Legislature(2001 - 2002)
06/07/2001 02:56 PM Senate TRA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
SENATE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE
June 7, 2001
2:56 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator John Cowdery, Chair
Senator Jerry Ward, Vice Chair
Senator Robin Taylor
Senator Gary Wilken
Senator Kim Elton
MEMBERS ABSENT
All Members Present
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
CS FOR HOUSE BILL NO. 260(FIN) am
"An Act requiring the owners or operators of certain commercial
passenger vessels operating in the marine waters of the state to
register with the Department of Environmental Conservation;
establishing information-gathering, record keeping, and reporting
requirements relating to the vessels' graywater, sewage, hazardous
substances, hazardous wastes, solid wastes, and other pollutants;
establishing certain sampling, testing, reporting, and record-
keeping requirements as terms and conditions of permitting
discharges from the vessels; authorizing the Department of
Environmental Conservation to provide for independent verification
of compliance by the vessels, and to monitor and supervise
discharges from the vessels; prohibiting the discharge of untreated
sewage from the vessels; placing limits on discharges of treated
sewage and graywater from the vessels; providing that there is no
audit report privilege for complying with a requirement that the
owner or operator of a commercial passenger vessel must report
discharges of sewage or graywater that violate laws; establishing a
fee, ranging from $.70 - $1.75 per berth, with a maximum of $3,750
per voyage, on commercial passenger vessels that are not operated
by the state for each voyage during which the vessels operate in
the marine waters of the state based on the overnight accommodation
capacity of the vessels determined with reference to the number of
lower berths; providing for a fee for vessels operated by the state
to be determined by an agreement between the commissioner of
environmental conservation and the commissioner of transportation
and public facilities; authorizing the Department of Environmental
Conservation to research, monitor, and study discharges and
releases from commercial passenger vessels, including the opacity
of air emissions from the vessels; establishing penalties for
failure to comply with certain laws relating to the vessels;
authorizing the Department of Environmental Conservation to
encourage and recognize superior environmental protection efforts
related to commercial passenger vessels; authorizing the Department
of Environmental Conservation to adopt regulations to implement
laws relating to commercial passenger vessels and directing the
department to use negotiated regulation procedures, when
appropriate, to develop the regulations; establishing a commercial
passenger vessel coastal protection fund; requiring a report from
the Department of Environmental Conservation concerning matters
relating to the vessels; and providing for an effective date."
MOVED SCS CSHB 260(TRA) OUT OF COMMITTEE
PREVIOUS SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION
HB 260 - See Transportation minutes dated 5/6/01.
WITNESS REGISTER
Mr. Bill Wolf
Assistant to Senator Frank Murkowski
United States Senate
322 Hart Building
Washington, DC 20510-0202
POSITION STATEMENT: Explained the provisions of the federal cruise
ship discharge legislation.
Lt. Commander Spencer Wood
Vessel Compliance
17th Coast Guard District
Juneau, AK 99801
POSITION STATEMENT: Answered questions about SCS CSHB 260(TRA) and
the Coast Guard's operations.
Lt. Commander Mike Tousley
Assistant Legal Officer
17th Coast Guard District
Juneau, AK 99801
POSITION STATEMENT: Answered questions about SCS CSHB 260(TRA) and
the Coast Guard's operations.
Commissioner Michele Brown
Department of Environmental Conservation
410 Willoughby Ave. Ste. 105
Juneau, AK 99801-1795
POSITION STATEMENT: Answered questions regarding SCS CSHB 260(TRA).
Mike Conway, Director
Division of Statewide Public Service
Department of Environmental Conservation
410 Willoughby Ave. Ste. 105
Juneau, AK 99801-1795
POSITION STATEMENT: Answered questions regarding SCS CSHB 260(TRA).
Mr. Mike Harcourt
Oceans Blue Foundation
405-134 Abbott St.
Vancouver, B.C. V6B2K4
POSITION STATEMENT: Expressed support for cruise ship discharge
legislation.
Randy Ray, President
U.S. Cruiseship Association
P.O. Box 979
Mercer Island, WA 98040
POSITION STATEMENT: Expressed support for cruise ship discharge
legislation and requested SCS CSHB 260(TRA) be amended.
John Palmes
No address provided
Juneau, AK 99801
POSITION STATEMENT: Believes that SCS CSHB 260(TRA) is unnecessary.
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 01-19, SIDE A
Number 001
[THE FOLLOWING IS A VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT.]
CHAIRMAN JOHN COWDERY: ...about 2:56 on the 7th of June. Today
we're hearing testimony on the cruise ship bill. I'd just like to
say early on that I've done quite a bit of work on this bill when I
was back East with my wife who is doing quite well. I contacted
Senator Leman, as well as my staff, three or four times a day at
times to try to work on this subject and did extensive work on this
bill. The first thing I'd like to adopt - a motion to adopt the
committee substitute.
