People For Puget Sound Had Productive Legislative Session

Bruce Wishart is policy director for People for Puget Sound. He believes that the advocates who assisted People for Puget Sound aren’t finished with their work on Hood Canal—he thinks they laid a good foundation this year for work in the 2006 session.

The 2005 legislative session will, no doubt, be remembered as a very productive one for the environmental community. For the first time in over 10 years, the legislature passed a number of major bills regarding natural resource programs and approved a budget, which, for the most part, ensured full funding of these matters.

People for Puget Sound’s legislative agenda this year focused on two major issues: the cleanup of Hood Canal and the prevention of oil spills.

On May 6, Governor Gregoire signed into law SB 5432, which calls for the establishment of an oil spill oversight commission to insure that state and federal agencies are doing everything possible to prevent a future spill in our waters. The bill, drafted by People for Puget Sound and championed by Senator Harriet Spanel (D-Bellingham), was modeled after the highly successful regional citizen advisory committee established by Congress in Alaska following the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The passage of the bill, strongly opposed by major oil companies and other shipping interests, will place fishermen, county commissioners, conservation groups and others who stand to suffer when a spill occurs in a position to oversee state programs and recommend improvements in implementation of state laws on this subject.

“For roughly 15 years conservation groups have sought to create this [oversight] council,” said Kathy Fletcher, “the legislature, the governor, and, in particular, Senator Spanel, deserve praise for their hard work to put the council in place.”

People for Puget Sound also partnered with several other groups, including Futurewise and Washington Environmental Council, to spearhead the “Sound Solutions” campaign to help save Hood Canal and Puget Sound in general: see sidebar on facing page. This campaign became an environmental priority for session.

Although progress was made this year on legislation to correct water quality problems related to the “dead zone” in Hood Canal, ultimately, major bills dealing with failing septic systems and stormwater problems were not approved by the legislature. HB 1458 offered by Representative Sam Hunt (D-Olympia) passed the House and passed out of Senate committees but lacked necessary votes to pass the floor of the Senate. Major opposition to the bill came from Senator Tim Sheldon (D-Shelton) and lobbyists representing developers.

HB 1639 sponsored by Representative Dave Upthegrove (D-Des Moines) and its senate counterpart SB 5619 sponsored by Senator Adam Kline (D-Seattle) dealt with the importance of land use planning to control water quality problems. These bills passed out of committee but met with significant opposition from local governments and business lobbyists and were ultimately defeated.

The legislature did approve significant funding ($16 million) to extend sewer lines in urbanized portions of Hood Canal currently served by septic systems. An additional $1.3 million was approved to allow marine counties to develop plans and data systems to address the problem of failing septic systems. Money was also set aside for stormwater management in the region.

Bills championed by Representative Bill Eichmeyer (D-Shelton) to establish a Hood Canal protection zone and encourage better coordination among local governments on this subject also advanced as did a bill to encourage voluntary buffers on shorelines. SB 5620, sponsored by Senator Kline, creates tax incentives to encourage voluntary buffers.

People for Puget Sound also played a major role on bills relating to shorelines protection, in particular the state Hydraulic Project Approval (HPA) permit, and legislation relating to water quality problems associated with farms (CAFO permits). After much debate over these matters, we were able to amend or defeat bills which otherwise would have undermined state programs in these areas. §