A federal lawsuit was recently settled over pollution in the Latah Creek. According to court documents, the settlement came about when “conservationists and the state’s Ecology Department reached an agreement that includes a 10-year plan intended to clean up the frothy brown runoff that spills from Latah Creek into the Spokane River.” The lawsuit itself was filed by the conservationist group, the Spokane Riverkeeper, back in 2015 against the state’s Ecology Department and alleged that “regulators hadn’t done enough to curb soil erosion, high water temperatures and livestock manure that give the creek water its hazel hue.”
A federal lawsuit was recently settled over pollution in the Latah Creek. According to court documents, the settlement came about when “conservationists and the Washington’s Ecology Department reached an agreement that includes a 10-year plan intended to clean up the frothy brown runoff that spills from Latah Creek into the Spokane River.” The lawsuit itself was filed by the conservationist group, the Spokane Riverkeeper, back in 2015 against the state’s Ecology Department and alleged that “regulators hadn’t done enough to curb soil erosion, high water temperatures and livestock manure that give the creek water its hazel hue.”
According to the terms of the settlement, the Ecology Department will have to meet “specific benchmarks during the next decade,” and a new system will be implemented that will allow state officials to “fine landowners who ignore or refuse requests to limit pollution into the watershed.”
When commenting on the lawsuit settlement, Jerry White Jr. of the Spokane Riverkeeper said, “now we have an agreement that really doubles down on the level of commitment that Ecology must show to clean up the creek.”
Regardless of the lawsuit, however, it’s important to note that the Ecology Department has been taking measures to reduce soil erosion and other problems for a while now. In fact, the “60-mile long tributary of the Spokane River, also known as ‘Hangman Creek,’ has long been the target for environmental cleanup.” In addition, in 2009 the Ecology Department even issued findings of a multi-year study that looked at the creek’s health. That particular report concluded that more plants should be planted “along the water’s edge to reduce water temperatures, encourage soil conservation techniques in farming along the Palouse to reduce erosion and increase buffers between the waters and grazing livestock.”
According to Brook Beeler, a spokeswoman for the Ecology Department, the latest settlement “will serve as a blueprint to continue” the department’s efforts and plans already in place.” She noted that, in 2016, the department “secured $15.6 million in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to promote direct seeding and other farming techniques intended to reduce soil erosion in the Spokane River watershed, along with partner organizations that include the Spokane Conservation District, the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene tribes, and environmental groups.”
The settlement was signed earlier this month by both parties involved and will require the department to meet a handful of requirements, including producing “a baseline report on creek pollution conditions by June 2019.” Additionally, state regulators will have to “contact up to 10 farms and ranches that are responsible for runoff into the creek and establish plans to reduce pollution.” The name of the game with the settlement is enforcement, something that makes White happy. According to him, the department officials “were not doing anything in the way of enforcement prior to the settlement. From our standpoint, what we saw were clear water quality violations, and dealing with those had stalled out in some ways.”
Sources:
Spokane River conservationists, state officials settle lawsuit over polluted Latah Creek
Muddy waters: Hangman Creek cleanup essential to Spokane River health
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