Month: May 2024

Why Now?

On April 23, Spokane County Commissioner Al French held a meeting at the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office Regional Training Center (“the small arms range”) on West Medical Lake Road (Hwy 902). At that meeting he offered an aspirational plan for dealing with the problem of PFAS contamination of well water on the West Plains. The tone of Mr. French’s slide presentation seemed to be “Everyone stay calm, I, Al French, have been working diligently on this problem and I have a solution.” 

Where was Mr. French when West Plains well water contamination with PFAS first came to light in 2017-2018? Both Fairchild Air Force Base and Spokane International Airport (SIA) had used PFAS-containing aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) in firefighting drills for decades. Fairchild acknowledged its contribution to the problem early on. Thanks to a public records request we know that wells on SIA’s property also tested PFAS-positive in 2017 and again in 2019, but officials at SIA were silent. Mr. French served (and serves) on the boards of both SIA and S3R3 Solutions, a public/private partnership dedicated to development of the West Plains. Larry Krauter, the CEO of SIA, works with Mr. French on both of these boards. It strains credulity to imagine that Mr. French was not aware of the PHAS-positive well tests. 

Furthermore, as a Spokane County Commissioner representing the people of the West Plains, the plight of those drinking PFAS contaminated well water ought to have been a primary concern as soon as Fairchild and Airway Heights knew of the contamination in 2017-18. Instead, even in 2021 when Spokane County was asked to administer a grant of $450,000 to further investigate the extent of the contamination in private wells, Mr. French quietly removed it from the Commission’s meeting agenda (See below). 

So why Mr. French’s sudden interest in presenting a plan to address PFAS contamination on the West Plains? There is an election this fall. Mr. French is on the ballot and he has a very credible challenger with deep roots in the West Plains, Molly Marshall.

“The Plan”

Here is Commissioner French’s Plan as presented:

1. Spokane County currently processes 8mgd [million gallons/day] of wastewater at the Spokane Valley Water Reclamation Center
2. Transfer 8mgd of treated water via Spokane River to 7 Mile future well site
3. Pump and pipe water to the West Plains for distribution to every property, both in and outside of the cities that have been impacted by PFAS/PFOS
4. Establish a Water Utility of the members of the Leadership Group to manage water for the future

Mr. French’s cited encouraging quotes from two unnamed people: “Comment from E.P.A. Region 10 Director” and “Comment from Legislative Aide to Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers.” These are not agency sign-offs. They are off-the-cuff comments lauding a novel idea. One must ask if Mr. French has been working diligently on the Plan, why representatives of the agencies he says he’s been working with did not speak at the meeting.

The illustrations in the slide show presented by Mr. French came from the Spokane Valley—Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer Atlas, which is available through an online search or through the Spokane County or City of Spokane websites. 

The last slide in the show declared the intent to “Engineer water line to West Plains and properties” and “Construct water distribution system.”

The idea of Airway Heights drilling a new well near the Seven Mile Bridge Road as an alternative to continuing to pipe SVRP aquifer water from the City of Spokane is not new. The Seven Mile well proposal was discussed at length in the Spokesman two and half years ago in an article that made no mention of any involvement by Commissioner French. It appears that what Mr. French now adds to the Seven Mile well proposal is a water accounting trick: balance the withdrawal of water at a new Seven Mile well against water put into the SVRP Aquifer by the Spokane County Water Reclamation Facility (read sewerage treatment plant) near Freya and Trent. He then proposes to use Superfund dollars (as yet not available) to install piping from the Seven Mile well not just to Airway Heights but to every private holding on the West Plains. 

