The city of Airway Heights leverages partnerships to weather a contamination crisis.

By Devon O’Neil

Kevin Anderson was sitting in his office one morning in May 2017, when a civilian worker from the nearby Fairchild Air Force Base arrived with a question that would upend life in Airway Heights. A number of chemicals used in firefighting foam during training exercises on the base since the 1970s had seeped into the groundwater and been found in wells nearby, the worker said. While he didn’t believe the chemicals had moved as far north as Airway Heights, he asked permission to take some water samples.

Anderson, Airway Heights’ public works director, said sure. Then he started Googling the chemicals, which are known colloquially as PFAS (short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and can lead to health problems when ingested. “I’d never heard of them before,” Anderson recalls, “and I’ve been in the water industry for decades.” The Air Force’s tests showed elevated PFAS levels, meaning Airway Heights’ water was contaminated. The city immediately shut off its wells and issued a press release. “From that moment on, for the past five years, we’ve been dealing with this problem one way or another,” Anderson sighs.

At the time, Airway Heights, a rapidly growing city of 11,000 just west of Spokane, purchased about half its water from the City of Spokane—a max of 1,500 gallons per minute. Airway Heights struck a deal to obtain more from an aboveground emergency connection that Spokane built. “It was totally jury-rigged, but it got us up to about 2,000 gallons per minute,” Anderson says. “Which is significantly less than our peak amounts.”

As Airway Heights did what it could to manage its water deficit, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which operates under the CDC, conducted a study in 2019, testing PFAS levels in the blood and urine of 330 city residents. It found readings up to 56 times higher than national levels; the longer a subject had lived in Airway Heights was correlated with higher PFAS contamination levels.

Spokane has supplied almost all of Airway Heights’ water since 2017, but a new, permanent solution could be near, ending a contentious legal battle. The Air Force, which acknowledged that its firefighting foam contaminated the water, proposed installing sophisticated filters on city wells to fix the problem. Airway Heights prefers to drill a new well outside the contaminated area and is preparing to fund it if the Department of Defense won’t. An environmental analysis is underway to ensure any new wells wouldn’t impact the Spokane River. How it all ends remains to be seen.

"For the past five years, we’ve been dealing with this problem one way or another."

Additionally, the city, along with many others, has sued the federal government to recover financial losses due to the contamination, which Anderson says for Airway Heights will exceed $40 million dollars.

Amid all this, Airway Heights still must cover annual water costs beyond the fixed sum it receives as remediation from the Air Force, which does not account for population growth. It’s a tall order for a small city. That’s why, when asked what lessons he’s learned from the ordeal, City Manager Albert Tripp cites “the importance of partnerships,” then rattles off the names of state and federal legislators who have helped keep Airway Heights’ water flowing.

For more information: cawh.org