SENATOR WARD: Mr. Chairman, I would move to adopt SCS CSHB
260(TRA), Version R, along with the accompanying [fiscal] notes and
ask unanimous consent.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Hearing no objections, so moved. We're going to
hear today - I'd like to note that we have a quorum here too,
Senator Wilken, Senator Ward and myself and I see Senator Elton and
Senator Taylor in the hall just coming inside, so with that we'll
move along. I apologize for the wait and the witnesses that had to
wait for this but this is a very important issue so we had a more
important issue that we dealt with in the Judiciary - certainly
more important than this. But anyway, here we are and the first up
- I notice the Coast Guard has been here and I'd like to ask them
to come forward and identify themselves and, if I could, before I
get to you, I just got notice that Senator Murkowski's staff is on
line so as a courtesy to them - it's 7 or 8 o'clock back there now.
Bill Wolf, are you there?
MR. BILL WOLF, congressional aide to Senator Murkowski: Yes, Mr.
Chairman, I'm here.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Okay, if you could give a brief statement on
Senator Murkowski's behalf I'd appreciate it.
MR. WOLF: All right, thank you Mr. Chairman. It's always a
pleasure to visit with members of the Legislature. I've had that
opportunity several times in my career back here. I did not, I
will confess, come prepared to make much of a statement. My
purpose in being with you at Senator Murkowski's request is to make
myself available basically to answer any questions that you may
have on the purpose and scope of the federal legislation. As
everyone I think knows, Senator Murkowski took the lead on crafting
federal legislation to address the wastewater issue that came to a
head over the last couple of years. Although we began with various
parties expressing various degrees of concern, we ended with a bill
that all of the major parties, all of the different federal
agencies that are involved, the state, the environmental community
and the industry, all agreed was a good approach. And so, if you
have questions on that, I'd be pleased to answer them.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Yes, Senator Ward.
SENATOR WARD: Can you just briefly outline what point the Senator
was trying to get across in the letter that he sent to all of us?
MR. WOLF: Yes, Mr. Chairman. We've been following, with great
interest, the press on this subject because of the history this
office has with it. It appeared clear to us in doing so that there
were some misunderstandings. There was not a clear picture, we
felt, of the scope and extent of the federal legislation as to what
it did and didn't do and so forth. Senator Murkowski obviously
knew you all were moving into a special session. It has gotten a
great deal of attention. This is a crucial - both as an
environmental matter and as an economic matter and we wanted to be
sure that there was a clear understanding of what the federal
legislation actually accomplishes in the hope that would better
inform the deliberations that you're going to be undertaking here
today.
SENATOR WARD: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, just a follow up on that
and then I assume the Coast Guard will be able to fill us in on
exactly what those misunderstandings may be or did you want to?
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: I'd prefer that the Senator's staff do that. I
don't think we should put the Coast Guard on - make an opinion on
what that ....
MR. WOLF: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I don't have a full set of press
clippings in front of me to point out every little thing but I can
give you one example off of the top of my head. One writer
suggested that there was no control over hazardous waste and, in
fact, there is. We have a situation and let me describe - perhaps
it would be helpful if I described in a little bit greater detail.
As we went in to this, we had a situation in which certain vessels
had been found to be discharging unacceptable materials in their
wastewater. We also had a situation where allegations had been
made that vessels were being directed into the so-called donut
holes, the small enclaves of federal waters that are actually
within the Alexander Archipelago, to discharge untreated sewage.
Both of those things are just intolerable and unacceptable so we
undertook to address them.
At that time, and to the best of my knowledge, still the only
issues of illegal discharge have involved wastewater discharges of
one type or another. As we began to address it, we discovered that
the issues we were trying to look at could be broken into three
basic parts: there's the issue of untreated sewage, the issue of
treated sewage, and the issue of graywater. Hazardous materials,
toxic chemicals, such as photo-processing chemicals or solvents
used in dry cleaning, were and are and will continue to be illegal
under federal law as inclusions in wastewater. One of the
companies that ended up paying a substantial penalty was caught
because of the federal Clean Water Act, other regulations under
which those types of discharges are already illegal. So what we
dealt with were the types of discharges that were of concern but
had not yet been addressed by federal law and I've named those
three. Raw sewage was addressed very simply by outlawing the
discharge of raw sewage in the waters of the state of Alaska,
including the federal waters that are within the Alexander
Archipelago or occur in the Kachemak Bay estuary preserve area,
which also has some federal waters. Treated sewage has a standard
that should be adhered to in federal law already. It is a standard
that was established for the operation of Type 2 marine sanitation
devices. As an interim measure, because there is no science that
we are aware of that examines in detail the effects of those
discharges on marine organisms, we chose to adopt the standard for
the Type 2 MSD. Graywater, again there are no standards other than
saying that it is illegal to put chemicals and salts and those
sorts of things in it. For graywater, additional scientific
analysis is needed we feel. And so, in both of the latter two
cases, our bill directs the Environmental Protection Agency to
continue a study that it already has ongoing - do the science and
come up with appropriate regulations based on the environmental
concerns that are revealed by the scientific analysis and the types
of materials that can be found in these two different types of
discharge.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Thank you. When I first got this bill, I
studied what Senator Murkowski had done and - you know, the old
political statement of, if it isn't broken, don't fix it - and I
didn't ever see and still don't understand what is really broken.