The presentation struck many as sketchy and largely aspirational. It was not universally well-received. Last Tuesday at the 2PM Spokane County Commissioners legislative session one of the residents of the West Plains had the temerity to confront Mr. French during the public comments period. You can watch the presentation here. It starts at about 2:00 (minutes) and runs three minutes. Mr. French, after two other unrelated public comments, offers a rebuttal. His comments run from 9:30 for another three minutes.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. I highly recommend reading Tim Connor’s “AL FRENCH AND THE “FOREVER CHEMICALS” COVER-UP” published December 23, 2023. It offers detailed insight into the behind-the-scenes actions of SIA officials and Mr. French. 

On what SIA officials knew—and when:

Additional testing revealed the PFAS contamination had spread well beyond Airway Heights. The Air Force expanded its response, offering free well water testing and providing water treatment systems to private well owners if tests found PFAS above a federal health advisory limit of 70 parts per trillion. By then, the management at nearby Spokane International Airport (aka Geiger Field) had test results revealing PFAS contamination in its groundwater [results obtained in 2017 and 2019]. Yet, the only thing SIA was offering its neighbors was its silence.

Emails obtained in response to public records requests offer compelling evidence that at least four SIA officials, including the airport’s CEO and public affairs director, knew about the groundwater contamination in 2017. There is no evidence the airport alerted public health officials.

As to Commissioner French’s behind-the-scenes effort to stifle further research into the extent of private well PFAS contamination:

Lindsay says French called to tell him the item had been removed from the agenda. When I [Tim Connor] asked Lindsay if French had given a reason for pulling the item he said he had; that French was “concerned about the timing and the potential effect on the airport.”

“I think my response was ‘this isn’t going away,’” Lindsay added. “And he (French) said, ‘I know that.’”

“I’m just very concerned about being potentially implicated in what I see as an obvious attempt on the part of the airport director and potentially others to hide information. And I can tell you that when I spoke to you last time, [in early June of this year] I was unaware. I was as surprised as anybody to learn that the airport board or the airport management was aware of PFAS in their wells as long ago as 2017 and 2019…it just makes me want to ask those folks out there ‘what did you know and when did you know it? In my opinion it’s lying by omission.”

–Spokane County Environmental Services Manager Rob Lindsay

Lindsay conveyed the bad news to Hermanson. Hermanson says Lindsay told him French said he’d pulled the item at the behest of a top airport official “who didn’t want people out there basically doing this work.”

By all accounts the Washington State Republican Party’s state convention held two weekends ago in downtown Spokane was a circus. Much of the news coverage was centered on the endorsement of Semi Bird for Washington State governor over former U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert. Reichert is the more obvious (and monied) candidate who would have been the establishment Republican candidate in any former time, while Bird is a man recalled from the Richland School Board in 2023, the only elective office he has ever held.

But it was the debate over the Washington State Republican Party platform that deserves scrutiny. I was brought up in a mostly Republican family in the 1950s and 60s to understand the U.S. Constitution as a hallowed document which, by sequential steps in the form of hard-fought amendments, was gradually perfected to ever greater small “d” democratic ideals, giving We the People a greater and greater direct voice in our governance. The 15th Amendment (1870) was meant to assure all men of voting rights. The 17th Amendment (1913) provided for direct election of U.S. Senators. (In the original Constitution two Senators were elected by each state’s legislature.) The 19th Amendment (1920) assured women of the right to vote.

What went on at Washington State Republican Convention in Spokane two weekends ago conformed to the very definition of reactionary, effectively wishing to dismiss what I have always understood as the fundamentally positive, small “d” democratic direction in which our country has gradually evolved from what it was before the U.S. Civil War. 

The gathering of the Washington State Republican Party was so off the rails that it made statewide and even national news. I encourage you to click this link and watch this two minute clip from the April 29 Rachel Maddow show covering a telling part of the gathering. 

The convention also made prominent state news on the west side, turning up in the Seattle Times. I’ve copied below a piece written by the excellent columnist Danny Westneat. 

Remember this Republican platform when you see someone on the ballot this fall with “Prefers Republican Party” behind their name.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

The WA GOP put it in writing that they’re not into democracy

Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times, April 24, 2024

Political forecasters called it that the state Republican convention would feature turmoil ending in endorsements of the most extreme candidates, all to match the party’s current MAGA mood.

