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By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter 

Spokane offers abundant water to WP customers

 

Last updated 7/7/2016 at 8:43am

Scott Simmons

Business has many things that drive it, but among the most important might be the availability of water.

And while in many parts of the West Plains, businesses and residents are serviced by the municipalities in which they reside, the city of Spokane plays a significant role in making part of its abundant supply of water available.

Scott Simmons, utilities director for the city of Spokane, said many years ago the cities and the districts established their water service areas working with the Department of Health and other entities. Airway Heights, Cheney, Medical Lake and Four Lakes all have own water service areas.

"As a utility, our services are not necessarily limited to the city limits," Simmons explained. "They are more defined with regards to our water service area."

That water service area, if you think of it as a square, Simmons said, extends north to Little Spokane River and the Nine Mile area, as far south as Marshall, east to about the border with the city of Spokane Valley and west to Craig Road.

"In utilities I wear two hats, (one) serving the citizens (of Spokane) and serving the customers (of the county) with the utility hat," Simmons said.

The utility serves approximately 76,000 customers in the city of Spokane and another 1,000 residential and just over 400 commercial accounts on the West Plains. Simmons did not provide numbers on other areas it serves outside the city.

"We have a rate for our in-city customers and a rate for our out of city customers," Simmons explained.

Spokane residents pay $1 per unit, which is 100 cubic feet or 750 gallons. For those outside the Spokane city limits, there is a 50 percent surcharge, bringing the unit-cost to $1.50.

"Again that's on the principle that the farther out you get the more expensive it is to deliver the product," Simmons said. "It helps to recoup the costs of the infrastructure."

In general the Spokane water comes at a very affordable rate.

"Studies across the state, eastside versus west side and even nationwide, I think you'll see that the Spokane region has very affordable water rates," Simmons said.

While affordability and availability are big with the water that comes from Spokane, at the same time the city tries to encourage conservation, even though they currently use less than 5 percent of what comes out of the aquifer.

Water has been increasingly in the spotlight the past couple of years when the state was in a drought. The complex aquifers on the West Plains are not as flush with water as is the massive Rathdrum-Spokane aquifer. Communities have been asked to be conscious of use, especially in Cheney.

"Some communities are blessed with strong access to water, some communities aren't," Simmons said.

But the Spokane-supplied water is in abundance with a massive river of sorts flowing from as far away as Lake Pend Oreille and Coeur d'Alene Lake.

"It does move underground and through a combination of porous gravel and whatnot," Simmons said. "It feeds at various ingress points."

There are what Simmons referred to as "gaining reaches and losing reaches," where the aquifer is recharged, and then loses water. "It is a very robust body of water beneath us." The aquifer is recharged with mountain snows, that while up and down year to year, the supply remains pretty constant.

"The notion that we're pulling it out and it's continuing to drop is actually quite the opposite," Simmons said. "It's a source that continues to recharge."

Supply and demand is as much a driver in business as it is with water and those using that resource from the city of Spokane appear blessed with a good future.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.

 

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