I know that we've had testimony - the last time, or I've been
reading in the paper, there's been a lot of press on this, sold a
lot of newspapers, that we need this just because of the couple of
incidents where there were illegal discharges recently. Well, in
my opinion, it was taken care of timely. The Coast Guard was on
top of it. They did their job. I think they're the best suited to
do this and having other laws, or another body, to have
jurisdiction over this, I fail to see where that would have stopped
anything. The illegal discharges were taken care of. They should
have been taken care of but, anyway, that's just a statement on my
part. Do you have anything else or do you want to standby?
MR. WOLF: Mr. Chairman, I'd be happy to stand by if you have any
other questions. I think that pretty well covers, although very
basically, the bulk of the bill - at least that part of it that
pertains to actual discharges. Obviously the bill contains other
provisions providing for substantial administrative, civil and, in
some cases, criminal penalties if those are required. It contains
language that directs the Coast Guard and the Environmental
Protection Agency to work together to sample and test effluents
from cruise ships, wastewater discharges from cruise ships and to
respond appropriately. There are provisions, also I would note,
that specifically allow the state to take what action the state
deems appropriate. That pretty well covers it.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Okay, thank you, and if you would stand by there
may be some questions and feel free to interrupt if you have any
comments. I'd like to go now - we have two gentlemen here from the
Coast Guard. If you'd identify yourself and make a brief opening
statement and then we will maybe have some questions.
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER MIKE TOUSLEY, United States Coast Guard, 17th
District: Mr. Chairman, Senators, I'm Lt. Commander Mike Tousley
and I'm with the Coast Guard District legal office.
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER SPENCER WOOD, United States Coast Guard, 17th
District: Senator - Lt. Commander Spencer Wood with the 17th
District Coast Guard Office here in Juneau and I have been co-chair
of the Wastewater Group for the Alaska Cruise Ship Initiative for
the last two years.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Thank you. I'll start it off, if I could ask a
few questions. I don't expect you to get involved in opinions or
anything, but I would like to ask, do the Coast Guard ships comply
with the provisions - presently comply with these provisions for
sanitary systems that we're trying to achieve?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Mr. Chairman, Coast Guard cutters have Type 2
marine sanitation devices on board that meet the standards in 33
CFR 159, which are the 200 and 150.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: All Coast Guard ships will comply then or just
part of them?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: All Coast Guard cutters comply, yes sir.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: What about the Navy?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: I can't speak to the Navy.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: What about the large and small fishing vessels?
Do they comply with this?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: There are varying standards, depending on the
size of the fishing vessel. Some do and some don't. The smaller
ones don't. They typically have either a holding tank onboard and
they pump it ashore or they get outside of areas where it is
allowed to be dumped - discharged - and they discharge it
untreated.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: But they do - the question is, if this bill is
adopted, would they - to your knowledge would the large and the
small ones comply or would they have to do work to make it comply?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Would they comply with the bill that's before
you sir?
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Yes.
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Fishing vessels, no.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Does the Coast Guard - have they checked all of
the Alaska Marine Highway vessels regarding the gray and black
water for standards.
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: No.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Who has jurisdiction over the Alaska waters?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Out to three miles, the State of Alaska has
jurisdiction, and the federal government has jurisdiction. It
depends on what laws you're speaking to.
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: From the three miles - or from the baseline
out to 200 miles, the federal government has jurisdiction.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Or the Coast Guard or the Navy or whoever.
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: Yes, sir.
SENATOR WARD: Mr. Chairman, the baseline?
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: The baseline is mean low water.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Do you see - I don't want to get you in a tight
spot - I know our good Representative congressman has recently
appropriated a lot of money for the Coast Guard to bring - it will
be well spent and I'm sure you appreciate that but - do you see any
duplicate efforts between the federal law, or the Murkowski bill
and this present HB 260?
