Belcher right on Sound as landfill

Belcher right on Sound as landfill

Thursday, February 24, 2000

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

There's enough contaminated sediment in Puget Sound to cover 4,114 football fields, according to the Department of Natural Resources.

So it seems odd that a bill has been introduced in Olympia to certify the Sound as an underwater landfill. Odder still is that even Gov. Gary Locke and Lands Commissioner Jennifer Belcher support the concept, although Belcher opposes this particular bill.

This region is under orders from Uncle Sam to clean up the Sound to save salmon. Continuing to store contamined sediments hardly seems a prescription for restoring the health of either. The folly of using bodies of water as toxic dumps should be well understood. For example, three years ago, a cap of clean sediment meant to immobilize contaminated material in Eagle Harbor broke loose as a result of wash from ships' propellers.

Yet a bill sponsored by Rep. Kelli Linville, D-Bellingham, would force DNR to allow polluters to use the state's aquatic lands as underwater garbage dumps, and at cut rates.

A little background on the bill: Efforts of DNR, the Department of Ecology, the Port and City of Bellingham and Georgia Pacific are stalled on an agreement to clean up Bellingham Bay, mostly because Belcher takes exception to features of the polluters' proposals.

She's willing to select a few already contaminated sites to be used as underwater landfills to facilitate sediment cleanup by responsible parties -- providing taxpayers get a fair return.

But she also wants Puget Sound declared a resource of statewide significance under the Growth Management Act to offer it better protection. And she wants a 20-year plan for cleanup of the worst of the sites, with polluters and taxpayers sharing the cost, plus provisions for on-land disposal or de-watering to extract valuable materials.

Belcher's proposals make more sense than Linville's bill.

Meanwhile, Locke, in a letter to legislators last May, said DNR must adopt "practical and reasonable policies" for sediment cleanup.

"Such policies must recognize that the use of state-owned aquatic lands may be the most appropriate sites for certain activities, including wastewater discharge and sediment disposal," Locke wrote.

He urged Belcher to get on with the program in Bellingham. Otherwise, he warned, he'd sign a bill to transfer her authority over sediment cleanup to Ecology. That put her at a negotiating disadvantage in Bellingham.

Locke's threat underscores the wisdom of having the lands commissioner answerable directly to the voters, not to the governor.

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