Sierra Club chapter harshly criticizes Locke's water policy

From the proposed third runway at Sea-Tac Airport to water withdrawals from the Columbia River, the Sierra Club says the policies of Gov. Gary Locke have damaged waterways across Washington.

Washington is suffering from a water shortage, water pollution and poor habitat for fish, the Sierra Club report contended this week in a report that says Locke's policies are compounding the problem.

The Locke administration, caught by surprise by the report, strongly disputes the findings.

"First of all, the Sierra Club of Spokane and the experts cited are people who never agreed with the governor on environmental issues," Locke spokesman Michael Marchand said.

The report will confuse the public into thinking Locke has a poor record on the environment, Marchand said.

"This administration has done a substantial amount of work in its time in office to address environmental issues, including water," he said, adding that Locke has been able to balance environmental protection and the need for economic growth.

The report, titled "Locke's Legacy: Water Crisis," was created by members of the Upper Columbia River Group of the Sierra Club.

"This report connects the dots and allows Locke's disastrous record on water to speak for itself," said John Osborn, a Spokane physician and conservationist who co-edited the report with his wife, Rachael Paschal Osborn.

"From radioactive plumes and mine wastes to salmon extinction, the diagnosis for Washington's waters is grave," he said.

The report places much of the blame on Tom Fitzsimmons, appointed by Locke to direct the state Ecology Department in 1997, and later promoted to be Locke's chief of staff.

As Seattle port officials pressed the state to approve the controversial third runway, Fitzsimmons removed a key staff member assigned to oversee a state permit for it. That move, Osborn said, was designed to push the permit toward approval.

Shortly after taking office in 1997, Locke lifted a moratorium on issuing new water rights from the Columbia River, hurting salmon and other fish, the Sierra Club report said.

"Locke's mishandling of the Columbia River has meant that bypassing the four dams on the Lower Snake River in Washington is the only viable option for saving salmon runs," the report said.

The Columbia is also threatened by nuclear waste, the authors said.

The Spokane River for decades has been polluted by mining wastes flowing into it from the Silver Valley of Idaho, the authors added. They criticized the Locke administration for its role in an agreement that transferred cleanup authority for that problem from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the state of Idaho.

The report was also critical of what it termed the Locke administration's efforts to win regulatory approval for a proposed gold mine on Buckhorn Mountain in Okanogan County. It also said Locke pushed for and approved legislation that made it easier for large users to withdraw water from streams, possibly harming fish.

And it criticized him for supporting legislation sanctioning a controversial pollution test for fill for the runway, "allowing the use of toxic fill not just at Sea-Tac but statewide."

Ecology Department officials have said in the past that the fill test approved by Locke will keep the runway fill free of contaminants.

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