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: I think the two bills complement each
other. There are things in the state legislation that aren't
accomplished in the federal legislation.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: One last question on my part. When will the
proposed federal regulations of the Murkowski bill be in effect?
Do you know?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Well, the Title 14 legislation is in effect
right now - as of December 21st. There are self-executing portions
of that Murkowski legislation, which the cruise ships have to meet
today - right now. And then there are sections of Title 14 that
require promulgation of regulations in order to implement. We've
just gone through the proposed rulemaking process. The public
comment closed on that on May 25th and we're now completing the
packet for the final rule. We expect that to complete the process
by mid-July and when it is published - we expect that to be
published and enforceable on the date of publication.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Thank you. Are there any other questions of the
Coast Guard? Senator Taylor.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Recently we had a tour ship in Southeast Alaska
that turned itself in. It made some press. It was rumored that it
could suffer a fine of up to $25,000. Was that on inside waters
where that boat was located and, if so, can you tell me about that
incident?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: There were actually two incidents. I think
the one you're referring to was a vessel headed toward Ketchikan
from Juneau, it was underway at the time. That vessel was in the
old donut holes - beyond three miles but still within the Alexander
Archipelago. We had received a letter from that company saying
that they would hold their wastes while in the applicable waters of
Alaska and that they would only pump those beyond the three-mile
limit outside of the Alexander Archipelago. They had a second
engineer onboard that, for some reason, either thought they were
beyond those waters or, for whatever reason, started the system up
and pumped treated sewage while still within the applicable waters
of Alaska. As soon as the company discovered that, they shut that
down. They notified the Coast Guard. We went down to do samples
of the waste representative of what they were discharging and they
exceeded the parameters in Title 14 and so civil penalty action is
underway.
SENATOR TAYLOR: This was a vessel of more than 500 passengers?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Yes sir.
SENATOR TAYLOR: So it would fall both within [HB] 260 but it also
falls - and I'm assuming at that point you were enforcing the
Murkowski law, weren't you?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Yes sir.
Number 1210
SENATOR TAYLOR: So that law is not only in effect, but it's
actually being enforced right now on inside waters in Southeast
Alaska?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Yes sir.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Is there any right for anybody, under federal or
state law, to dump cleaning solvents or processing chemicals from
photographic ...?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: No sir.
SENATOR TAYLOR: So, we're not gaining anything by passing this law
- that one, because you can't legally do that anyhow today. You'd
be fined under federal law, wouldn't you?
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: That's correct but there are different
things other than the areas that are otherwise addressed by the
federal legislation that Mr. Wolf referred to that are in the state
legislation that otherwise complement the federal legislation.
There's different stuff besides that. There's a greater assessment
scheme. I think that the federal legislation is trying to get at
more of an enforcement scheme. The state legislation has that, as
well as more of an assessment - what is going on, what is the
discharge on a vessel. There's some uncertainty as to what's
there, and the state's trying to capture data so they can determine
exactly what is being discharged. The federal statute isn't after
that assessment portion so much as just enforcement of the
standard.
SENATOR TAYLOR: But at least, under those two vessels that I was
inquiring about, the Murkowski law is working and having an effect
upon them? And that was all on inside waters?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Absolutely sir.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Did you gentlemen notice an article in the
newspaper here in Juneau yesterday that talked about more than 50
percent of the vessels who may become subjected to this law have
already declared, so to speak, publicly that they would be moving
offshore now and dumping the very same products in the waters of
the Pacific but would do so offshore and they talk about a 12 mile
area?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Senator, Mr. Chairman, yes. I read that
article and I'm also very familiar with that issue. We currently
have 11 vessels that are participating in the ongoing voluntary
program that was established last year and continued this year.
The remainder of the vessels that come to Alaska have opted not to
be involved in the voluntary sampling because they are holding
their waste and not discharging it in the applicable waters of
Alaska. The reasoning that I've heard from them is that we know
we're not meeting the standard 100 percent of the time through our
systems and so we've opted to hold this waste until we get offshore
where we can legally dump it and so, the point of sampling that
waste seems moot because we know the numbers are going to be high
and what are we going to learn from that? That was their
reasoning.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Senator Ward.
SENATOR WARD: Thank you. I just wanted to clarify something here.
You said that all Coast Guard vessels in Alaska meet the standards
under HB 260 as it currently is written. Is that correct?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: No, I think I misunderstood the question. I
thought you were speaking to the existing laws.
SENATOR WARD: No. And, so this is what I would like to know - are
the ships that are currently under the jurisdiction of the Coast
Guard, if HB 260 was in law today, would they be in violation of
the law?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Senator and Chairman, as I read the bill I
understood those vessels to be exempted.
SENATOR WARD: All right, if I can maybe restate it. If they were
to come under the same rules as we are going to put the cruise
ships under - you know, we the people - the government - own your
ships. We the people buy passage on the other ones. So, if our
government-owned ships were under the same regulations as the ones
that the people are buying tickets on, would they be in violation
today under HB 260?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: No sir, I don't believe they would be in
violation.
SENATOR WARD: So they have this cleaning stuff already in them or
do they go out to sea and dump?
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: They do both, depending on class and size.
SENATOR WARD: Okay. Do you have any of them that do not have the
capabilities of self cleaning itself and have to go out 12 miles in
order to be legal? I need some help here because I'm trying to
understand boats so you guys are it. Are you both lawyers?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Even as a ship driver, generally, our rule was
if we had sewage waste, it was beyond three miles that we
discharged it because there are variances and whether or not our
equipment is working properly occasionally, so our rule was, just
to make sure that everything was working right, that we went beyond
three miles. I'm not a naval engineer so I can't tell you
specifically ....
SENATOR WARD: All right, then how - just some common sense stuff
here. We're going to tell these guys you have to do some certain
things in order to come into our waters. Do we now have Coast
Guard ships that are going to go outside of the limit because they
can't meet those same criteria we're putting on the cruise ships?
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: Our operations will not be modified by
what's in HB 260.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: We understand that.
SENATOR WARD: That was not my question.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: We understand you're exempt, but say if ....
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: Even absent the exemption we would not
have to modify our operations.
SENATOR WARD: Would you not - if I might, Mr. Chairman - would you
not modify it because you are going out to dump at sea or because
you had the capability of taking care of it?
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: We don't have the same clean disposal
equipment that would necessarily be required for all of what's in
[HB] 260.
SENATOR WARD: And what would it cost the Coast Guard to make all
their ships the same as what we're going to make the cruise ships
do? Rough ball park - how many ships do you have?
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: That's a hard question, Senator. I really
would - it would be millions sir, just as it's millions for the
cruise vessels.
SENATOR WARD: How many millions? We're the state legislature,
millions don't bother us.
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: No idea.
SENATOR WARD: Would it be $30 million?
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: I don't think that we should put them through
the ....
SENATOR WARD: I was just trying to figure out what we are doing to
people, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: It's obvious they are not going to break the
law. It's obvious this bill doesn't have jurisdiction with the
Coast Guard but I think that what we were trying to get at, you
dump offshore, you don't break any laws and you don't intend to
break any laws. But the reason you have to dump offshore, most of
your facilities onboard would not meet the criteria that we're
trying to establish here. Is that a true statement?
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: Okay, thank you.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: I'd like to make note too that we have a full
quorum. I acknowledged you when you were outside. I saw you in the
window. So Senator Elton, Senator Taylor, and Ward and Wilken have
been here for the entire meeting. But anyway ....
SENATOR ELTON: Commander Wood, you've been a part of the cruise
ship initiative process since the beginning and late in 1999, I
think. And one of you, and I'm sorry I can't remember which one,
described HB 260 as complementing the federal law. Could you
articulate for the committee those discharges that are covered in
HB 260 that aren't covered in the Murkowski bill?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Yes, Senator, Mr. Chairman. As I have read
[HB] 260 and the latest version of that, I think the primary
discharge that has specific standards that is not in Title 14 is
the graywater beyond a mile and going more than six knots.
Currently, Title 14 allows the EPA to establish standards which
have not yet been set for graywater. This bill would set standards
for graywater.
SENATOR ELTON: And my understanding, if I could follow up, Mr.
Chair, my understanding also is that the federal law does not cover
air emissions.
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Right, right.
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: The Murkowski legislation does not cover
air emissions.
SENATOR WARD: But federal law does?
LT. COMMANDER TOUSLEY: Yes, sir.
SENATOR ELTON: That's delegated to the state now?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: You'd have to speak to the EPA.
SENATOR ELTON: Thanks, Mr. Chair.
SENATOR WARD: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Yes.
SENATOR WARD: Graywater and six knots makes something legal - that
means how fast the boat is going when we dump the graywater and the
shower water or bathroom water? Can you tell me more about that?
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Yes, sir. In Title 14, for vessels operating
within the applicable waters of Alaska, the standard is 200 fecal
coliform and 150 total suspended solids for treated sewage
discharges. For graywater, there is no standard for graywater
established for either fecal coliform or total suspended solids.
For less than a mile from shore, or for vessels going less than six
knots in speed within the applicable waters of Alaska, there are
standards for graywater and there are standards for treated sewage.
