Spokane County Commissioner Al French has told dozens of West Plains well owners whose drinking water is contaminated with “forever chemicals” that he has a plan to pipe clean water to them by the summer of 2025.
“I’d love to be able to be in construction later on this year,” French told attendees at a town-hall style event where he announced the plan on April 23. “We can build this thing out next summer and get everybody good, clean drinking water and not have to worry about what’s in the aquifer on the West Plains.”
The optimism didn’t just fall flat for the audience of several dozen West Plains residents who’ve worried about PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in their wells for seven years — it tanked. The crowd burst into laughter.
This group, which was gathered in a conference room in the Sheriff’s West Plains training facility, has learned grave lessons about the inertia of government since PFAS was discovered in the West Plains groundwater in 2017. During these years, some learned they’d given their loved ones poisoned water for decades and are still waiting for clean water. Environmental contamination takes years and often decades to solve, and tangible solutions have materialized for only a fraction of these residents.
So it would be hard to believe French had a line on everything he claimed to be able to arrange — the easements, the water right, the money for construction. What would be the governance structure for distribution? Would the water have to be chlorinated? Everything from the logistics of the plan to the on-the-ground realities of rapid-fire growth in the area — which has worsened many other existing environmental problems on the West Plains — make French’s plan look like a pipe dream to many of the residents.
Palisades rancher Craig Volosing could not envision such a massive piping project materializing on the miles of hard Columbia River basalt rock in such a short timeframe.
“I can’t see that happening,” Volosing told French. “You haven’t even measured how many feet it’s going to take of backhoes and blasting to get through all that basalt to each individual unincorporated home.”
French’s proposal came as a response to a crisis that started when Fairchild Air Force Base and Spokane International Airport (SIA) found PFAS in test wells. The contamination resulted from federally required firefighting drills both airfields conducted for decades using a special foam containing the chemicals. PFAS are thought to cause many diseases — including some cancers — in humans.
As local independent journalist Tim Connor and the Spokesman’s Amanda Sullender have reported, French’s project is ambitious, but it’s short on details. The only documentation he’s produced to date for the project is a 16-page slideshow that outlines a rough, four-part plan to build the system.
French’s Powerpoint proposal outlined the following plan to get West Plains clean water:
- “Spokane County currently processes 8 million gallons a day (mgd) of wastewater at the Spokane Valley Water Reclamation Center
- Transfer 8 mgd of treated water via Spokane River to 7 Mile future well site
- Pump and pipe water to the West Plains for distribution to every property, both in and outside of the cities that have been impacted by PFAS/PFOS
- Establish a Water Utility of the members of the Leadership Group to manage water for the future”
John Hancock, a West Plains water activist and former Spokane Symphony director, shares Volosing’s skepticism about French’s proposal. Although French has promised the residents of the West Plains clean water, none of the technical, legal or financial elements of the plan are in place, so it seems premature to make such audacious assurances, Hancock said.
“It’s really generic, and there are no names of any other persons in it,” he said of the presentation in an interview with RANGE. “This proposal has nothing yet to do with the County Commission. It’s just Al French doing his homework.”
RANGE approached French for an interview on May 22 about his project, but he declined to be questioned, saying, “You’re a partisan publication, and you’re not interested in telling the truth.”
‘The Air Force said they would pay’
During a 90-minute interview with Sullender in May, French said only deliberate efforts to undermine the project — not its size or technical, legal or economic complexity — could scuttle his ambitions.
“I’d love to be able to do it by next summer,” Sullender quoted French as saying. “If it takes to the summer after that or the summer after that, then it’s because somebody else has stood in my way.”
RANGE asked French about this timeline on June 18 but he declined to comment and walked away. We also sent French detailed questions about the project in two separate emails, but he has not responded. We also asked the county for cost projections for French’s project, but a document custodian said no such records exist.
French said during his initial announcement that he has the ear of the federal delegation of Eastern Washington congress members. RANGE reached out to Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray to ask about his discussions with them.
Only Murray’s office responded, saying in an email that her staff met with French in April and “received a very high-level overview of his thinking. … We have not yet seen any sort of formal proposal.”
French also told his constituents that in addition to using Fairchild’s piping easements to get water from the river to a processing facility, “the Air Force said that they would pay to pipe that water from the river on up to the West Plains.”
Fairchild said it had not committed to funding the project.
“It is too early in the process to endorse or commit to funding of a particular plan,” base spokesperson Capt. Teri Bunce told RANGE. “We look forward to continued discussions with all stakeholders, as it will take the participation of elected leaders and governmental agencies collectively to work these long-term solutions.”
On June 3, French presented his Powerpoint a second time at a meeting of West Plains residents at the HUB in Airway Heights. This time, he didn’t mention a timeline for the project.
Friend of the airport
As the election approaches, French’s urgency to get water to the West Plains is new, but his knowledge of the crisis is not.
