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Wild Sky Wilderness (Wilderness.net)

"Watchful wariness about
government activities is a sign
of a healthy democracy.
Government agencies are not
always right, and we shouldn't
expect them to be.
That's why the Founding Fathers
designed an ingenious system
of checks and balances
that keep fallible public servants
from losing sight of the big picture.

"The National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA),
which took effect in 1969,
is one such check and balance.
The law requires the government
to let us—the citizens who
pay the bills—know about likely
impacts of proposed public
projects. The law also requires
government to listen to citizens
who have an interest and opinion."

—from an op-ed that then-Chapter
President Dr. Lunell Haught published in
the Spokane Spokesman-Review
Click here to read the complete essay.

  

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How Washington's GOP House delegation did on REP's new Congressional Scorecard
Click here to download complete Scorecard

Dave Reichert (Mercer Island) - 97
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Spokane) - 22
Doc Hastings (Pasco) - 8


Hanford

2010 Update: The Washington chapter signed on to an April 29, 2010 letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu urging him to withdraw Records of Decision that select Hanford as a disposal site for large volumes of low-level radioactive waste and mixed low-level radioactive waste.

On March 12, 2010, the chapter filed an official comment letter on the Department of Energy's  draft Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement for Hanford. The document examines alternatives for retrieving, treating, storing, and/or disposing of radioactive and hazardous waste. The Washington chapter strongly recommended that DOE eliminate consideration of shipping offsite radioactive waste to Hanford for storage and/or processing.

Background: Hanford, where plutonium was produced for America's nuclear arsenal, is the most polluted place in the Western Hemisphere. The radioactive and chemical byproducts of plutoniuim production created a huge legacy of wastes, including nearly 500 billion gallons of wastes dumped into unlined soil trenches; and 177 storage tanks holding 53 million gallons of mixed radioactive and chemical wastes, at least one-third of which have leaked.

In 1989, Washington State, the U.S. Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency signed the Tri-Party Agreement, a binding agreement that calls for cleanup of wastes by negotiated milestones. But poor federal management has pushed cleanup of the tanks back repeatedly and driven up the costs. Estimated cost of the vitrification plant to dispose of the wastes has soared past $11 billion.

In 2009, the state, Department of Energy, and EPA revised their agreement to extend cleanup deadlines. The deadline for removing waste from single-shell tanks was extended from 2018 to 2040, and the completion deadline for treating tank waste was extended from 2028 to 2047.

Solution: In 2004, Washington voters approved Initiative 297 by a 70 percent majority. I-297 specifies that no new waste can be introduced to Hanford until existing waste is cleaned up. The initiative has been challenged by the federal government in court. The solution is for the Washington Legislature to enact I-297 into law in a way that is consistent with existing law on state jurisdiction over mixed wastes.

Click here for a PDF copy of the Washington Chapter's March 27, 2009, letter to the Department of Energy about transfers of wastes from leaking storage tanks. Click here for a PDF copy of the Washington Chapter's March 12, 2010 comment letter on the Department of Energy's draft Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement for Hanford.

Wilderness

Background: The National Wilderness Preservation System protects pristine public lands where, in the eloquent words of the Wilderness Act, "the earth and its community of life are untrammelled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." As of September 2009, the system contains more than 109 million acres of forests, deserts, wetlands, and other natural areas, of which nearly 4.5 million acres are in Washington. The Evergreen State's newest wilderness area is the 106,000-acre Wild Sky Wilderness, designated through bipartisan legislation enacted in 2008.

On March 26, 2009, Congressman Dave Reichert, R-WA, introduced bipartisan legislation to expand the Alpine Lakes Wilderness by 22,000 acres, or 6 percent. The bill also would designate the Pratt River and the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River as wild and scenic. “What we do today will have a lasting impact on future generations. We must do our part to preserve land, not just in faraway places, but in our own backyard, here in Washington State," Congressman Reichert said.

The House Natural Resources Committee reported out the bill, HR 1769, with strong bipartisan support on February 24, 2010. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee reported out a companion bill on March 2, 2010. The next step is passage on the House and Senate floors.

Solution: Congress should pass Congressman Reichert's legislation this year.


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