2012 Legislative Session Poised for Action

2012 Legislative Session Poised for Action

2012 Legislative Session is poised for action...I’m Lacy Gray, Washington Ag Today is next.

Washington State lawmakers, obviously eager to get started on the 2012 legislative session had already proposed several new bills as of the end of December, though the session doesn’t start until January 9.

Two of the roughly seventy-five pieces of legislation that have already been submitted in the House and Senate were proposed by Senator Jim Honeyford (R-Sunnyside.) One of these is Senate Bill 6026, which modifies the State’s current definition of “wetland or wetlands”.  Senator Honeyford explains:

HONEYFORD: Really, all this bill does is align state law with federal law, and staff brought it to me. It came to me from another senator from northwest Washington that there was currently a constituent there that was having some problem, and I said sure, it makes common sense. What it does, currently the federal government recognized that any farm land that had been converted from wet lands prior to December 23 1985 were then forward considered farmland and would not be considered a wetland, and that is not the case with the State of Washington Department of Ecology.

These wetlands would also be excluded from regulation under the Growth Management Act, the Shoreline Management Act, and water pollution control statutes through this act.

Also proposed by Honeyford is Senate Bill 6027, which would authorize the Department of Ecology to award grants or provide loans to public industrial wastewater treatment facilities that relieve a city of having to process industrial wastewater.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Ag Information Network. 

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