Spokane River advocates push court to compel cleanup plan for PCBs: 'It's time for action'
Jul. 6—Thomas Soeldner has had enough.
Ten years ago, the Upper
They never got a definitive answer.
So on Tuesday morning, Soeldner announced they are asking again.
"It's really time for action," Soeldner said.
The plaintiffs in that unresolved 2011 lawsuit are seeking to force regulators to comply with the Clean Water Act and set total maximum daily loads, or TMDLs, that would quantify the amount of PCBs polluters can discharge into the Spokane River each day. They have requested a
The entities that would be subject to such limits include
The question of how to deal with PCB pollution has been the subject of a protracted back-and-forth between environmental groups, the state
Even apparently fundamental questions like whether state regulators can set the limits have remained unanswered since Washington officials ruled in 2010 the state would not require Spokane River dischargers to meet standards for PCBs in their wastewater. Instead, the state set up a task force comprised of manufacturers, environmental groups, health officials and local governments that was tasked with a plan to reduce the cancer-causing toxin's presence.
While
A judge ruled in 2015 that the federal government erred in allowing the state to create a task force as a substitute for setting discharge limits and ordered the
While Ecology allowed the task force's work to continue, the
That timeline wasn't acceptable, however, to the Upper
In 2016, during President
Three years later, however, the agency under President
In response, Washington Attorney General
Then, last year, state regulators said they couldn't move forward with plans to set final limits for a carcinogenic pollutant because of a federal dispute with the Trump administration over what is healthy. Instead, the
Last month,
All of those decisions and reversals have created a lack of regulatory certainty that is "bordering on lawlessness," Soeldner said Tuesday, during a news conference in
She said defined discharge limits are necessary to provide clarity and consequences that will finally create a safe river.
White said Riverkeeper supports "sunsetting the task force" and putting regulations "back in the hands" of state and federal regulators.
Soeldner said the rules are clear and should be imposed.
"With the Clean Water Act, (the setting of discharge limits) is not discretionary," Soeldner said. "They have to set a TMDL and not an alternative to a TMDL. And that's why we went back to court."
But
"There's a lot of different paths to clean water in the Clean Water Act," Keltz said.
And she defended the task force as a successful alternative to the setting of total maximum daily loads, arguing that "a great deal of progress has been made on identifying and reducing PCBs in the Spokane River."
Keltz said her department has "the data to show" that measurable progress, and that dischargers have made "a lot of upgrades and investments" to limit their release of the toxins.
"PCBs are incredibly difficult to tackle," Keltz said. "This isn't exactly an easy project with a quick solution."
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