Airport CEO Larry Krauter learned of SIA’s contamination in 2017 and informed the airport board about it. But he did not disclose the airport’s role in the contamination to the public until he was legally forced to do so in 2023 by a citizen’s public records request. The citizen gave the results to the Washington Department of Ecology in the spring of 2023. During the time he was silent about the contamination, Krauter lobbied lawmakers to allow airports to continue using PFAS foam.
French said during his presentation he also knew of the airport’s contamination in 2017. He has served on the airport board for years and has publicly lauded Krauter’s work at SIA and defended him from criticism. He also accompanied Krauter on a March 2020 trip to Washington DC during which they and other airport officials met with then-Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) General Counsel Arjun Garg about concerns over Washington state legislation banning the use of PFAS fire-fighting foam.
French has been vice chair of the airport board since 2022. The board is composed of a member of the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), a member of the Spokane City Council and four members of the broader community. From 2020 to 2022, French was the board’s secretary, and from 2018 to 2020, he held a member position.
The airport is a close partner with the West Plains public development authority S3R3 Solutions. In addition to the positions French has held on the airport board, French is currently the chair of the S3R3 board. Last year, he was the vice chair. French was also chair in 2020 and 2021. The body’s meeting minutes are not clear who occupied what position in 2017, 2018, 2019 or 2022.
Ecology has ordered SIA to clean up its contamination under the state Model Toxic Cleanup Act (MTCA), but the airport does not seem interested in that process. After Ecology announced its order in May 2023, SIA pushed back, hiring a DC lawyer to demand the agency withdraw its accusation that SIA had contaminated the aquifer. Ecology did not, instead pushing forward to force SIA to comply with the MTCA process. Since then, the airport has requested negotiation deadline extensions four times and said FAA rules preclude it from using airport funds to clean up the PFAS.
French reiterated this stance to well owners at the April 23 presentation.
“All of the revenue of the airport is regulated by FAA, and so they can tell us how to spend that money and on what,” French told an audience member who’d asked what responsibility the airport should bear in the cleanup. “The guidance is, ‘You can spend that money on aeronautical purposes, supporting planes, ramps, all that kind of stuff.’ They have not said yet, ‘You can spend it on mitigating PFAS.’”
This was not true. As Sullender first reported in the Spokesman, the FAA’s general counsel Warren D. Farrell had sent a letter to SIA on March 29 saying the agency’s requirements for spending do not preclude SIA from its “obligation to comply with applicable environmental laws.”
On top of all this, Ecology has repeatedly urged the airport to apply for an Oversight Remedial Action Grant (ORAG), a line of state funding allocated to polluters to help defray the high costs of environmental cleanups. Bri Brinkman, an Environmental Engineer for Ecology’s Toxics Cleanup Program, wrote in a timeline of these events provided to West Plains water activists that March 6 was the deadline for the last round of ORAG funding.
SIA never applied.
Krauter and airport spokesperson Todd Woodard did not reply to a request for comment.
A hard-won grant & a brick wall
SIA’s ORAG refusal was not the first time people in the airport’s orbit have declined to seek free money to improve the PFAS situation on the West Plains.
For months between 2020 and 2021, French sat on an Ecology grant that would have allowed geologists to map PFAS in West Plains aquifers. As Tim Connor has reported, Chad Pritchard, an Eastern Washington University (EWU) geologist and expert on local hydrogeology, secured nearly half a million dollars in February 2020 to test wells on a quarterly basis. The data would allow him to create a groundwater model that could show how PFAS moves underground — crucial information for homeowners and buyers.
But Pritchard could not do the study as an EWU professor. Because the funds were part of Ecology’s toxic cleanup program, they needed a local government to administer them. Pritchard, then-Spokane County water resources specialist Mike Hermanson and the county’s water resources manager Rob Lindsay brought the grant to French.
This was before the airport’s contamination was known to the public — but French was fully aware of it as a member of the airport board. Lindsay told Connor that French didn’t want to accept the grant because he was “concerned about the timing and the potential effect on the airport.”
According to emails between county health and water officials obtained by RANGE, Pritchard, Hermanson and Lindsay tried for more than a year to get the grant before the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC). Pritchard asked several times whether the county would accept his grant. Hermanson and Lindsay continued forwarding his queries to the BOCC.
On July 16, 2021, County Commissioner Mary Kuney, then-president of the board of the Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD), forwarded one of these emails to top SRHD officials, writing, “Making sure we talk about this.”
Kuney was the highest-level official to say anything in writing about the grant, but nothing ever came of it. Kuney did not respond to two emailed requests for comment from RANGE.
French never brought the grant before the BOCC for a vote. So Pritchard asked the Medical Lake City Council, on which he sits, to consider it. Pritchard recused himself from the vote, and the city approved the funding. Pritchard is now using the money to test wells on the West Plains and build his groundwater model.
Last year, Hermanson left a 14-year career with the county for a position as senior power supply analyst with Avista. In an interview with RANGE late last year, Hermanson said that, had the county accepted the grant he would likely still be working there.
Build, baby, build
French, an architect, investment consultant and developer, is an enthusiastic booster of development on the West Plains.
