December 31, 2002

Environmental Watch: Drought portends busy year for water experts

SEATTLE -- Consultants who specialize in water could have a busy 2003 if the drought continues.

Now if only nature would cooperate in helping the water experts get the word out.

Consider what happened in the days after Dec. 9, when Seattle officials called for the winter's first voluntarily water conservation measures. The skies opened up and dropped more than an inch of precipitation.

The city issued another call to conservation last week. "Recent precipitation not enough to end water worries," read the headline on the release. As if on cue, the rains started falling again.

"It's been really hard to try to convince people to conserve when you look outside and it's pouring," says Guillemette Regan, Seattle Public Utilities' regional water policy manager.

But rain in the city doesn't translate into relief where it counts: the watershed. Up in the hills, rainfall as of Thursday was half of the total normally received in December. Chester Morse Lake in the Cedar River Watershed is 9 feet below normal for this time of year.

The new year, therefore, could be a banner year for experts ranging from water resource consultants to the vendors of low-flow plumbing equipment.

"Businesses have been very interested in finding out about how they can conserve water," says Bill Anderson, director of the Business and Industry Resource Venture. A partnership of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce and Seattle Public Utilities, the venture helps companies improve their environmental performance.

Through its Water Smart Technology program, the venture offers financial rebates to businesses for replacing inefficient water equipment with low-flow toilets and other devices.

Seattle Public Utilities is working with researchers at the University of Washington on the impacts of global climate change. Sometimes the utility calls on the private sector to help analyze such data. But whether it does this time, Regan said she couldn't say.

Bob Wheeler a senior associate at Triangle Associates, a Seattle consulting firm that helps resolve public policy issues and environmental conflicts, said knowing what to expect is about as easy as predicting, well, the weather.

Wheeler, who's working on several watershed plans, said people are nervous about the continued dry weather. "The feeling I have from people is the uncertainty," he said. His water management advice mirrors what Seattle Public Utilities is telling the public: be conservative.

Environmentalists won't challenge water ruling

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) -- Environmentalists will not challenge Idaho's refusal to ban new water withdrawals from a regional aquifer, saying they want to work with the state.

"We will not appeal this decision though we continue to have concerns," said Dale Marcy, water coordinator for the Kootenai Environmental Alliance. "We don't know how much water is down there, yet there is every indication that we're exceeding the limits of the aquifer."

The coalition of environmental groups asked Idaho to place a moratorium on new permits from the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer earlier this year, but the state declined. Instead, Idaho tightened rules governing new water withdrawals by designating the supply a groundwater management area.

The Idaho Department of Water Resources will form a nine-member committee to consider how to protect the aquifer, which is the sole source of drinking water for 400,000 people in North Idaho and Eastern Washington.

Last spring, water requests from two power companies triggered a debate about how much water is in the aquifer and how much is already being used.

State officials said at least 610 cubic feet of water per second are being sucked out of the aquifer -- roughly 396 million gallons a day.

Studies show that recharge to the aquifer may be as much as 1,450 cubic feet per second measured or as little as 571 cubic feet per second.

Environmental leaders are expressing a willingness to work with the state's advisory committee. But they also worry that Idaho will continue to issue water rights while Washington has a de facto moratorium on new withdrawals.

"The history of water in the West is littered with over-allocated aquifers, de-watered rivers and streams, dried up wells, water wars and costly legal battles," said Rachel Paschal Osborn, a Spokane environmental attorney. "Both Idaho and Washington water resource agencies have an opportunity, and a public trust responsibility, to keep that from happening here."

Asarco moving ahead with Everett cleanup

EVERETT -- Asarco Inc. is proposing to remove soil contaminated by operations of its former smelter in Everett.

The company wants to remove soil contaminated with 150 parts per million or more of arsenic in part of northeast Everett where, nearly 100 years ago, the company produced arsenic and arsenic-based products. Two feet of clean fill would replace the removed soil and cover the area. The land would be left as a grass-covered slope to be sold for residential development.

A public-comment period on the company's cleanup plan began yesterday and ends Jan. 28. The state Department of Ecology will hold a public meeting on Jan. 16 in the Jackson Hall conference room at Everett Community College, 2000 Tower St., in Everett. An open house will begin at 6:30 p.m. and will be followed by a 7 p.m. presentation.

"Certainly for different parts of the project there will be an opportunity to work with outside firms," says Clay Allen, Asarco spokesman.

But first the project has to be approved.

The project would take place on a 5-acre fenced area just southwest of the intersection of East Marine View Drive and state Route 529, where arsenic-producing facilities were located. Some soil on the site contains up to 76 percent arsenic.

The company also proposes to remove soil containing elevated levels of arsenic from about 30 additional residential properties outside and to the south and west of the fenced area, but located on other parts of the former smelter site. Asarco owns 14 of the homes.

Asarco proposes to haul the soil removed from the Everett Smelter to the company's Tacoma smelter cleanup site, where it would be placed in facilities constructed there to hold much greater volumes of similar soil from the Tacoma smelter cleanup.

Asarco has said that carrying out its proposal depends upon obtaining approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to accept the soil at the Tacoma smelter site. Asarco is working with the EPA and the cities of Tacoma and Ruston on this aspect of the proposal.

"We would welcome final cleanup on this part of the site," said Ecology's site manager, David South. "But if Asarco's proposed plan can't be carried out, the company still must remove the most highly contaminated soil, as we've ordered."

The complete cleanup proposal is available at www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/tcp/sites/asarco/es_main.html.

Various courses planned for new year

SEATTLE -- The following courses are scheduled for Seattle: