Today's headlines:
- WA's Attorney General sues Safeway, Albertsons for allegedly overcharging customers for years on “buy one, get one free” offers.
- STA calls special meeting to decide whether to put sales tax renewal on August ballots.
- Stevens County town will soon see improved water quality after years-long project.
- Trump says military training in the Owyhee Desert must continue despite concerns over pollution and disruption to wildlife.
Plus, a conversation with Anne Schechinger, the researcher behind a new report showing more than 62 million Americans rely on water systems with elevated levels of nitrate. We’ll talk about how the contaminant gets into groundwater, why it’s dangerous, and what can be done.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting contributed by Scott Greenstone, Owen Henderson, Monica Carrillo-Casas and April Ehrlich.
Owen Henderson hosts and produces the show.
TRANSCRIPT
[THEME MUSIC]
OWEN HENDERSON: From Spokane Public Radio, it’s SPR News Today.
I’m Owen Henderson. It’s Tuesday, April 28, 2026.
On today’s show, Washington’s Attorney General is suing Albertsons. The filing alleges the company has been overcharging customers for years on its “buy one, get one free” offers.
And a Stevens County town will soon see much less arsenic and manganese in its water after a three-year-long upgrade finishes this week.
Plus, a conversation with the researcher behind a report showing more than 62 million Americans rely on water systems with elevated levels of nitrate. We’ll talk about how the contaminant gets into groundwater, why it’s dangerous, and what can be done.
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
[FADE OUT THEME]
Washington state is suing the company that owns Safeway and Albertsons grocery stores.
KUOW’s Scott Greenstone has more.
SCOTT GREENSTONE: Washington state says the Albertsons Company misled shoppers at Safeways, Albertsons and Haggens in Washington in over 3 million “buy one get one free” transactions.
Attorney General Nick Brown:
NICK BROWN: “When people are going in excited about a deal, excited about a bargain, and it's really nonsense. And all across the spectrum, we have costs going up on just the cost of living.”
SG: Investigators found in 2021 at a Safeway in Colville mini watermelons were $3.99 on May 31st. Two days later, they were 5.99—just in time for a BOGO promotion.
Albertsons said in a statement that they quote- ‘strongly disagree’ with these claims. And that they’re based on data errors that they raised to the Attorney General’s office.
I'm Scott Greenstone in Seattle
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OH: The Spokane Transit Board has called a special meeting tomorrow to decide whether to ask voters to re-up a funding measure during the August primaries.
STA is funded in part by a two-tenths of a percent sales tax.
Voters approved the tax in 2016, and it’s set to expire at the end of 2028. The proposed renewal would make the tax permanent.
This meeting comes after the STA board members punted on the issue at their meeting two weeks ago.
Instead, they opted to meet with business leaders today, partially over concerns about a potential campaign against the tax renewal.
Board members have until Friday to decide whether to put the measure on the August ballot.
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Today, however, is the last day for voters participating in Washington’s April special elections to turn in their ballots.
Voters can weigh in on several measures to fund schools and library districts in Spokane and Stevens County.
Ballots are due to drop boxes by 8 o’clock tonight.
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Water quality in the small town of Hunters is about to get a major upgrade, after a three-year long project.
SPR’s rural affairs reporter and Murrow News Fellow Monica Carrillo-Casas has more.
MONICA CARRILLO-CASAS: The $1 million project will significantly reduce the high levels of arsenic and manganese in the town's water. The new system will filter the water and increase flow capacity.
Stevens County leaders met for training on the system, which is expected to be finished by Wednesday.
Tyson Larson is an engineer on the project.
He says the last water treatment system installed was 15 years ago but stopped working properly.
And that, he says, led to the high arsenic and manganese levels.
TYSON LARSON: “Obviously, arsenic is the biggest concern. Their typical water samples are about three to five times higher than the allowable contaminant levels established by the state. Manganese is not typically a health concern, but it can lead to staining of clothes and their things and whatnot. So kind of more of a nuisance.”
MCC: County Commissioner Mark Burrows says most community members have been buying their water.
MARK BURROWS: “And if they had water, there's frustration with paying bills for water that's not good, or they get a bill for water that doesn't work.”
MCC: The new water system will require monthly check-ins to make sure the contaminant levels are in normal ranges.
Burrows says it’s likely the Stevens County Public Works Department will be in charge of the system’s operation.
The next step will be replacing the town’s water lines to ensure leftover contaminants don’t leach into the water again.
I’m Monica Carrillo-Casas reporting.
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OH: President Donald Trump has declared the military’s supersonic jet training in Idaho, Oregon and Nevada is <quote> "in the paramount interest" of the country.
The declaration allows the U.S. Air Force to continue flying combat jets at the speed of sound in the Owyhee desert.
Arnold Thomas is the vice chair of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes—whose reservation sits at the center of the military's operations in Idaho.
He says the jets release thunderous booms that could disrupt wildlife.
ARNOLD THOMAS: "So when that sonic boom goes off, it's similar to the first thunder after winter that occurs. That indicates to those that are hibernating that it's time to wake up."