They are much stricter standards that they have to meet with an
associated sampling regime, but as long as the vessel is going at
least six knots and the vessel is at least a mile from shore, the
graywater standard doesn't apply.
SENATOR WARD: Thank you Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: We appreciate that. I think that's all of the
questions we have. If you want to sit by through this issue that
would be fine. Whatever. I think you answered and I appreciate
you standing by and holding for us.
LT. COMMANDER WOOD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: The next up - I've asked the DEC, Michele Brown,
to come and make - we're trying to get through this so we don't
need a lot of rhetoric and more statements but we're here to have
you answer some questions so if you'd ....
MS. MICHELE BROWN, Commissioner of the Alaska Department of
Environmental Conservation: With your permission, can Mr. Conway
join us?
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Sure. If you'd identify yourselves and your
department?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Thank you sir. Mr. Chairman, I'm Michele
Brown from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
MR. MICHAEL CONWAY, Director of the Division of Statewide Public
Service, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation: I'm
Michael Conway from the Alaska Department of Environmental
Conservation.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: And with your caveat in mind, Mr. Chairman, I
will not make a lengthy opening statement. I would just like to
say we have worked at DEC long and hard with the industry, both the
small operators and the large operators, and with members of the
House to craft a bill that provides protections to Alaska's air and
water and has reasonable operating rules that do not negatively
affect the industry. We do have support for language, which the
bill that came over to you on [HB] 260, for those provisions as
well as for the CS that we had offered you that did some
housekeeping changes, minor changes that legal drafting didn't take
care of, and also some changes to the small operators. The reason
we did that - and they'll be testifying later so if I make any
misstatements - but the reason we did it, with the small operators,
they are configured differently. They have different operating
constraints and we need to be sensitive to that. They wanted to
comply right away with the monitoring, reporting and testing
provisions because they do believe in doing what they think is best
in protecting waters. They needed some time to come into
compliance with the standards and to budget for the fees. But the
one mile, six knots requirements could be - make a complete
restraint for them actually coming into our waters because they are
not sized so that they can hold sufficient wastewater. So those
amendments address those things and that's the package you had in
front of you.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Senator Ward.
SENATOR WARD: Okay, and on that - and thank you for coming today,
Michele. Can you - I think I know the answer to it but I probably
should ask the question just so that I'm sure of it. Can you tell
the committee what graywater is?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Yes sir. Through the Chair, Senator Ward.
Graywater is basically the wastewater that's not from the toilets.
It's not the sewage water, which is called black water. Graywater
comes from sinks, showers, laundry, galley water.
SENATOR WARD: If I may, Mr. Chairman, laundry but not dry cleaning
- soap laundry.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Exactly.
SENATOR WARD: And if I might Mr. Chairman? And if this graywater
is shoved out or let go if it's going six knots, then it's all
fine? Is that correct?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Under the language of [HB] 260, that graywater
has to be treated to a level that limits the amount of fecal
coliform and TSS [total suspended solids] that comes out in the
discharge as well as authorizes us to work with folks to set other
effluent limits on other parameters that may be of concern. So it
does have to meet a level of treatment, which it currently does not
have to do under federal law.
SENATOR WARD: And if I might, Mr. Chairman? One last question.
And the [HB] 260 would not allow that to be discharged any closer
or at any less speed?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Not unless it was treated to a higher quality.
If it were treated to a higher quality it could be, but if it's not
treated to a higher quality then it needs to be at one mile, six
knots.
SENATOR WARD: Thank you Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: On the graywater issue, I have - I'm sure you
have a better understanding than I, but shower water - what if a
guy didn't take a shower and jumped in the ocean. Would he be in
violation? I mean, you know, this is a very, very fine line here
that I'm wondering what we're trying to achieve if it's reasonable.
Or, even if you talk about laundry - if he had his clothes on and
did it - would it be in violation? I just wanted to point out that
some of these are difficult to justify the reasoning of where we're
trying to go on this. We all want clean water, clean air and
everything.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: I think most people thought that graywater was
going to be benign. That's why it hasn't been regulated under
federal law. I think the industry believed it was benign. When we
did the testing is when we discovered it was not benign. 70
percent of the graywater samples that we took exceeded the
standards for treated sewage - some of them 50 thousand times the
level. So, graywater does need to be treated as it comes off of
these vessels because it does have high levels of contaminants.
One individual jumping into the sea is different than the wastes
over the course of a season, a million people, passengers and crew.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Or a million people jumping into the sea.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: A million lemmings jumping into the sea.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: I just wanted to get that clarified. When we
were here before we called this special session, I leaned a little
bit on the cruise ship industry to get a memorandum of
understanding, which they finally developed, not that they - well I
kind of leaned on them a little bit. Your response, or the
Administration's response, you don't do memorandums of
understanding, you want it by law. I have to take issue with that
because I think we did one with BP recently on the merger problem.
