“I grew up in Houston. Within a couple of blocks of my house was a little creek, and the city did a storm-water project and they poured concrete around the edges of that creek. Within a year all that natural life was gone.”

– Bruce Howard, Spokane River license manager for Avista Utilities.

“The river gives you a different perspective of the environment that you live in and how beautiful it really is if you just take the time.”

– Robbi Castleberry, longtime canoeist and river educator.

“And by the way, if you float this river, it’s illegal to float it without a lifejacket.”

– Vic Castleberry, Spokane Canoe and Kayak Club.

“The biggest thing people ask about it is, ‘Will it stink?’ “

– Bruce Rawls, utilities director for Spokane County overseeing a proposed $100 million wastewater treatment plant.

“Are our lakes and streams healthy? They are telling us they are not. It doesn’t matter what the scientists say or what a politician may say. It matters what you see when you pick up a rock and look underneath it in a stream.”

– Robert Matt, administrative director for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

“When people ask me, I say it’s like marble cake, chocolate and vanilla. The two are intertwined. When you tug on one, you affect the other.

– Ken Lustig, former director of environmental health for North Idaho’s Panhandle Health District, on the relationship between the Spokane River and the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer.

“We live in an arid part of the country. We shouldn’t be wasting water trying to live like people who have 30 to 40 inches of rain a year.”

– Stan Miller, former water resources program manager for Spokane County.

“If we happened to be in a closed room without a source of oxygen we would use up all the oxygen and we would suffocate. So think about fish in the river. They take oxygen directly out of the water through their gills. And as that oxygen gets depleted, then they are basically gasping for breath.

– David Peeler, water quality program manager for Washington state’s Department of Ecology.

“I’m asked occasionally, ‘Why don’t you just move the treatment plant?’ OK, I’ll be happy to. Got $100 million in your back pocket?

– Sid Frederickson, wastewater superintendent for Coeur d’Alene.

“Toxics bio-accumulate. You have the critters that are in the mud that consume them and then you have the fish that consume those critters and then it gets into the human food chain because you have a lot of people who are eating fish out of the river.”

– Rachael Paschal Osborn, lawyer and conservationist.

“Everybody thinks they may be an environmentalist from a personal standpoint, but they have to realize the reason we have most of these problems are due to us humans.”

– Doug Krapas, environmental compliance engineer for Inland Empire Paper Company.

“I couldn’t help thinking that the city was all around me, but there was no way of knowing that.”

– Steve Faust, executive director, Friends of the Falls, describing his first float trip down the Spokane River.

“It’s not about turning the place into a theme park but about ways people can stand by the river and listen. People take it into their heart and connect with it and after that, it’s sacred ground.”

– Rick Hastings, founding member, Friends of the Falls, on a proposed Spokane River whitewater park.

“The river is an irreplaceable resource. It has a purpose greater than ours. We can generate electricity. We can water our parks and lawns. We can dilute our pollution using the river, but we have to respect that it wasn’t put there just for us.”

– Mary Verner, executive director of Upper Columbia United Tribes and a member of the Spokane City Council.