Feds set to handle water cleanup
Wash. Legislature to consider funding during special session
By COOKSON BEECHER Capital Staff Writer, The Capital Press , 5/7/99
OLYMPIA - Repeated warnings that the federal government will move in with a fistful of onesize-fits-all regulations dictating how Washington will clean up its more than 600 polluted waterways is beginning to look more like fact than bluff.
Chuck Clarke, regional director of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said last week EPA is prepared to pull back the state's authority for the cleanup of the polluted waterways because the Legislature failed to come up with the necessary funding.
A last-minute provision in the state's new $20.6 million budget linked the funding for expanded cleanup efforts to passage of a bill that failed to make its way out of session.
The legislation was based on TMDLs, or "total maximum daily loads." TMDLs refer to how much pollution a waterway can handle before it has a harmful effect on wildlife and human health.
Had the legislation passed, the state's Department of Ecology would have received $1.5 million in newly appropriated state funds and $1.7 million in federal money. Much of that would have gone toward hiring an additional 20 water quality employees during the next two years.
But due to that loss in funding and therefore Ecology's inability to effectively tackle water quality issues in the polluted waterways, Clarke says he had no choice but to turn the program over to his agency.
The reason for that is based on a 1997 legal settlement with environmentalists who charged that not enough was being done to clean up the state's waterways.
In that settlement, state and federal regulators agreed to clean up the polluted waterways within 15 years.
Ecology was entrusted with that responsibility, with funding coming from both the state and federal governments.
When asked if he was bluffing about taking the state out of the picture, Clarke said, "They can believe anything they want, but I'm sitting here with a court order to do it (get the waterways cleaned up), and I'm going to do it". As for how that shift in power will affect farmers, he said it comes down to a more top-down approach. "We're not going to be as sensitive to the user groups," he said.
Instead, EPA would tell polluters what they have to do. That's in marked contrast to current efforts to clean up waterways, which give those involved some flexibility in fixing the problem.
For farmers, timber growers, industries and municipalities, a top-down approach is expected to add up to higher costs to control pollution.
Clarke is not alone in the way he's approaching the issue. On the state side, Ecology director Tom Fitzsimmons has already sent Clarke a letter "alerting" him that Ecology has been unable to secure funding to implement the legal settlement and requesting a meeting to discuss the issue further.
Pointing out that even though there's a possibility that the Legislature will come up with the funding during the special session that begins May 17, Fitzsimmons wrote in his letter to Clarke " . . . in the meantime, it is appropriate for EPA and Ecology to explore the possibility and consequences of terminating the agreement and returning this program to EPA."
Not so fast, says a more optimistic Rep. Kelli Linville, D-Bellingham, co-chair of the House Agriculture & Ecology Committee and a member of the House Appropriations Committee.
"I have no intention for the bill to die or not to have the funding," she said.
She plans to meet with Sen. Karen Fraser, D-Lacey, chair of the Environmental Quality & Water Resources Committee, who blocked passage of the bill based on environmental concerns.
'My job is to see if we can come to a solution,' said Linville. "This break between the end of the session and the startup of the special session gives us time to work together to resolve concerns about the language in the legislation."
Linville pointed out that when EPA did step in to bring dairies into compliance with the Clean Water Act, the agency levied huge fines.
'Me focus was on enforcement," she said. This could happen again. There could be strategic hits that would be painful."
One of the major unresolved issues surrounding the proposed TMDL legislation revolves around whether a definite limit should be put on the length of time people have to voluntarily clean up their operations.
Under this session's TMDL legislation, pollution-control efforts, which could include farm plans, best management practices and the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, would be reviewed after five years, and DOE would advise streamside property owners what they should do if further cleanup efforts were necessary.
But environmentalists would like to see a definite time limit set. Those whose efforts haven't gone far enough in a certain amount of time would then be told what to do under TMDL guidelines.
There are also concerns about the level of immunity granted to the timber industry, especially loggers, in this session's TMDL legislation.
Nevertheless, Linville said solving the problem isn't a case of who blinks first.
'We're past that now," she said. "If we don't cooperate, we could lose control of the cleanup program."
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