Governor signs phosphorus bill into law

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire today (Mon) signed into law a bill that essentially bans the use and sale of dishwasher detergents that contain phosphorus.

Spokane legislators aggressively pushed the bill this session as a tool their county would need to clean the Spokane River. The governor noted that at the bill-signing ceremony at Spokane’s downtown library.

“It’s easier and cheaper to keep phosphorus out of our dishwashing detergent than to remove it from the wastewater headed to our groundwater and to our streams,” Gregoire said.

The new law will lower the allowable limit for phosphorus in dishwashing detergents from the current eight-point-seven percent to a half-percent. It won’t take effect until 2008 and then only in Spokane, Clark and Whatcom Counties. The law will take effect statewide in 2010.

The governments and companies that discharge phosphorus-containing wastewater into the Spokane River are negotiating a cleanup agreement with state and federal regulators. County Commissioner Todd Mielke says all parties agree the dishwasher detergent limit is only a small piece of that, but an important piece.

“We as a community are going to invest tens of millions of dollars, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars, in utilizing the most advanced technology anywhere in the United States as we look at our treatment plants and we look at everything else. But that alone won’t do it. And so we need to look at everything else that will help us reach that goal that will do the cleanup that we need to accomplish and this is one of the steps to get us there.”

The governor signed into law four other bills, including one that would change the composition of the county’s five-member air pollution control authority board. It would remove one county representative and replace him with one from the city of Spokane Valley.