SPOKANE, Wash. — The city of Spokane and Spokane County are under pressure from the state to help people with PFAS contaminated wells in the West Plains.
While the deadline from the feds to clean it up has been pushed back, the state wants the city and county to come up with a plan in the next two weeks.
Firefighting foam from the Spokane International Airport and Fairchild Air Force Base have contaminated well water across the West Plains with PFAS, or so-called forever chemicals.
Some residents have already installed whole home filters for clean water, while others are still relying on bottled water. But this week, the state Department of Ecology told the city of Spokane and Spokane County it has two weeks to make a plan on installing filters in any homes with infected wells.
“We’re going to continue to obtain more data. Unfortunately, this takes time. We are in a good position where we’ve been working on this almost two years and we have good information to help us take those next steps,” said Lisa Corcoran, chief development officer at Spokane International Airport.
The Department of Ecology provided a map of the area the city will need to provide bottled water and filters to. But the city and county will only need to focus on the homes that rely on well water in that area.
The county also has a PFAS task force that will oversee all of the work.
“We actually have a geography that we’re covering and we know that we have testing results for about 250 homes. So we’re focusing on those initially,” said Dr. Francisco Velazquez, co-chair of the PFAS Task Force.
The city and the county will be busy over the next couple of weeks formulating their plan, but the PFAS task force already has its own funding secured, and it hopes to get filters to people with PFAS contaminated water as well.
“We have about $7.5 million to spend on what’s called point of entry testing systems, and those are expensive,” Velazquez said.
The city and county will have to submit their plan to the Department of Ecology by Feb. 24. The Department of Ecology will also hold a public meeting about the plan the next day in Airway Heights.
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