Push on to ban phosphates

Forget the Electrasol and Cascade. Residents may soon be using environmentally sensitive detergent brands like Seventh Generation and Ecover in their automatic dishwashers.

Spokane County Commissioner Todd Mielke is leading an effort to ban phosphates in dishwashing detergents and lawn fertilizers, and he’s calling on elected officials in Spokane and Kootenai counties to jump on board.

He and others behind the ban plan to hold a press conference Tuesday.

The move is part of a strategy to improve the Spokane River’s water quality without relying entirely on local sewage treatment plants.

“Before we as a region are allowed to relicense our plants, expand our plants or build new plants, we need to have a viable cleanup plan for the Spokane River and Long Lake,” said Mielke.

Efforts to build a new Spokane County sewage treatment plant were scuttled earlier this year when the Washington Department of Ecology released its preliminary limits on Spokane River pollutants. Ecology officials said they could not issue a permit for a new treatment plant if it would add phosphorous to the already polluted river.

Since then, wastewater dischargers like the city of Spokane and Spokane County have been working with Ecology and the Sierra Club to find common ground and solutions to clean up the river.

“We’re to the point that the technology (in sewage treatment plants) will get us 95 percent there. We have to really start to challenge ourselves to how we can come up with that last 5 percent,” Mielke said.

Next week, the Sierra Club and the river dischargers will submit scenarios for river cleanup to state ecology officials, who will review them.

Proposals could include a variety of options, such as treatment plant improvements, reducing “non-point” phosphorous sources like farming runoff and water conservation.

The proposed phosphate ban is the first fruit of collaborative efforts.

“I think the Sierra Club would certainly look at that as a very positive step,” said Rick Eichstaedt, a Center for Justice attorney representing the Sierra Club in the process.

“When we purchase dishwasher detergent with phosphorous in it or fertilizer with phosphorous in it, we’re importing extra phosphorous into our community that the river doesn’t need, which in turn can deplete the oxygen in water, harming fish and other aquatic life.

Banning phosphates in detergents and fertilizers isn’t a cure-all, said Department of Ecology spokeswoman Jani Gilbert.

“Anything we can do is a good thing, but I also want people to understand it’s not going to solve the river’s problem,” Gilbert said.

While the state can ban phosphates in dish detergents and fertilizers, the county doesn’t have the authority to enact a countywide ban on its own. Each municipality would have to individually do so.

Spokane Deputy Mayor Jack Lynch said such a ban is worth exploring as one of the “lower-hanging fruits” when it comes to improving Spokane River water quality.

And across the state line, Terry Werner, the director of Post Falls’ water and wastewater divisions, said he is collecting information on the subject to present to Post Falls officials.

In 1989, phosphates were banned locally from laundry detergents, as they have been in many states.

Nationally, there has been much more resistance to banning phosphates from dishwasher detergents because some say the phosphate-free alternatives don’t perform as well as detergents with phosphates.

But the March 2005 issue of Consumer Reports highly rated several phosphate-free brands, including Seventh Generation, Ecover Natural and Trader Joe’s house brand. They cost slightly more than most phosphate-containing brands but less than some.

Mielke said phosphorous doesn’t only reach the river via sewers and other direct discharges but also more slowly from septic tanks and fertilizers that leach into the groundwater. About 7 percent to 10 percent of the phosphorous produced by septic tanks comes from dishwashing detergent.

As for Mielke, he recently began using a phosphate-free brand that he says cleans his dishes just fine.