OLYMPIA — With the feds pressing Gov. Jay Inslee to better protect consumers from toxic chemicals in fish, a Senate committee gutted a potentially pivotal bill to allow the state to set up a new toxic-cleanup program.
Inslee now opposes the legislation, saying it would leave him without tools he needs to head off federal intervention in Washington’s water-pollution-control system.
Inslee’s toxic-cleanup plan calls for attacking pollution at its source, before the pollutants can get into waterways where they accumulate in fish that are then eaten by consumers. Inslee contends that his approach would be more effective than traditional cleanup methods, which focus on industrial and sewage discharges. Most pollution nowadays comes from stormwater — a foul mixture of pollutants that washes off roadways, parking lots and other hard surfaces when it rains.
Inslee’s plan — and the focus of the legislation, House Bill 1472 — is to identify the most dangerous chemicals, track them back to their source and look for safer alternatives.
Originally, the governor’s legislation would have required the Department of Ecology to develop these so-called “chemical action plans,” including ideas for removing toxic substances from the environment. The agency also could order chemical manufacturers to consider safer alternatives and even ban chemicals when safer ones are available.
But the Senate Committee on Energy, Environment and Telecommunications recently voted to take away Ecology’s ability to ban chemicals and limited the number of toxic substances Ecology could study.
“Why are we getting boxed in?” asked Rob Duff, the governor’s environmental policy adviser. “This bill provides almost no help. We really hope the Senate changes course and gives us a bill that works.”
Inslee intends for the proposed chemical-action plans to bolster his bid to avoid federal intervention in the state’s water-pollution-control system — and he is backed by industries and municipalities that fear harsher federal regulation.
Under the federal Clean Water Act, the state’s water-quality standards are required to be updated to reflect new information, but the state has been under fire for years of delay in approving new standards, now scheduled for adoption in August. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency already has indicated that the state’s proposed standards might not be strong enough.
Without a comprehensive state law, the governor will have a hard time convincing the EPA that his program can be more effective at cleaning up the state’s waters than with water-quality standards alone, Duff said.
The House approved Inslee’s plan with a 63-35 vote but only after stripping away any authority for Ecology to ban chemicals. Instead, any bans would have to be approved by the Legislature, where industry officials can lobby against Ecology’s plans. Chemical and product manufacturers made it clear during testimony on the bill that they did not trust the agency to make such critical decisions.
“This is an unprecedented delegation of legislative authority to the executive branch,” said Mark Greenberg of the American Chemistry Council, speaking against the bill before the House Environment Committee. “The power to ban any product in any home in Washington state is a very potent power.”
Although the governor’s bill approved by the House was weaker than Inslee preferred, he went along with it. Ecology would still be able to develop chemical action plans and recommend that the Legislature ban chemicals when safer alternatives could be found.
But the governor could not accept the bill coming out of the Senate committee. Under the amended bill, Ecology would not be allowed to conduct an assessment of safer alternatives without approval of the Legislature. The bill also specified that chemical action planning could be done on only two lists of chemicals — the federal “priority pollutant list” and the state list of “persistent bioaccumulative toxics.”
“It doesn’t allow us to address emerging chemicals of concern, which are the most important ones to tackle,” Duff said.
Such chemicals include pharmaceuticals and personal-care products such as deodorants and shampoos. Scientists in recent years have documented that they are widely dispersed in the environment by stormwater, septic systems and sewers. Other chemicals worthy of study but not on the lists are certain phthalates, Duff said. These chemicals are used in a variety of applications, including making plastics softer, with some linked to cancer and other health effects.
Most Democrats on the Senate committee voted against changing the bill from the House version, and they ultimately voted against the entire bill.
Inslee requested a total of about $12 million for his entire program, which goes beyond chemical action plans into research on stormwater pollution, grants for clean technology, support for local pollution investigators, monitoring toxics in people and more. The House set aside about $6 million and the Senate about $4 million to support the program, although they would spend the money on different projects.
InvestigateWest is a nonprofit newsroom for the Northwest. This story is part of a crowdfunded series on environmental issues in Olympia. Follow the series and become a backer at www.invw.org/olympia.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