I think we did one a few years ago on the gas - the flaring in the
gas that was going on in the North Slope and I think it even had -
the pollution that was created. But, anyway, you said that - just
getting back to your statement, we don't do it - in Section
46.03.020 it tells the powers of your department. It says
departments may enter into contracts and compliance agreements
necessary or convenient to carry out the functions and powers of
the department. Then, later on, it's a lengthy document but under
definitions, it has - compliance agreement means a mutual
understanding and voluntary enforceable agreement on a course of
action for a specific set of circumstances, entered into by the
department or a person to control, prevent, or abate air, water,
land and subsurface land pollution. So, the fact is, you do have -
you could have done that - am I correct in saying, getting a
memorandum of understanding so we wouldn't have had to have this
special session?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Mr. Chairman, we have authority to do
memorandums of understanding but we have never used that for
regulatory matters. We do that, for instance, if we're going to do
a study and we need to receive money or we need to work out with
the municipality who is going to do which task so we don't have
duplication, but we have never used a memorandum to establish
regulatory authority. That is a matter and, certainly in my
opinion, that ought to be done in discussion with the legislature.
You are the body that makes laws and gives us our authorities and
so we have never done it for regulatory matters.
On the issue - the BP Charter was specifically for non-regulatory
matters. It was for things that go over and above. It was
commitments from them for environmental improvements that are over
and above regulatory requirements. So, it's not something they
were already required to do by law or something that we intended to
make them want to do by proposing a law to you. It was other
commitments that they would make. I don't know, on the gas
flaring, I could see what I can find out what that is. On
compliance agreements, those are when you have a violation of law,
and rather than go to court and seek enforcement action, you enter
into a compliance agreement.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Isn't that what we had here?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: No, because we didn't have a state law that
they were violating. We didn't have the premise of - you know when
we have a law, they violate it, we then make a settlement
agreement, which is a compliance order.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Senator Taylor.
SENATOR TAYLOR: I was curious, Michele, in light of the discovery
that you made on graywater, and this seems somewhat shocking to you
people, what are our current graywater standards in Alaska for the
average house? Aren't they different?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: We don't regulate the average house.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Well why not? If it's 3,500 times higher in fecal
coliform, shouldn't we be doing that?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Well, our law ....
SENATOR TAYLOR: Or are we only going to do this with the guy that
comes in from out of town?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: We're going to do this where the volume is
greatest. We didn't write the laws that didn't require us to do
reviews of individual septic systems. State water quality
standards do set a limit though for fecal coliform that would be in
black water or graywater. And so when we do permits for facilities
that are permitted, we do set a graywater effluent standard.
SENATOR TAYLOR: You have the capacity right now, don't you, to set
those regulations and standards on graywater?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Yes, for permitted facilities we set
standards. For people that are not subject to our oversight we
don't without coming back to you for laws. For instance, we don't
permit individual septic systems.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Who does that?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Either no one or local government. I mean if
we have somebody discharging so much from the system that's
creating a nuisance, then we have a violation of a state law in the
sense of creating a nuisance or harm.
MR. CONWAY: Mr. Chair, if I could amplify that a little bit?
First, the treated facilities that the Commissioner is talking
about, the homes that are on treatment systems going to a sewage
treatment plant, so that's the connection for the permitted
facility. For septic systems, the state does not have a program.
There used to be a program for septic systems years ago before
budget cuts of the '90s hit. We do have a program for multiple
dwelling complexes. We have the resources and the funding for plan
approval, plan review and approvals and so forth, if there were to
be an apartment building or a multi-complex building that had its
own treatment system - it wasn't on the municipal treatment then
there is regulation of that. It's just a matter of the number of
people that you have, the amount of funding that you have in the
agency, how far down you can get in doing that so we don't do
individual septic systems.
SENATOR TAYLOR: How do you prioritize it - based on money?
MR. CONWAY: And the risk, the risk that's posed by the kind of
discharge.
SENATOR TAYLOR: If you're not measuring, I'm kind of wondering how
you'd know the risk. I guess you don't.
MR. CONWAY: Well the risk is - as I said before, we had a program
before where we had information on that and then, when you look at
a complex of four or five housing units together, as opposed to
ones that are along the beach kinds of things, so there is
information that is there that was used to evaluate that risk back
when the funding was cut to be able to decide what facilities will
we continue to regulate and which of those could we not regulate.
SENATOR TAYLOR: I guess the concern I have is, apparently, we now
are going to regulate graywater standards on boats - oh I'm sorry,
on some boats, not all boats, only boats that are above 250. Is
that it?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: No, it will be vessels with overnight
accommodations that carry over 50 passengers but ....
