Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Nearing a deadline to decide a plan to address new permit requirements for nitrogen discharge into the North Palouse River, the City of Palouse’s waste treatment plan upgrade committee met March 7, including two representatives of Varela & Associates, the city’s project engineers.
“It went really well. Nine months now to iron out what we’re gonna do,” said Michael Echanove, Palouse mayor.
The Department of Ecology permit for Palouse calls for zero inorganic nitrate discharge, and a 2.5-degrees cooler overall effluence.
This in turn, has led to Palouse’s goal: no discharge during low-flow periods.
The group narrowed its options to achieve this down to two.
The first would be to build a seasonal storage tank with irrigation discharge – allowable for six months per year – with an area for a non-food consumption crop to be grown from the irrigation. The storage tank would require 8-10 acres with 30 acres needed for the crop.
A second option would be for a seasonal storage tank and winter discharge into a lagoon on a 15-acre site.
Dec. 31 is the deadline for the Palouse City Council to approve and send a plan to DOE to address the permit requirements.
At the March 7 meeting, John Paprouch and Dana Cowger, engineers at Varela & Associates of Spokane, passed out descriptions and estimates for each plan.
“There’s a hefty price tag to both of these things,” said Echanove.
Option one is estimated at $5 million with option two at $6.5 million.
After the meeting, Echanove reported that the Palouse group leans toward option two, for which a 20-acre, city-owned site on the south side of the existing plant would be used.
“How you make the decision: number one, can it be approved by the regulatory authorities?, number two, is it acceptable to the public?” said Paprouch.
Ultimately, the city, as directed by DOE, will need to reduce nitrogen in the river for six months per year, in the spring and summer.
“They’ll have to build something in order to meet the requirements of the total maximum daily load,” he said.
The March 7 meeting took place after another clog occurred at the Palouse treatment plant due to items that should not be flushed down toilets.
“One of the things I really want (the engineers) to spend time on is pre-processing before it gets to the plant,” Echanove stated.
The section of the Palouse River which runs through the city is on the DOE’s statewide list of waterways which are not meeting water quality standards, the 303D list.
Because the Palouse plant discharges into the North Fork of Palouse River, the city has a special permit administered through DOE. In July 2015, when the permit came up for review, the temperature of the facility’s discharge water was deemed too high. The DOE thus directed Palouse to reduce it by 2.5 degrees, as well as cut the nutrient totals from the plant, particularly for nitrogen and phosphate. The high nutrient levels are a problem because of its feeding of the algae in the river. When algae thrive, it depletes the water’s oxygen.
The city has until 2024 to construct whatever needs to be built.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
Reader Comments(0)