City Government
EPA Sniffing Meridian Poop Process
September 14, 2006 
Now it’s Meridian’s turn to have a close inspection of poop processing and products passed into the river.
The Daily Paper reports the EPA has served a warrant on the city, based on testimony of a former employee.
The GUARDIAN has been waiting for this one to drop for a long time. While the Boise River may be meeting “EPA standards” upstream of the 10 Mile Road area, the water quality quickly declines downstream. For years “agricultural runoff” has been blamed. But with 60,000 people pooping in the Meridian sewer system–with some septic tank exceptions–it was bound to pollute our Boise River.
For the last couple of years the river has been at or near the “maximum allowable load” for various pollutants. Perhaps growthophobia is catching.
Kudos and a pat on the backside to the former employee who prompted the poop people to peek at the product.
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Sep 15, 2006, 12:52 pm
Hey Thanks from sniffn’ out the stinky stuff.
Where can a person find data on a river’s historical pollution levels. For example some otherwise clean looking waters are full of nasties from past and/or present…. The state of Minnesota DNR (very rich and over taxed, but also given EST by a change in the political winds) has charts on the number of fish one can safely eat from each lake. Does Idehoo have anything like that?? I would sure like it if they spent money on stuff like that rather than new offices and pickups.
EDITOR NOTE–Try Federal EPA or State Water Resources Dept.
Sep 16, 2006, 6:16 pm
The Lower Boise River Water Quality Plan (LBRWQP) is the state-designated watershed advisory group for the lower Boise River. (see: http://www.lbrwqp.boise.id.us/ )
You will find a good overview of the water quality in the river at this site and a link to the USGS to download the info you are interested in.
Sep 18, 2006, 4:55 pm
The Boise River by Parma is a flowing coliform stream. I think the water has been used at least 8 times before it gets to the Snake. A good friend of mine in fisheries at Idaho Power says the mud in the Snake River from Marsing to the upper reaches of Brownlee is extremely toxic. So poisonous that if the dam ever breached the toxic silt would sterilize the river. He advises to not eat any fish from these waters. Claims Brownlee Reservoir is the biggest sewage treatment plant in the US. The water quality is quite good at the dam.