On Monday night, May 23rd, the City Council of Spokane passed a landmark ordinance - C36209 - that codified a water conservation and drought response plan for the City of Spokane. The ordinance was vetoed by Mayor Woodward and the veto was overridden by the Spokane City Council on June 6th of 2022. Spokane is entering a new era with regards to valuing our municipal water as potential river flows. We are now understanding that over-consumption has profoundly negative and lasting impacts on the Spokane River during critical low-flow periods of the long hot summers of Eastern Washington and drought years.
This is a far-reaching plan that is remarkable in that it listens to the River and its flows to provide triggers for conservation and concrete drought response actions. When the River flow drops under 1000 cubic feet per second (CFS), actions are initiated to limit ground-water pumping and reduce municipal demand for the cold water that our River needs to sustain life during our hot summers. This is a major turning point for our city. Spokane will begin to manage water use to help our River become climate-resilient in the future. Nearly two years of work on the part of a “Water Resources Collaboration Group” (WRCG) composed of stakeholders, resulted in conservation and drought response guidance. This guidance informed the City Council as they considered codifying water conservation options and the drought response plan for our city.
The Spokane Riverkeeper was one of the leaders of the WRCG developing guidance. We worked closely with partners and other stakeholders as well as the Director of Sustainability Initiatives at the City of Spokane. When the time came, we organized and moved a landmark number of residents to stand up for protecting their River from the impact of overconsumption and chronic waste of aquifer water. This is aquifer water that supports a fragile population of redband trout, and the Upper Columbia Tribal visions and actions of restoring chinook salmon to the basin.
The Spokane Riverkeeper is proud of our community, proud of our partners, and our City Council. We are also proud to be an integral part of this historic movement toward our communities recognizing our groundwater is not endless, and is critical to the health of our River now and for generations to come.