Chalk up another impressive victory for the state Department of Ecology (DOE) which recently succeeded in forcing the closure of the historic Miller Brewing plant in Tumwater.

For 100 years, “It’s the water” was the slogan of the old Olympia Brewing Company. In the end, it was the water that did it in.

The Tumwater Brewery was saved from certain closure in 1999 after the Pabst Brewing Co. bought out financially floundering Olympia Brewing. After acquiring Pabst, Miller Brewing invested over $10 million in capital improvements to update the century old brewery.

Only after doing so, was Miller told by the LOTT Waste-water Alliance (Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater and Thurston County) that it didn’t want the brewery on its sewer system because it used too much of the system’s capacity.

Since Miller was already paying more for water treatment at Tumwater than any of its other facilities, the company determined it would be cheaper to build its own wastewater treatment plant.

Miller agreed to disconnect from LOTT’s system and built a $13 million treatment plant. DOE bureaucrats then refused to grant Miller a permit to discharge treated wastewater into the nearby Deschutes River, citing environmental concerns.

DOE claimed salmon might be harmed by any discharge, disregarding the fact the quality of water being discharged would be higher than at any past time — and no harm had been documented in the previous 107 years.

Although the treated wastewater is nearly drinking water quality, DOE would only grant Miller the permit to discharge into the river if it agreed to meet even higher levels of water purity. “The water might be good enough for people to drink, but that doesn’t mean it’s good enough for the fish,” a DOE staffer was quoted as proudly boasting.

DOE bureaucrats openly rejoiced, knowing Miller was left with one choice – close its doors. Flushed with the joy of victory, the agency brushed aside the fact the closure will put 400 people out of work who earn family wages averaging $18 to $21 an hour, or that the brewery pumps an annual payroll of $27 million into the Thurston County economy.

Ironically, every single salmon coming up the Deschutes River is a “genetically inferior” hatchery salmon — the kind government bureaucrats whack with baseball bats and discard.

DOE has proven once again just how much more important even “genetically inferior” fish are than families and jobs.