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Editorial: No double standards on PCBs

Fri., Jan. 22, 2016

Finding that a state-run fish hatchery adds to the Spokane River’s PCB problem while cities and businesses spend hundreds of millions of dollars to minimize their contribution of the industrial compound is frustrating.

River advocates say small amounts of PCBs were first identified 10 years ago in the Little Spokane River hatchery’s fish food, but the state isn’t required to test its own hatchery.

“We want make sure that all dischargers follow the same rules,” said Jerry White Jr., the Spokane Riverkeeper.

So his group, along with others, appealed the renewal of the hatchery’s discharge permit. Joining in the appeal are two dischargers: the city of Coeur d’Alene and Inland Empire Paper, a subsidiary of Cowles Co., which owns The Spokesman-Review.

Under regulations that measure PCBs in parts per quadrillion, the limit may as well be zero. More than half the amount in the river comes from unknown sources, but dischargers are on the hook for removal.

The city of Spokane, which will be spending at least $300 million on its stormwater system to limit pollutants, has sued Monsanto for making the polychlorinated biphenyls that wound up in many products. Congress banned PCB production in 1979, but the products are still around. The city wants Monsanto to shoulder some of the clean-up costs.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows “inadvertant” PCB concentrations in inks and dyes that come from recycled materials that originate overseas, and end up in Inland Empire papers, or yellow road striping.

So one arm of the EPA expects river clean-up, while another exacerbates the problem through regulatory inaction. And the state may be introducing PCBs while expecting others to remove it.

At the very least, state-run hatcheries should be ordered to monitor PCBs. And we can’t help but wonder whether tribal-run hatcheries aren’t also using PCB-laden fish food, while expecting upstream dischargers to meet unrealistic goals. If not, the state hatcheries should switch to whatever food the tribes are using.

Under a law passed last year, state agencies must purchase fish food with the lowest levels of PCB they can afford. But for dishargers, affordability isn’t part of the equation. It’s more like “keep spending until you get there.”

Chris Donley, regional fisheries program manager, downplayed the state’s discharges, saying the agency means well, but cannot feed the fish without introducing some level of PCBs.

“They’re everywhere on the planet,” he says.

Business and cities don’t get to use that excuse.

Government regulators should listen to the struggles of its own agencies and take a more holistic and realistic approach to this environmental challenge. If government can’t reach the goals, then make the appropriate adjustments.

A double standard – one for cities and businesses, another, more lenient one for the state – is indefensible.