Panhandle Health District urges Hayden to restore local aquifer protections, offers ordinance drafts

Jenny Gray, protection program coordinator at Panhandle Health District (PHD), told the Hayden City Council on April 8 that the Spokane Valley–Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer is a shared, fast-moving source of drinking water and urged the city to reestablish local ordinances that would require stronger controls on chemical storage and non-domestic wastewater.

Gray said the aquifer supplies drinking water for “over 600,000 residents between North Idaho and Eastern Washington” and noted it is federally designated as a sole-source aquifer (1978) and was designated a sensitive resource aquifer by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality in 1997. She described the aquifer as unconfined and unusually permeable — “water moves very quickly…about 50 feet per day” in places — so surface activities can rapidly affect groundwater quality.

PHD staff reviewed the district’s four core aquifer-protection activities: long-term water-quality monitoring, education and outreach, the critical materials program (chemical handling and secondary containment inspections), and efforts to identify sensitive aquifer recharge areas (SARAs). Gray said PHD maintains a groundwater-quality dataset dating to 1975, actively samples 28 wells three times per year, and has tracked a long-term decline in nitrate concentrations since protective rules were first adopted mid-century. She warned, however, that chloride levels are showing an increasing trend linked to road de-icers.

The presentation also summarized PHD’s critical materials program, which inspectors implemented in the early 1990s and which currently monitors about 1,176 facilities across Kootenai County; 482 of those facilities meet a regulatory threshold requiring secondary containment and about 98 of the monitored facilities are inside the City of Hayden, Gray said. PHD staff said they have found examples of improper containment and spills in recent inspections and have worked with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality on required remediation at some sites.

Gray told the council that the state-level rule set (IDAPA 41.01.01) that had supported those protections expired during the 2019 legislative session and that House Bill 316 (2021) removed negotiated rulemaking authority the health districts previously used. As a result, she said, Panhandle Health District and its partners have pursued local ordinances—already adopted by Kootenai County, Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls—to restore enforceable critical materials requirements on the Idaho side of the aquifer. Gray said those local ordinances would be contract-implemented by PHD and paid for from existing Kootenai County Aquifer Protection District parcel fees, not by Hayden general fund revenues.

PHD offered specific suggestions to the council: (1) consider adopting a city-level critical materials ordinance patterned on recently adopted county and municipal ordinances; (2) consider mapping and defining sensitive aquifer recharge areas at a city scale rather than adopting county SARA layers wholesale; (3) coordinate early with PHD and other agencies during business, building and permit reviews; and (4) support regional aquifer modeling and planning efforts such as work led by the Idaho–Washington Aquifer Collaborative.

Council members asked about coordination with sewer operators when industrial discharges spike treatment-plant loads; Gray said PHD’s site inspections already review floor drains and discharge points and that PHD staff have discussed specific sites with Hayden-area sewer managers. Gray also offered to provide printed brochures and an “edible aquifer” demonstration for community events. She left ordinance drafts and the adopted county/city ordinances in the council packet and offered to return to a future meeting for follow-up.

Why this matters: PHD framed the proposed ordinances as restoration of decades-old protections that PHD staff and the county argue reduced nitrate contamination while growth and new contaminants have put pressure on the aquifer. Council members asked clarifying questions and requested follow-up information and a point of contact for continued conversations with PHD.

"We could meet at a future date. We could have further workshops on this to answer any questions," Gray told the council, adding that the technical inspections and enforcement would be performed by Panhandle Health District under a local ordinance funded by Aquifer Protection District parcel fees.

For next steps the council and staff discussed: circulate PHD ordinance drafts (already available from Kootenai County, Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls), consider a future workshop to evaluate ordinance language and SARA mapping for Hayden’s municipal context, and identify a council point person for continuing the dialogue.

Ending: Gray emphasized the aquifer’s unique geology, the quick movement of groundwater in the region and the potential cost to residents if protections are weakened: “Water is extremely expensive to treat…we don't want to get to that point,” she said. PHD asked interested council members to provide contact information so staff could return with drafts and implementation details.