Wastewater Permit Fee Restructuring Delayed – 12/22/11
from Mike Herold, Washington State Department of Ecology
Dear lakes interest,
You may have heard some information that the Department of Ecology may be raising permit fees for pesticide applicators. We wanted you to know directly from us that Ecology has recently determined it will not move forward at this time with rule-making to restructure permit fees. However we may take this effort up in the future.
You may know that permits are required under the federal Clean Water Act. They are the state’s primary tool to prevent water pollution. Industries, businesses, construction sites, municipalities (for sewer and stormwater), and pesticide applicators must have permits to discharge anything into state waters. The permits set conditions to prevent their discharged water from harming our lakes, rivers, streams and marine waters.
The existing permit fee structure began with the people’s initiative in 1987 that mandated a principle that the cost of supplying wastewater discharge permits be paid by those who need the permits.
Currently the Department of Ecology does not have a fair and balanced water quality permit fee system.
Fees that Ecology collects from wastewater and stormwater discharge permit holders covers the state’s costs to deliver wastewater and stormwater permits. Permit fee restructuring would promote equity in fee rates so that the cost to permit holders more closely aligns with Ecology’s costs to deliver permit coverage. This would not be an effort to increase permit fee revenue.
Currently some categories pay more, and some pay less than others for similar permit services. The part of the Water Quality Program that deals with aquatic pesticide permitting is being subsidized by other categories of permittees. A disproportionate amount of staff time must be devoted to the aquatic pesticide permits due to the high degree of public concern and potential litigation surrounding the issue of toxic discharges to state waters. The fees currently collected through aquatic pesticide permits fund less than 25 percent of the state’s cost of the aquatic pesticide permits.
We expect to issue a report to the Legislature in February 2012 to discuss the options for fee restructuring.
If you are interested in following this work, you may want to bookmark the following website. Here, you will find the most current information about this effort:
www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/wdpftaskforce/index.html
If you have any questions, please call Ecology project lead Mike Herold at 360-407-6434 or send email to mike.herold@ecy.wa.gov.
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2012 11th Annual Eastern WA / North ID Regional Lake Conference
The eleventh annual Eastern Washington / North Idaho Regional Lakes Conference is hosted by the Liberty Lake Sewer and Water District, Spokane Community College Water Resources Program and the Washington Lake Protection Association.
Saturday February 4th, 2012
9:00 am – 2:00 pm
Spokane Community College
Lair – Student Union Building
N. 1810 Greene Street
Spokane WA, 9920
SPACE IS LIMITED
RSVP by Jan. 27th to:
BiJay Adams
bijay@libertylake.org
(509) 922-5443 ext. 230
Thanks to sponsors this conference is FREE!
The purpose of this conference is to provide a forum for the exchange of information and experiences of residents and lake associations in an effort to learn more about our lakes and watersheds.