Palouse embarks on plan to meet waste water order

The city of Palouse is putting a plan together to comply with new waste water treatment requirements. Palouse has been granted three years to comply by a Department of Ecology order to lower the temperature of waste water discharge into the North Fork of the Palouse River.

Because the Palouse plant discharges into the Palouse River, the city has a permit which is administered through D.O.E. In July, when the permit came up for review, the temperature of the facility’s discharge water was deemed too high.

The D.O.E. has since directed the city to reduce the temperature by 2.5 degrees and cut the nutrient totals from the plant, particularly for nitrogen and phosphate.

“Nitrogen is the one we want to aim for in Palouse,” said Brook Beeler, spokesperson for the D.O.E. eastern region. “The one you aim for is nitrogen, and that helps you take care of the other nutrients as well.”

The high nutrient levels are a problem because they feed the algae in the river. When algae thrives, it depletes the water’s oxygen.

“Hence, trouble with fish then,” said Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove. “We have a wonderful plant, but it was not designed to spit out less nutrients or be 2.5 degrees cooler.”

The city will now have until 2017 to put together a plan to correct the situation, and until 2024 to construct whatever needs to be built.

“I hesitate about the word ‘correct’,” Echanove said. “The plant is fine. It’s just that they changed the rules on us.”

In August, the city hired an engineer, Valera & Associates of Spokane, to begin the process.

On Oct. 14, the Palouse City Council voted to authorize Echanove to reach an agreement with Varela, pending legal review by City Attorney Stephen Bishop.

The council also authorized a budget amendment adding $5,000 to the existing $10,000 already set aside for the project earlier this year.

The first step for Varela is to fill out applications for funding from the D.O.E. A variety of grants, low-interest loans and other assistance is available. This year’s application deadline is Nov. 7.

While representatives from Valera & Associates tend to applications, they also confer with the D.O.E.

“To make sure everyone is on the same page,” Echanove said.

The mayor also indicated that, while the town is following protocol, he wonders if there is more to the issue. He said he stood on the footbridge in Palouse in mid-August, upriver from the plant, and noticed the green-colored water, signifying high algae content. A few days later, thousands of fish turned up dead near Colfax.

“The water was green before it ever got to Palouse,” he said.

Echanove clipped the picture out of the Gazette and took it to an Infrastructure Assistance Coordinating Council conference at Wenatchee in September.

“We could spend umpteen millions on our plant and that fish kill in Colfax would still occur,” Echanove said. “We need to look at the total health of the river.”

The North Fork of the Palouse River goes through Potlatch and other upstream communities. Garfield sewer discharge goes into the river via Silver Creek.