Three Mining-Related Bills to be Subject of Public Hearing in Olympia

Three bills of interest to miners are scheduled for a public hearing on February 2 at 1:30 pm before the House Full Committee on Agriculture & Natural Resources in House Hearing Room B of the John L. O'Brien Building in Olympia.

Two of these bills have already been discussed on this blog: HB 2597 which would abolish the HPA process entirely (see here, here, and here) and HB 3037 which is a companion bill to SB 6448 and would, among other horrendous things, impose a $100 fee for the Gold & Fish pamphlet (see here and here).

The third bill is HB 2974 which would make some modifications to the enforcement provisions of chapter 77.55 RCW. The meat of this proposed legislation is contained in the following wording:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. A new section is added to chapter 77.55 RCW to read as follows:
(1) Concurrent with the initiation of an enforcement action under RCW 77.15.300, 77.55.291, or any other provision of this chapter, and within existing resources, the department must provide the person against whom an enforcement action is being taken with a statement of violation prepared consistent with the requirements of this section.
(2) Any statement of violation prepared under this section must include, at a minimum, the following contents:
(a) A detailed explanation of how the offending project is causing harm to fish life;
(b) Evidence of individual fish actually being harmed by the project, if any, including any documentation of instances of fish mortality linked to the project; and
(c) A signature by a department biologist confirming that the biologist has personally and physically investigated the impacts of the project and attests to the accuracy of the information contained in the statement of violation.
(3) The department may not pursue enforcement against any individual for a violation of this chapter that arises after the effective date of this section unless the statement of violation is provided at the time of the initiation of the enforcement action.

The apparent purpose of this bill is to require enforcement agents to produce evidence of actual harm that has occurred to fish as the result of a project instead of the current system which seems to work along the lines of "we're fining you because we think what you're doing might harm fish." Such a change would be a step in the right direction although it will do little to mitigate the damage to prospecting and mining that will occur if something along the lines of HB 3037/SB 6448 becomes law.

HB 2974 has a substantial number of sponsors in Representatives Orcutt, Herrera, Taylor, McCune, Klippert, Pearson, Kretz, Warnick, and Johnson. You can track progress of this bill at the link here. You can find the text of HB 2974 at the link here and in a link in the Legislative Alerts section of the right-hand sidebar of this blog.