"We had the misfortune of having a lot of people in a fairly small area on a river that made America's 10 most-imperiled rivers list," said Michael F. Costner, operations manager at the water-reclamation plant.
The plant is spending $7 million to experiment with new technologies for cleaning up remaining phosphates in the wastewater. Spokane County will spend up to $250 million more to build a new treatment plant after that. The state is also looking to crack down on agricultural and industrial polluters, along with leaky septic systems.
The law allows dishwasher detergents to have no more than 0.5% phosphate content. The most popular brands contain about 8% phosphates in order to remove fats and hold food particles in suspension.
Most hand dish soap, which relies mainly on scrubbing to clean plates and pots, does not contain phosphates.
Marcotte says she's environmentally conscious, but the phosphate-free dishwasher detergents she has tried left the dishes so dirty she had to wash them twice, in much hotter water, or at least rinse them after washing them -- a waste of water and electricity, since she normally uses tepid water on the short cycle.
"I try to recycle and do my part," she said.
"The whole thing is, if they're going to take away something that works, they need to replace it with something that works."
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kim.murphy@latimes.com
