House Vows To Ax Clean-Water Agency

The Senate on Wednesday voted to preserve the agency that monitors and advocates the cleanup of Puget Sound, but a House leader said the measure will be dead on arrival in the House.

“The Puget Sound Water Quality Authority is gone,” said House Agriculture and Ecology Chairman Gary Chandler, R-Moses Lake.

The House-Senate standoff is a rerun of last year, when the House blocked legislative passage of a Senate bill to keep the authority, arguing the 11-year-old agency has outlived its usefulness. The $1.3 million-a-year authority is set to go out of existence on June 30 unless it is reauthorized

Senators, voting on a bipartisan basis, reiterated their argument that the health of Puget Sound would be at risk without the authority. The measure passed 34-14.

The plan lays out steps to address such problems as “nonpoint source pollution” such as leaky septic tanks and farm runoff, municipal and industrial discharges, contaminated sediments, stormwater and combined sewer overflows, spill prevention and response, wetlands protection, research and monitoring.

, DataTimes