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West Plains resident urges Spokane County to form safe-water task force over alleged PFAS contamination
Summary
In public comment at the Spokane County commissioners' consent meeting, resident Julia McHugh described ongoing PFAS contamination in the West Plains, called for a safe-water task force and cited past local testing and grant decisions she says were not reported to the public.
Julia McHugh, a resident of the Palisades neighborhood on the West Plains, told the Spokane County Board of Commissioners on June 3 that she and other neighbors are drinking water contaminated with PFAS and urged the county to expedite creation of a safe-water task force. "I live on a contaminated well every single day," McHugh said, adding that she is about to install new filters at a personal cost of about $250.
McHugh presented an informal chronology, saying that in 2017 Fairchild discovered contamination at Airway Heights municipal wells, shut them down and provided drinking water. She said the airport later tested wells, drilled two new wells and conducted further testing in 2019 that she said found PFAS contamination but that the results were not reported. McHugh also said the airport tested a former wetlands area used for aircraft fire-suppression practice and that PFAS entered that site over years of use.
McHugh criticized what she called "monumental heel dragging" in the local response and said the airport board and named local officials declined participation in an EPA grant application and declined briefings on a $450,000 grant she said would study parts of the West Plains not covered by a Fairchild study. She identified individuals and boards only as she did in testimony: the airport board, Fairchild, Dr. Pritchard and Hermanson, and a board member she called "Mr. French." "We have been asking for over 6 months for a safe water task force," McHugh said.
Her remarks occurred during the open public forum; commissioners did not take action on the topic during the meeting. The transcript record shows McHugh's remarks spanned a chronology of events from 2017 through 2021 as she described them and included requests for an Oxford Protection Area ballot issue, an update to the county's critical areas ordinance and the creation of a task force.
The county did not announce any immediate steps at the meeting to create the task force. McHugh's testimony and requests were recorded during public comment, and she attributed specific instances of testing, grant decisions and briefing refusals to the entities and people she named in her remarks.
