AIRWAY HEIGHTS – The city of Airway Heights has a strategic plan in place to create a better overall environment for residents and visitors.
Some of the focal points include environmental quality, mobility, economic opportunity, healthy living, and recreation according to City Manager Albert Tripp. But a major priority is to make significant progress on funding an uncontaminated source of water for Airway Heights.
Tripp said its been a standing issue for the past five years and trying to fund a new water source has taken significant resources.
“Contamination occurred in 2017,” Tripp said. “Since then, we have been working on developing a new water source to replace those contaminated wells and a lot of that effort has gone into the securing and acquisition of those funds.
“We are looking at an overall cost of about $24 million to do it. “We received $14.9 million last legislative session through the help of Senator Jeff Holy, Representative Mike Volz, and Representative Jenny Graham. We also secured another $500,000 from the Department of Health.”
Tripp added the city was made aware of another $3.5 million in federal funding by Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ office. He noted there are other hurdles to jump over too.
“We’ve also initiated the environmental review process,” Tripp said. “Because it’s not just as simple as getting the money together. You have to get permits and go through the review process to see if the project can move on to the next step.”
This process starts with a State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) review, and then the Department of Ecology has an additional study after that.
Tripp explained the city would like to have the studies completed by the beginning of the third quarter so they can begin working on the construction process, although that timeline is heavily dependent on the environmental review feedback. The aim is to place a new source in the uncontaminated Spokane-Rathdrum Aquifer.
The initial contamination has forced the city to purchase water exceeding $1 million annually in order to offset the contaminated source. Fairchild Air Force Base helps pay part of that cost but the amount Fairchild is currently paying for its usage does not sit well with the city.
“The way that the Air Force looked at the amount they contributed is based on usage of a snapshot in time in 2017,” Tripp said. “We don’t agree with that assessment because the impairment that occurred to the well wasn’t limited to 2017, it’s ongoing and as our city has grown the usage has increased as well.”
Tripp said the city is also working on getting more sites up and running that can monitor the city water more closely, but hopes the Air Force is going to be funding the placement of these monitoring wells so the city budget won’t be adversely affected.
Airway Heights has been in the water purchasing agreement with Spokane for five years now, but needs to extend that agreement because of unforeseen setbacks along the way.
“In 2017 we thought we would be done by now, but it has taken a little bit longer and we are now in the midst of the environmental review,” Tripp said. “So we have to extend that water service agreement for about three years so we can get through to the construction process.”
Reader Comments(0)