[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: "Airway Heights [WA] asks to move its water rights from contaminated West Plains to the Spokane aquifer"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Airway Heights asks to move its water rights from contaminated West Plains to the Spokane aquifer

By Samantha Wohlfeil
Spokane Inlander

More than fours years after Airway Heights learned its wells are contaminated, the city has proposed what it hopes is a long-term solution to provide safe drinking water to its residents.

Rather than try to treat the water that's contaminated with chemicals once used to fight fuel fires at Fairchild Air Force Base, the city's pitch is to shutter its West Plains wells and drill new ones in the Spokane Valley Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer. But the state first needs to approve what Airway is calling a "transfer" of water rights there.

…

Early on, Airway Heights looked into the possibility of treating the contamination. The Air Force paid more than $1 million to install a filtration system in 2018 on one of the city's wells to test the method. But the outdoor system can only run in warmer months, and while it's somewhat effective, it's not clear that the system would be able to filter the water to human health and safety limits that are being developed for PFAS at the state and federal levels, says Albert Tripp, Airway Heights city manager.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.inlander.com/spokane/airway-heights-asks-to-move-its-water-rights-from-contaminated-west-plains-to-the-spokane-aquifer/Content?oid=22909222

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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