Mayor Terri Cooper of Medical Lake knows a thing or two about public emergencies. Just two years ago, the Spokane County Board of Commissioners (BOCC) declared an emergency after the Gray Fire destroyed hundreds of homes in her city and killed one person. The move mobilized funding for the response to the disaster. It didn’t make it easy — some residents are still without a proper home — but the declaration made money and resources from the state and federal government more readily available. There is another, slower-moving crisis affecting nearby people: the “forever chemicals” contamination that came from firefighting operations at two West Plains airports, the Spokane International Airport (SIA) and Fairchild Air Force Base. That crisis was discovered in 2017 when both airports found per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in their groundwater, man-made chemicals that are increasingly thought to be linked to cancers and other deadly diseases. (Fairchild notified local health agencies, but SIA kept it secret , even after Washington state started requiring airports to disclose contamination.) The county recently convened a task force of local government officials, private sector engineers and people who live in the contaminated area. It’s an advisory body that will provide local governments with recommendations for how to address the crisis. At the task force’s first meeting last month, County Commissioner Al French, who co-chairs the task force with Spokane County Health Officer Francisco Velázquez, said the county had secured more than $7 million from the Washington legislature to install filters in some homes with wells that are contaminated. But, French warned, that amount was only about half of what was requested and needed on the West Plains to make sure everyone has clean drinking water. The body will try to get more funding from the state through the county’s normal lobbying procedures, which could take years. Cooper had an idea to make money available sooner: speaking to Velázquez at the task force’s second meeting on September 24, she said, “If you declare a public health emergency, then it does open up other funding — federal funding and state funding.” There are two local authorities that can declare a public health emergency in Spokane County: the BOCC, which is represented on the task force by French, the longest-serving commissioner, and the local health officer, Velázquez. (The state of Washington and the federal government can also declare a health emergency.) After several other members of the task force and people who attended the meeting expressed support for Cooper’s suggestion, French said the declaration of a health emergency was a “great idea.” But he did not commit to it. He told the task force he would run the idea by the county’s lawyers on September 25, the day after the task force’s meeting. He did not return a phone call Friday morning asking whether he had done so and what the lawyers said. Velázquez, sitting next to French, did not say what he thought about the idea, but told RANGE after the September 24 meeting that private well water did not fall into his jurisdiction. He as the county health officer could not do anything about the crisis and that he was only on the task force “because of my concern for the overall wellness of the community.” Health emergencies have been used by the county to address public health issues stemming from a wide variety of crises including disease outbreaks, extreme weather events, wildfire smoke and power outages. Private wells are not governed by any agency, which is a central problem in the saga of West Plains aquifer contamination. Immediately after Fairchild found PFAS in its wells, it notified local governments and health officials of the threat, and Spokane began piping water to Airway Heights, a program that Fairchild helped to fund. But there were thousands of properties in the hinterlands between Spokane and Airway Heights that were not connected to city water and derived drinking water from private wells, and that water quality is not governed by any agency. So the Air Force began providing bottled water to people whose wells were found to be contaminated. It also offered to install filters on the wells. That program was restricted to the area Fairchild believed it had contaminated, even though people found the same PFAS compounds outside the designated area. But because SIA hadn’t notified anyone of its own contamination, it wasn’t until last year that holistic solutions to the crisis started materializing, largely from the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology. The agencies began testing wells outside of the Fairchild service area and installing filters on some that were contaminated. It’s a problem that affects different people in different ways, and a filter is an insufficient solution for many people who live on the West Plains. Some grow robust gardens that are fed with contaminated water, meaning the chemicals can make their way into people’s food. Others have farm animals that can’t be watered by the sinks on which some of the filters are installed. Faster funding could be a way to get more clean water to more people, but it’s ultimately up to Velázquez, who says he can’t do it, or the BOCC to declare an emergency that would free that funding up. See RANGE’s extensive West Plains PFAS coverage here . Aaron Hedge, originally from Colorado, earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University in June 2023. His writing explores environmental issues and the relationship between humans and animals. He grew up in a Christian home and wants to write more about end times theology. The two governments jointly own Spokane International Airport, which discovered the chemicals six years before disclosing to the public. The decision could direct funding from… Read More » Spokane County sends much of its organic waste to a facility in Fishtrap, but it can’t process everything, and it can be hard to tell… Read More » The body would represent the first time the county has paid formal attention to the PFAS contamination crisis between Airway Heights and Spokane since the… Read More » This site uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. By continuing to use this website, you consent to the use of cookies in accordance with our privacy policy .