Among the jilted was the Republican front-runner for governor, former Sheriff Dave Reichert, who was left putting out an APB for the GOP.  

“The party’s been taken hostage,” he told The Spokesman-Review.

But there was another strain to the proceedings last weekend that didn’t get much attention. Political conventions are often colorful curiosities; this one took a darker turn.

The Republican base, it turns out, is now opposed to democracy. Their words, not mine, as you’ll soon see.

After the candidates left, the convention’s delegates got down to crafting a party platform. Like at most GOP gatherings in the Donald Trump era, this one called for restrictions on voting. In Washington state, the delegates called for the end of all mail-in voting. Instead, we would have a one-day-only, in-person election, with photo ID and paper ballots, with no use of tabulating machines or digital scanners to count the ballots. All ballots would be counted by hand, by Trappist monks.

OK, I made up the monk part. I did not make up the part about banning the use of machines to count votes. All in all it would make voting less convenient and harder, by rolling it back at least half a century.

But then the convention veered into more unexpected anti-democratic territory.

A resolution called for ending the ability to vote for U.S. senators. Instead, senators would get appointed by state legislatures, as it generally worked 110 years ago prior to the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913.

“We are devolving into a democracy, because congressmen and senators are elected by the same pool,” was how one GOP delegate put it to the convention. “We do not want to be a democracy.”

We don’t? There are debates about how complete of a democracy we wish to be; for example, the state Democratic Party platform has called for the direct election of the president (doing away with the Electoral College). But curtailing our own vote? The GOPers said they hoped states’ rights would be strengthened with such a move.

Then they kicked it up a notch. They passed a resolution calling on people to please stop using the word “democracy.”

“We encourage Republicans to substitute the words ‘republic’ and ‘republicanism’ where previously they have used the word ‘democracy,’ ” the resolution says. “Every time the word ‘democracy’ is used favorably it serves to promote the principles of the Democratic Party, the principles of which we ardently oppose.”

The resolution sums up: “We … oppose legislation which makes our nation more democratic in nature.”

It wasn’t that long ago when Republican presidents would extol democracy as America’s greatest export. Or sometimes try to share it with others down the barrel of a gun (see George W. Bush, Iraq).

Now the party is saying they don’t even want to hear the d-word anymore.

Of course we are not donning togas and rushing down to the acropolis to vote on legislation. So it’s true we don’t often act as a direct democracy (initiatives and referendums being exceptions).

It’s a hybrid system, a representative democracy, with the people periodically voting for elected leaders to do that legislating work for us. During much of our lifetimes the debate in this arena has been: How can representative democracy be made more representative? How can more voices be heard?

It’s jarring to hear a major political party declare that they’re done with that. They’re not even paying it lip service. You can’t get any blunter than “we oppose making our nation more democratic.”

Not everyone at the convention agreed with those sentiments, though they were strongly outvoted. Some of the delegates seemed to have contempt for voting and voters — at least when they come out on the losing end of it.

“The same people who select the baboons in Olympia are the ones selecting your senators,” said one delegate in remarks to the convention hall.

A party platform is a statement of principles; it has little to no chance of being implemented. So it’s tempting to ignore it. Or wish it away, as Reichert is trying to do, by suggesting the real party is out there somewhere having been abducted by impostors.

When people say “democracy itself is on the ballot” in this election, though, I think this is what they’re talking about.

For years now, since Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, some Republicans have been on the defensive about charges they’re flirting with anti-democratic impulses or authoritarianism.

A while back, this newspaper ran an Op-Ed from a leading conservative, the editor of the National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru. He argued that despite Trump’s attempts to block the transfer of power, and the party largely backing him up on that, the whole thing has been blown out of proportion. It’s become a myth that Democrats hold about Republicans, he suggested. It’s similar, he argued, to the misconceptions Republicans have that Democrats are committing mass election fraud.

