Updates to the surface water quality standards

• Oct. 6 Director Bellon Written Comments
• Sept. 25 Director Bellon Hearing Testimony
• Aug. 28 Webinar Hearing Testimony
• July 22 Director Bellon letter on EPA hearings
• June 12 Director Bellon letter to EPA
• June 6 Attorney General News release
• May 10 Governor and Office of Attorney General response 
• May 7 Director Bellon letter
• April 10 Ecology News release 

Visit our rulemaking page for more information. 

The rulemaking would adopt one or more variances to the water quality standards for organic compounds known as polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs. We are considering the variances in response to applications received from point source dischargers to the Spokane River.

Applications for variances received 

Facilities discharging into the Spokane River must meet Washington's water quality standards, which were revised and strengthened by rule in 2016. There are five facilities that have permits to discharge wastewater into the Spokane River in Washington. We are working with the dischargers on a path to meet the water quality standard for PCBs through step-by-step reductions via a variance. All five dischargers, three municipal and two industrial, applied for a variance: 

• Liberty Lake Sewer and Water District - Water Reclamation Facility 
• Kaiser Aluminum Washington LLC – Trentwood 
• Inland Empire Paper Company
• Spokane County Regional Water Reclamation Facility
• City of Spokane – Riverside Park Water Reclamation Facility

Note: applications are large pdf files and may take a little bit to download. 
 

Visit the rulemaking page for more information. 

This rulemaking covers multiple revisions including changing the numeric criteria for total dissolved gas in the Snake and Columbia rivers. We adopted changes to the total dissolved gas criteria to allow more water to spill over dams to help salmon migrate  Read our blog to learn about the environmental impacts of allowing more water over the dams.

Visit the rulemaking page for more information.

We are considering changes to Washington's surface water quality standards. These changes aim to better protect water quality and physical habitat for incubating eggs and young salmon in rivers and streams. Our goal is to ensure salmon nests, called redds, have enough oxygen to support early life stages of salmon. We also want to better protect these early life stages of salmon from the harmful effects of too much fine sediment in the water.

Read our blog to find out more about how this rulemaking aims to better protect salmon.

The latest triennial review for our surface water quality standards was held from Nov. 1, 2010 through Dec. 17, 2010. We are not going through a triennial review currently because we are already have a clear path of immediate priorities for rulemaking, see current actions above.  

We reviewed all comments received during the comment period and developed a five-year plan of prioritized topics. We also created a responsiveness summary based on comments received, including our response to each comment.