Groundwater task force report due out in summer

YAKIMA, Wash. -- A task force formed late last year is inching toward a final report that some hope will address the Lower Yakima Valley's groundwater pollution problem but which others fear will fall far short.

"People in the environmental community want to see the source identified and action taken. The pollution continues as we speak," said Eric Anderson, president of Friends of Toppenish Creek, a group of residents that formed last year to oppose the expansion of industrial-scale dairies on the Yakama reservation.

Anderson and Jan Whitefoot, another environmental activist, are serving as public representatives on the inter-agency task force, which met in Yakima on Wednesday to fine-tune a working draft of the final report.

A final report is expected in June or July.

The draft, itself a work-in-progress, recommends short, intermediate and long-term strategies for improving water quality. Some of them, such as public workshops to encourage well owners to test their water, have already taken place.

Other recommendations include developing a standardized set of groundwater-quality data, modifying land use, beginning an assessment of agricultural application of fertilizers and the decommissioning of vulnerable wells.

Led by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the task force is made up of representatives from the state departments of Ecology, Health and Agriculture; Yakima County and the dairy industry.

It was created after a series of stories last fall in the Yakima Herald-Republic highlighted the long-standing nature of nitrate pollution in unregulated private wells in the Lower Valley -- a problem that threatens the health of thousands of low-income Latino farm workers and their families.

Tom Tebb, the Ecology Department's regional director in Yakima, said previous cuts to the department's water-quality budget combined with the state's current budget crunch mean the final document will have to make a compelling and united case to the Legislature to fund solutions.

"That's where the power of the document is going to be," Tebb said.

One potential mechanism for funding would be a groundwater management area, a formal entity that would be designated by the Ecology Department. A groundwater management area could funnel state and federal funds into water quality programs designed to keep contaminants, such as nitrates, from the aquifers that supply private wells.

One study found that one in five of 195 wells tested outside five Lower Valley communities contained levels of nitrates above federal safety limits.

Nitrate contamination is believed to come from commercial fertilizer, liquid dairy manure applied to crops, leaking manure lagoons, aging wells and faulty septic systems.

Dairy industry representatives at the meeting said they, too, want to fix the problem.

"The Dairy Federation is anxious to find the source and obtain some method of correcting it, whatever that may be," said Tony Veiga, president of the Washington State Dairy Federation and a producer from Sunnyside.

The agencies' preliminary draft report concludes that up to 25,000 Lower Valley residents are relying on potentially vulnerable private wells as the source of their drinking water.

Tebb wants the final document to include a statement about environmental justice, which the state and federal government define as "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies."

Said Tebb: "We have a large Hispanic community that to some extent bears the brunt of this issue. We need to think about that."

* Leah Beth Ward can be reached at 577-7626 or lward@yakimaherald.com.