order of the state board of health?
“Answer – It is buried in the files of the city clerk’s office. No one seems to regard it with any degree of seriousness, except the city commissioners pushing the water-sewer merger . . . .
“Question – To defeat the proposed grab of water funds, what is required of the voter?
“Answer – That he go to the polls next Tuesday and vote “no” in the space on the ballot which asks if the cost of operation of sewers be paid for by the water division.”
Thus the sewage treatment plant lost a fourth time.
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