On his campaign website, he prominently highlights his aggressive string-pulling to build the sheriff’s $40 million Medical Lake training facility; complete SIA’s recently opened Terminal 3 expansion; and, most notably, bring the unlikely Amazon Fulfillment Center to the West Plains.
His campaign donations reflect his spheres of influence. His biggest contributor so far in the coming election is Garco Construction, which has recently completed two large projects for prominent West Plains organizations: the TREX project for SIA and an air cargo facility for S3R3.
Of the $50,000 cash he has raised so far for the November election, more than $14,000 have come from organizations selling real estate or building on the West Plains. (The top contributors to French’s opponent in the election, Molly Marshall, are the political action committees of the Spokane Firefighters Union and Win with Women, Don Hamilton of Hamilton Studio and several private residents.)
Given these dynamics, Hancock, who created the West Plains Water Coalition (WPWC) in 2022, which advocates for clean water on the West Plains, sees a bigger purpose for French’s proposal.
“There’s not enough water on the West Plains to accommodate all the urban growth plans that are in place now,” Hancock said. “The West Plains future commercial development depends on having a source of water that’s far bigger than what the current short-term projections are. … What Al left out of his plan when he was talking to the neighbors is that this idea of 8 million gallons a day available to the farmers means that he’s got plenty to sell to the warehouse builders and the housing developers. It’s a bailout for them using PFAS funding.”
Fast-paced growth in Spokane County has created jobs but worsened many issues, from water contamination to urban flooding to wildfire response. Housing and industrial developments are happening so quickly that the Spokane City Council recently implemented a second development moratorium in three years in the Latah Valley to give itself time to secure funding for a firefighting station.
On the West Plains, Hancock said the county’s commitment to development does not serve his neighbors.
“I don’t want more development on the West Plains,” he said. “I want less development on the West Plains.”
The Marshall plan
Near the top of the news feed on his website, a headline linking to Sullender’s reporting reads, “Al French is the only person with a plan to fix PFAS issues on the West Plains.”
French is not the only person with a water plan. In addition to Fairchild’s and Ecology and EPA’s ongoing efforts to provide water to West Plains residents, Molly Marshall, his opponent in the upcoming election in which PFAS has emerged as a potent campaign issue, has a distinctly different road map. She announced her idea at a press conference outside the Spokane County Courthouse on June 12.
It is composed of five parts involving public health, appropriating federal funds for testing and filtration and joining lawsuits.
Marshall’s plan outlines the following five parts:
- Redirect Federal Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds: Marshall proposes creating a Countywide PFAS victims fund to provide water, filtration and testing resources for affected communities, including West Plains, Cheney, Medical Lake and others with contaminated systems.
- Join the PFAS class action lawsuit: Marshall urges Spokane County attorneys to join the ongoing class action lawsuit against PFAS manufacturers, following the example set by the city of Spokane.
- Hire a toxicology expert: Marshall highlights the urgent need to hire a toxicology expert for the Spokane Regional Health District to ensure continuous monitoring and safety of the water supply.
- Form a county task force: Marshall endorses the creation of a county task force to secure state and federal funding for both short- and long-term remediation efforts.
- Apply for and manage grants: Once in office, Marshall commits to applying for and managing grants from Ecology, the EPA and other sources to fund PFAS remediation efforts.
Marshall lives in the Latah Valley, where fire danger — coupled with inadequate infrastructure — is bringing to light the potential harms of rampant development. She is campaigning on a platform of slowing development to a pace at which community infrastructure can keep up with it.
At the courthouse conference, she assailed French’s plan as lacking “necessary critical details, transparency and immediate relief our community desperately needs,” she said. “The reality is his proposal is a concept, not a plan, and it lacks collaboration and financing from stakeholders.”
Meanwhile, Pritchard, Ecology and the Environmental Protection Agency are implementing programs — spurred largely by the advocacy of the WPWC — to test people’s wells and learn as much as possible about the contamination and try to get clean water to people through bottled water delivery and installation of filters.
As for getting the PFAS out of the ground, the picture is bleak.
Jeremy Schmidt, Ecology’s site manager for the SIA contamination, told a group of West Plains residents during an informational event hosted by his agency that it will take at least two years just to figure out where all the contamination is.
“We know there’s contamination on the site,” Schmidt said. “They have to analyze soil and groundwater samples, and then they step out, and then they hopefully find a clean line around them. If they don’t, then the responsible party has to step out again. Those step outs take time.”
The full cleanup will likely take more than a decade to complete.
This story was originally published by Atlanta Black Star on November 16, 2024.
As Mead School District was busy passing a resolution titled “Title IX Regulations Supporting Fairness in Competition and Student Safety,” to ask Washington to ban transgender athletes from sports unless they competed under their assigned gender at birth, the school district had far bigger problems with fairness and student safety in sports lying just beneath the surface.
Content warning: This story includes quotations of racist, anti-Black language, as well as descriptions of racial harassment and sexual assault.
