New pollutants cleanup account passes House

OLYMPIA - Senate Bill 6722, sponsored by Sen. Debbie Regala, D-Tacoma, creating a new account for cleaning up pollutants, was unanimously passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday. The Senate unanimously passed the bill on Feb. 19.

The newly created State Treasury Cleanup Settlement Account would receive deposits from court ordered settlement agreements with the parties responsible for the pollution. These funds will be used to pay for state-conducted cleanup work or to assess and address damage to natural resources caused by the specific polluted site.

“This ensures that settlement funds related to a specific site actually go to the clean up of that site,” said Regala.

In 1988, the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) was approved by Washington voters to provide a regulatory structure, standards, and funding source to clean up contaminated properties and to prevent the creation of future hazardous waste sites. SB 6722 does not replace the MTCA, but directs the Department of Ecology to track money received, interest earned, and expenditures made for each individual site and to oversee the cleanup. The account will receive its proportionate share of interest earnings.

Future clean up costs could be in the hundreds of millions, which will not be covered by the settlement amount of bankruptcies, but through this new account where the funds received would keep their own interest and be used for the same site. Keeping the interest earnings is not a departure from what is already being done in certain cases where the court order requires the funds to go into private settlement accounts and keep their own interest.

The House amendment to the bill makes a technical correction to remove the reference to a proposed constitutional amendment that was placed on the ballot in the November 2007 general election.

The Senate must approve the House amendments before it can move to Governor Gregoire’s desk for signing. The 2008 Session is scheduled to adjourn March 13.

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