“Republicans aren’t against democracy,” was the headline of that Op-Ed.

Well a few years have passed, and now they’re putting it in writing.

Danny Westneat: dwestneat@seattletimes.com; Danny Westneat takes an opinionated look at the Puget Sound region’s news, people and politics.

How to look at them and what they might mean

All the candidates running in WA Congressional District 5 (eastern Washington) to replace retiring Republican U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers had to file their campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by March 31. On Sunday, April 28, Emry Dinman presented data in the Spokesman that he had crunched from the campaign finance numbers accessible on fec.gov. Hats off to Mr. Dinman. Navigating the FEC website requires diligence. Here’s the summary of the dollar numbers from Mr. Dinman’s article:

The total amount raised by the Prefers Democratic Party candidates (Conroy, Danimus, Bank, and Welde) is, in round thousands, $412K. The total raised by the Prefers Republican Party candidates is $607K. 

But let’s consider the numbers of contributors. Combing the numbers at fec.gov, the total number of contributors to campaigns of Democrats is 5,591. That is more than 9X the total of 616 individual contributors to Republicans. Ann Marie Danimus has been campaigning for many months longer than any of all the others, but, even so, her total number of individual donors is remarkable at 4179. Even if we discount that number as a wild outlier, the total Dem’s number of donors remaining is 1412 and that is still 2.3 times the number of donors to all the Republicans put together. 

Baumgartner likes to brag about his fundraising prowess. He is quoted in the April 9th Spokesman, “It takes more than just money to win in politics, but this is a good benchmark of who has the momentum and who has the most supporters.” Self-serving BS. What Mr. Baumgartner did not tout, and for good reason, is that his haul of $404K came from less than half the number of donors of his closest competitor, Carmela Conroy (419 to 938). That is far, far less than Ann Marie Danimus’ 4179 contributors, and also less than Bernie Bank’s 454. Baumgartner is bragging about having a lot of monied contacts.

Jacqueline Maycumber’s numbers, the second biggest Republican fundraiser and fourth overall, are even more telling. Her entire haul of $139K comes from just 89 high dollar contributors.

Absolute numbers of dollars are important, but they are only part of the story. Numbers of contributors offers a different narrative. In the end it is the number of votes that counts. Insofar as numbers of contributors speaks of interest in the election, numbers of small dollar contributors speaks volumes. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. A few side notes:

1. Yes, three of the four Democratic candidates for CD5 have a head start in small dollar donations, having begun their campaigns before McMorris Rodgers disclosed (at least publicly) that she was retiring after her current term ends at the end of this year. Time will likely change some of the ratios calculated above.
2. Take note that fec.gov only reports on candidates for federal office, i.e. U.S. Reps, U.S. Senators, and the President/VP ticket. If you want to explore campaign finance for candidates for Washington statewide or local races you need to go to the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission, pdc.wa.gov. There you’ll need to mount a new and different learning curve. 
3. Figuring out actual donor’s names on fec.gov is an interesting challenge thanks to Actblue (established 2004) and WinRed (established 2019). Click the names to read interesting Wikipedia articles. Both are political action committees (PACs) that mostly serve to facilitate the collection of campaign contributions for Democratic and Republican candidates, respectively. Actblue, acting a lot like a credit card company, skims 3.9% off the electronic donations processed through the platform. WinRed skims a similar amount. That said, both make donating to a candidate’s campaign something that can be done on the spur of the moment unhampered by writing a check, addressing an envelope, finding the postage and putting the donation in the mail. No doubt the convenience they offer has stimulated contributions that might not otherwise have been made. Both PACs make researching contributors to federal candidates more challenging. A contribution made through either of them appears on the candidates’ pages with the PAC name only. To figure out who the actual contributor is requires several additional time-consuming steps.