The Long War on the West Plains
The fight for a clean domestic water supply reaches back decades.
SPOKANE, WA — May 13, 2026: Today, it is PFAS (per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances), an ingredient in retardants for aircraft fires, where water may not work or might even supply its oxygen as a fire accelerant to burning magnesium wheels commonly used for aircraft. The retardant was used for years in practice fire drills at the airport and the airbase. It was allowed to run off paved surfaces to open ground.
In the early 2000s, it was an ethylene glycol de-icer, embedded in a toxic chemical stew of polymers and surfactants. This chemical was used to remove the weight of accumulated ice from the wings and fuselages of airplanes parked on snowy winter tarmacs at Spokane Airport and Fairchild AFB. The ice needs to be removed from these airplanes during winter cold snaps. Once the air warmed sufficiently, the splashed over deicer ran off the tarmacs and onto exposed ground.
In the early 80s, it was Tordon, an herbicide powerful enough to kill full-grown trees. Fairchild AFB and perhaps Spokane International Airport, sprayed this powerful herbicide along the edges of their runways to suppress weeds that can erupt onto runways and create expensive resurfacing problems. In this case, the pollutant was deliberately applied to open ground.
Clearly, the West Plains geologic jigsaw of small, perched water tables and long paleo-channels (think ancient small, buried river channels) that run northeast to the Spokane River has been subject to this kind of human chemical abuse for decades.
Military expediency, federal pre-emption (more perceived than real), and a conviction that no alternatives for solving these air travel challenges exist, led to a nonchalance about potential environmental impacts. These chemicals were used frequently until people stepped up, spoke out and at threatened to sue the polluters.
Will the PFAS contamination and its terrible health and economic impacts on thousands of West Plains residents be the last straw for this pattern of environmental abuse this time around? We’ll see.
The West Plains PFAS situation is inevitably turning into a legal battle, with combatants scouting out what they hope are defensible legal positions ahead of what they should logically expect to be multiple lawsuits for poisoning a vital water supply and making people sick.
Unfortunately for the homeowners, farmers, ranchers, and small business operators who depend on the hit-and-miss water supplies of the West Plains, they have no defense against the poison in their well water. The victims of this latest contamination of West Plains water must now rely on expensive filtration systems or seek alternative sources of potable water.
“We bought our property three years ago. Nobody disclosed any of this to us. And we’re right on a paleochannel that runs directly under our property to the river.”—Angela Fairchild
Angela Fairchild is one of dozens of residents who showed up the morning of Saturday, May 9th seeking water filters and some answers about the future of their drinking water wells. She got the filters. It’s not clear that she got the answers she sought.
As John Hancock, president of the West Plains Water Coalition, who was also attending the event, pointed out, the polluters, Fairchild AFB and Spokane International Airport have already attempted to set geographic boundaries on their liability and responsibility for making property owners whole again.
Any residents living west of Hayford Road who showed up Saturday were turned away as this Saturday’s event. That’s because Fairchild AFB, the federal government, has taken charge of making those well-users west of Hayford Road whole.
Well-users east of Hayford Road (full disclosure: my stepson and his family are among these folks), must rely on Washington state efforts to make them whole as part of a complicated process that involves trying to get the polluters to own up to their responsibility and participate in developing and implementing a Department of Ecology approved plan to restore the water quality and make the victims of the pollution safe and whole. Hancock says that group of well-users is estimated to be at least 4,000 households.
Washington state’s Department of Commerce gave Spokane County $7.5 million to help Spokane County and City of Spokane to install well-head filtration systems for those property owners with the most severe levels of PFAS contamination. These wellhead systems are considered the best solution for those with contaminated wells, as it would treat all water coming into the home without needing to filter at every sink in the house.
It’s not clear if any of the funds supplied by Commerce are being used for this more modest point-of-use filter distribution program.
The county and city have also set up a clean water depot to distribute emergency supplies of potable, clean water to be distributed in 5-gallon, reusable water jugs to those who showed up Saturday and qualified for the free water. The clean water depot is set to be opened in mid-May on Garden Springs Road.
