Organics and packaging and water, oh my!

On the environmental front, the session had a heavy focus on solid waste, with two major proposals and one alternative competing for attention. In addition, the Legislature made modest progress on city water availability needs created by the Foster case.

On solid waste, for the third straight session there was a concerted push to establish a producer responsibility system whereby product manufacturers, rather than local ratepayers, would be responsible for the cost of recycling the packaging those products are sold to consumers in. Significant progress was made within stakeholder negotiations, including a national consumer packaging association moving to “pro” on the bill. However, the time limits of a short session proved too challenging to overcome, and the proposal did not make it out of the House of Representatives. Our expectation is that this proposal will be back again next year.

A proposal that did make it to the Governor and receive his signature was a requirement for residents to be provided—and pay for—curbside organics collection service. The intent is to address a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions—organic materials decomposing in landfills and releasing methane.  We were able to convince the Legislature to remove some of the most challenging provisions, which would have required cities to purchase back the compost that is generated by the organics collections, after it has been processed by a private processing company. We were also able to remove the costly mandate to replace collection carts based on a state color scheme.

Finally, the Senate took up a proposal to address the lost authority for water rights mitigation that was created by the Foster court case. Unfortunately, the bill did not advance beyond the policy committee; however, a budget proviso was funded that directs the Department of Ecology to develop policies and practices for how the agency uses groundwater models in water rights evaluations. While this will not independently address all the issues we have been working on, it is a helpful step to continue the conversation about how we will thoughtfully and fairly manage the state’s finite water supply for the benefit of people, farms, and fish.