New Bill in Legislature Would Abolish HPA Process

Washington miner Bruce Beatty has kindly informed this writer of a bill in the Washington state legislature that would eliminate the HPA (Hydraulics Project Approval) process.


HB 2597, titled, "AN ACT Relating to streamlining state environmental permitting through the elimination of the hydraulics project approval process;" was "prefiled for introduction" on January 8 by Representative Kirk Pearson (R) of Index.


Perhaps the key section of the bill of interest to miners is this one:


12 NEW SECTION. Sec. 9. The following acts or parts of acts are each
13 repealed:
...
27 (8) RCW 77.55.091 (Small scale prospecting and mining--Rules) and
28 2005 c 146 s 402 & 1997 c 415 s 2;


The current text of HB 2597 is 15 pages long and may be found on the legislature's website by visiting the link below and clicking the "original bill" link in the "Available Documents" section at the bottom of the page.


http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=2597&year=2009


There is also an orange RSS feed link for this bill available on the above page that will allow the subscriber to recieve notices of changes in the bill's status.


In addition, I have provided a link to the .pdf file of the current bill here as well as in the right-hand sidebar under the "Legislative Alerts" heading.


Representative Pearson may be contacted via the information found here.


Washington State Miner will continue to follow this and any related legislation.