Yakama Nation Awarded $400K In Wastewater Settlement With City Of Quincy
The City of Quincy has agreed to pay the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation $400,000 to settle a lawsuit over alleged permit violations at the City's wastewater treatment plant.
The suit was filed by the Hood River, Oregon-based non-profit environmental advocacy group, Columbia Riverkeeper in November, 2024, in U.S. District Court in Spokane.
It alleged the City infringed on its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit through the Washington State Department of Ecology by making discharges in excess of allowable limits and failing to properly monitor and report these releases consistently over the past five years.
The complaint also detailed that the Quincy Wastewater Treatment Facility handles large volumes of wastewater for several of the area's major businesses, including Lamb Weston and Quincy Foods, and that treated discharges from the plant ultimately find their way into the nearby Potholes Reservoir, which is a tributary of the Columbia River, causing environmental harm to both ecosystems.
In settling the suit, the City signed an agreement on Aug. 5 requiring it to draft an action plan that will keep discharges from its wastewater facility within the allowable thresholds of its permit with Ecology, as well as make any and all necessary upgrades or repairs to its systems which might contribute to this stipulation.
The agreement also excused the City from the admission of any wrongdoing or misconduct related to the allegations outlined in the suit, which also awarded $102,637 to Columbia Riverkeeper for court costs and legal fees.
The $400,000 given to the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation will be allocated for projects that all involve improving or maintaining aquatic habitats and water qualities in the Yakima River Basin.
“The plans are to plant native riparian trees and shrubs, predominantly cottonwoods and willows, to help redress historic and ongoing loss of riparian forest because of river regulation,” says Tom Elliott, Yakama Nation Fisheries Project Manager in a news release from Columbia Riverkeeper. “The restored riparian forest will help improve water quality by trapping sediment and providing shade to the river and side channels.” added Elliott. “This project is part of a decades-long program of fish habitat restoration by the Yakama Nation in the Yakima River basin, with the aim of supporting the recovery of salmon, steelhead, and lamprey to healthy and harvestable population levels.”
Compliance by the City with some of the items detailed in consent decree was required by October, with others to be completed over the course of the next few years.