OH: Trump didn't explain why the military's training is important.
But his declaration comes two months into the war that the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
Nearly 1 in 5 Americans relied on drinking water systems with elevated and potentially hazardous levels of nitrate in recent years, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.
The nonprofit's research shows that between 2021 and 2023, the water systems that serve more than 62 million people across the country tested at or above 3 mg of nitrate per liter at least once.
Nitrate often comes from farm runoff, thanks to fertilizer and animal manure, and 10 states, including Washington, account for about 60% of the water systems with elevated nitrate levels.
To learn more, I called Anne Schechinger, the Senior Director of Agriculture and Climate Research at EWG and the report's author.
ANNE SCHECHINGER: So the maximum contaminant level that the EPA says in drinking water for nitrate is 10 milligrams per liter. So if babies drink water with nitrate above 10 mg per liter, they can have blue baby syndrome where babies are starved of oxygen.
So it can be super dangerous. So [the Environmental Protection Agency] set their level at 10 because of that, and we have seen a dramatic decrease in blue baby syndrome throughout the country because of that MCL.
But there's been a lot more recent research in the last two decades showing that there is considerable evidence that connects nitrate consumption at these lower levels to an increased risk of bladder cancer and colorectal cancer.
And then there's also an increased risk of negative birth outcomes for infants when a pregnant mom is drinking water with nitrate at levels below 10 mg per liter. So preterm birth, low birth weight, and birth defects are also associated with nitrate in drinking water.
OH: For this analysis, you set the level at 3 mg per liter. And where did that number come from?
AS: So 3 mg per liter is really the level that state agencies and even the EPA indicates human-caused contamination of nitrate in drinking water. So levels below 3 show that maybe there's a more natural source of nitrate. But 3 mg per liter really shows this is a human-caused problem.
So EWG uses 3 mg per liter in this report as an example of elevated nitrate. So it's not above the EPA's MCL, but it's still an indicator that this is human-caused nitrate, and the level of nitrate is likely to go up over time.
OH: There are lots of agricultural areas here where I am in the Inland Northwest, central and eastern Washington, and north Idaho. But there's also urban areas. And so how should urban dwellers be thinking about the findings of this report?
AS: We definitely found in this report, nitrate in drinking water is a problem in urban areas as well as rural areas. The way that watersheds work and that groundwater and aquifers work is that you can have agriculture polluting your drinking water, even if you live miles and miles from any farm.
If you have a surface water source of drinking water, a lake or a river, that's part of a bigger watershed where the water comes from way upstream. So you might have farms many miles upstream that eventually get nitrate contamination into your drinking water source.
Or if you get your water from groundwater, it's easy for farms many miles away to get nitrate into the groundwater source, a larger aquifer that can span a really big area. So even if you live in a city really far away from a farm, you can still have this farm pollution in your drinking water.
OH: Another factor that comes to mind for me is climate change. As weather patterns are starting to shift, how might that affect how this nitrate contamination spreads or doesn't?
AS: We found that climate change is a big driver of nitrate contamination of drinking water.
So we know that nitrate gets into water when rain or other precipitation like snow pushes nitrate off farm fields or through tile water under farm fields or into groundwater sources of drinking water.
So when you have more rain, that's likely going to make the nitrate contamination of water worse.
But then on the other side, drought also can make the nitrate problem worse because when you have a drought, that really concentrates nitrate in soil on farm fields. So then even if you just have a normal rain after drought, you're going to see larger levels of nitrate being pushed off farm fields and getting into water.
So climate change has a really big impact on this problem. And we're expecting to see climate change make the problem worse in the future.
OH: Well, on that rather cheery note, you know, if we're expecting this problem to get worse, I'm guessing most people are listening, going, ‘Okay, so what do I do about it?’ And so from both the perspective of your average everyday resident and from the perspective of policymakers, where would you point people in terms of what are the next steps to start to reel this back in?
AS: So from a consumer side, you know, us regular folks, we can search our postal code in EWG's tap water database, and you can see what's in your water. So are you struggling with nitrate? Or is there another contamination issue that's in your public drinking water?
And the database also talks about different water filters. So if you look up your water, and there's a certain contaminant like nitrate that you're concerned about, the database gives you information on what filters could remove that pollutant from your drinking water.
And then on a policy side, the EPA can actually review these maximum contaminant levels to see if 10 milligrams per liter for nitrate is too high.
And then also states could adopt policies themselves that actively limit nitrate pollution. Like an example here in Minnesota, we have a buffer law that requires farmers to install a grassy buffer between their farm fields and all public waterways. And that has shown to really reduce the nitrogen that's running off farm fields and getting into drinking water. So other states can implement policies like that or similar policies that can help fix this problem.
OH: Anne Schechinger is the Senior Director of Agriculture and Climate Research at the Environmental Working Group. Thank you so much for getting on the phone with me this morning.
AS: Thanks for having me.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
OH: SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Scott Greenstone, Monica Carrillo-Casas, April Ehrlich and me, Owen Henderson.
I’m also your host and producer.
Thanks for listening.
It’s SPR.
