Spokane County outlines West Plains comprehensive-plan update, flags aquifer, wetlands and PFAS concerns

Spokane County Planning Director Scott Chesley told a West Plains community meeting that the county is accelerating a comprehensive-plan revision and an environmental-impact analysis that will guide where and how the county accommodates roughly 100,000 new residents over the next 20 years and what protections are needed for groundwater and wetlands.

Chesley said the update uses an environmental-impact statement (EIS) framework to test alternatives for growth, infrastructure and environmental trade-offs and to identify where mitigation would be infeasible. “What we're doing with our comprehensive plan update is the 10 year update that is required by the Growth Management Act,” Chesley said. He said the draft EIS is expected “by the end of the year,” followed by a 45-day public review and a final EIS in 2026; staff expect planning-commission hearings in October 2026 and a board decision thereafter.

The meeting focused on the West Plains aquifer, mapped “paleo” channels that speed groundwater movement, wetlands and the county’s critical-areas ordinance. Chesley and staff presented maps showing large portions of the planning area lie over medium- to high-capacity recharge zones and areas where the bottom of the aquifer comes to or near the surface, which he said can make development more expensive because of water and stormwater requirements. He warned that contamination can travel quickly where subsurface channels connect across the plain.

County staff said they are integrating recent scientific work into the CAO (critical areas ordinance) update to reflect recharge areas, wetlands, steeper slopes and habitat corridors. Chesley described the county’s legal constraints under the Growth Management Act: growth-boundary changes require available infrastructure and a revenue source for new facilities. He said the Office of Financial Management population projections give the county about 102,000–105,000 additional people by 2046; county staff said roughly 96,000 of that growth is forecast to be absorbed in urban growth areas and 4,000–5,000 in rural areas.

Public commenters pressed staff on specific concerns. One attendee proposed that the plan “essentially forbid any further wetland bank exchange,” arguing trading wetlands out of the local drainage would reduce recharge capacity; the attendee’s proposal was recorded as public comment and not adopted as policy at the meeting. Chesley replied that staff would carry those comments into their work.

PFAS contamination was raised repeatedly. Chesley said PFAS “does appear in our research” but is not yet a specific prescription in the draft plan; he said the plan can name PFAS as a hazard and identify the issue for follow-up while the technical solutions would come from scientific and engineering work outside the planning document.

Several attendees asked whether the West Plains urban growth area (UGA) will expand. Chesley said the county controls UGA designation and that the UGA could shift; he said a working expectation is that the UGA “will almost certainly be smaller than it is now” as staff refine alternatives, though some parts of the boundary may move to better reflect a pattern of growth. He emphasized that planning for jobs/industrial land uses follows a different calculus from housing.

On rural lands and agriculture, Chesley said resource lands designated for agriculture, forestry or minerals have stronger protections and that redesignation of such lands is difficult and requires scientific review. He said existing rural-zone lot-size rules (commonly 10, 20 or 40 acres) remain part of the analysis and that the CAO update could change buffers or classifications that affect developable area.

Staff confirmed practical next steps: slides and maps shown at the meeting will be posted online, the draft EIS and related chapter drafts will be released later this year, and staff will return with refined alternatives for the planning commission and board. No formal motions or votes were taken at the meeting; staff will compile public comments and incorporate them into the EIS and plan development for later public hearings and formal actions by the planning commission and Board of County Commissioners.

The meeting closed with staff inviting attendees to sign contact lists and watch spokanecounty.gov/bp for posted materials.