Ben Brattebo, Spokane County Water Programs Manager, who was at the Saturday event to share what he knows about the mitigation plan with concerned residents, says he’s not sure how far the state grant money will go installing the more effective long-term well-head filtration systems. For now, they plan to work down the list from the most polluted, and get as many of these wellhead systems installed as they can.
Brattebo said Spokane County will be request more funds from the state this year as they get a better feel for the total cost of mitigation, and a variety of funding sources (for example insurance programs), may be added to the mix shortly.
The It’s unclear if this injection of taxpayer cash will be sufficient. That hasn’t prevented Spokane County from moving ahead with distribution of five-gallon reusable water jugs and point of use water filters at a distribution event last Saturday morning at the Waste to Energy plant.
The clean water supply requires loading five-gallon jugs at a provided fresh water station on Garden Springs Road, which should be open by mid-May.
Ben Brattebo, Spokane County Water Programs Manager, says that wellhead option is coming soon, but the county must first go through the process of selecting a qualified contractor to do the installations and it must sign contracts with the Department of Commerce and the installer(s), outlining exactly how the county proposes to use those state funds. Finally, there’s the challenge of setting a reasonable schedule for the wellhead filter installations. Brattebo could not predict when the installations will start, but promised it would be as soon as legally possible.
Meanwhile, the Spokane County Health Department (DOH) will use a database of well-test results to rank the contaminated wells by level of contamination revealed in the well tests. The Health District will then prioritize the installation of the well-head filters based on the level of contamination, with the most contaminated wells elevated to the top of the installation schedule.
The list of well-head test results was supplied to Spokane DOH by the Washington State Department of Ecology, which is coordinating the overall remediation effort under the Model Toxics Control Act authority it has to step into emergency situations like this.
Meanwhile, the Spokane Airport Board continues to challenge the cleanup order from Ecology, even as the other legally designated Potentially Liable Parties (PLPs), work under something called an Agreed Order with Ecology. In the agreed order, the PLP accepts responsibility for the pollution and works with Ecology to design and implement a solution that both parties agree will be effective.
The Spokane Airport declined to work under the agreed order because they aren’t prepared to accept any legal responsibility for the contamination until it is adjudicated by a court of law.
“It’s hard to tell what they’re going to do, or what they aren’t going to do, because all they do is talk in secret. That’s so wrong. This is hard project, and I think it should be discussed in public.” — John Hancock, West Plains Water Coalition, on the reaction of the Spokane Airport Board and management to the PFAS contamination on the West Plains.
“The risk managers are telling them (Spokane Airport management), we’re going to find somebody else to blame, and they are going to pay the cost of cleaning it up.
But the taxpayers want to know who is going to pay for the ultimate cleanup. That could be $100 million or more.”
Is it going to be us, through future fees or insurers of the polluting entities or even fees on plane tickets purchased by the flying public? We don’t know, because all they do is meet in secret.”
In a response to Ecology’s invitation to participate in an Agreed Order rather than a direct cleanup order, the Airport Board’s consultant GSI Environmental Engineers, out of Olympia and Butte, MT tries to argue that the FAA won’t allow them to use airport revenues to pay for their contribution to the PFAS problem.
Hancock and Ecology disagree on that. They point to case law that makes it clear, as Hancock says, “The FAA can’t protect you from Washington state regulations.”
In fact, that issue was resolved decades ago with regard to Department of Defense facilities claiming federal exemption from state cleanup orders. The DoD lost in that case, just as Hancock predicts, the Airport Board will lose in this case.
Postscript:
This summer, Working the Commons is going to devote a lot more ink to examining how the current PFAS pollution issue is being handled, and how West Plains victims are coping.
We’ll also be looking at how those responsible for creating the problem or, as some West Plains residents allege, hiding the problem, are responding to public demands for transparency and accountability.
And we will report on what we know about the past and the potential future environmental and economic impact of the decades of government entities like the airport and airbase polluting the West Plains drinking water.
If you have a story to tell about the current PFAS situation on the West Plains and its impact on you and/or your family or business, or regarding one of the earlier incidents of contamination, no matter how long ago, I want to hear your story. Email me at: jimvw2@msn.com.