SENATOR TAYLOR: But that won't take effect for four years, will
it?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: No, for the large ships it takes effect right
away. For the smaller vessels, it would take effect in three years
for the standards.
SENATOR TAYLOR: That's something I meant to ask you. When does
this bill take effect? If we pass it tomorrow, when does it take
effect?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: July 1.
SENATOR TAYLOR: There's no immediate effective date on this thing?
We have a special session and we don't even have an immediate
effective date?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Well, if you pass it through this special
session it will be in effect in time.
SENATOR TAYLOR: No, it would be in effect July 1, not immediately.
Immediately would be June 8th or 9th, as soon as the Governor could
sign it. It seemed to me he was pretty concerned about this
because he said every day's delay in legislative action - these are
the Governor's words - means up to 4.5 million gallons of
pollution. Human waste and wastewater from kitchen sinks and
laundries are dumped unregulated into Alaska's coastal waters. Are
you guys recommending that - an immediate effective date to stop
that 4.5 million that's going to get dumped in the water tomorrow
or do you care?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: No, we're recommending the July 1 date.
SENATOR TAYLOR: That's not my question. The question is, do you
recommend that this committee modify the bill to insert an
immediate effective date so that the Governor can stop this
quicker?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: It would certainly be fine if you want to move
the effective date.
SENATOR TAYLOR: In fact, how many amendments have you suggested to
the Chairman or to this committee, total?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: We offered a CS to you and I don't know what
the total number of amendments were. There were a number of
housekeeping and then the ones for the small operators.
MR. CONWAY: 13.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: 13.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Yes, I heard the number 13 Michele, but I didn't
count them up to figure that out either.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: I hadn't counted them either.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Just to clarify that, that was 13 when we were
here in the regular session. Is that right?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: And there's been other amendments since then
that have been proposed.
SENATOR WARD: From other people.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Yes.
MR. CONWAY: 13 based upon what passed the House.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Yes, and I don't know that those were from -
ours were the package that we gave to you.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Excuse me, Senator Taylor.
SENATOR TAYLOR: And apparently effective date - an immediate
effective date was apparently another one that we should consider
that the department endorses. The question, I guess, that I had
was - this article just came out on June 5 and it was the Governor
that wrote it and he says, now a handful of Senators continue to
use irrelevant issues to try to divert attention from what the
public demands. Is he referring to your 13 amendments because, you
see, all his article talks about is passing [HB] 260 the way it
came over from the House with no changes in it.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: No, I think what he was referring to - if [HB]
260 - it can be a better document with the changes we amended. If
[HB] 260 were to pass this body, that would also be an acceptable
outcome but the amendments actually do make it better, especially
for the small operators. But I think what the Governor was
referring to were issues that were raised earlier of the impact on
the marine highway system and the fact that it might put the small
operators out of business - that those issues really had been
addressed through the amendment package.
SENATOR TAYLOR: I'm really confused. When we first got the bill,
Mr. Chairman, we were told there was no impact on the marine
highway system. Then two days before the legislature adjourned, we
got a $7.5 million fiscal note from the Department of
Transportation saying that it would cost $7.5 million to modify our
ships. Is that another one of those irrelevant issues to divert
attention or is that something of substance and import to the
Administration that they would like to have changed? I'm assuming
we made those changes that the Administration asked for.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: No we didn't.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Oh, those haven't been ....
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: We got handed them a couple of days just before
we got the bill.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Has anybody ever found out whether or not it is a
$7 million fiscal note or $20 million or zero?
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: We've got a lot of fiscal notes in front of us
now.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Is that right? By DOT?
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: We have some from DOT.
MR. DON SMITH, Senate Transportation Committee Aide: It's on your
desk.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: You've got about four - three laying there in
front of you.
SENATOR TAYLOR: $10.5 million now. This must be - obviously John,
the Governor needs to talk to somebody over at DOT and somebody in
DEC because you keep coming up with these irrelevant $10.5 million
issues that we shouldn't be considering and we should have passed
this bill in five days, at the end of the session. I'm a little
confused by what the departments are bringing in here at the last
minute. Maybe they're just trying to kill this bill in Finance.
SENATOR WARD: Michele - and thank you for answering my questions
before [END OF TAPE 01-19, SIDE A].
TAPE 01-19, SIDE B
SENATOR WARD: ... meeting too, but from the tone of our last
meeting, which I assume you watched, and a lot of people in this
room and since have brought forth that there's not only the Alaska
ferry system but communities, the fishing industry, small boats -
there's a lot of people that some people feel aren't being held to
the same standard. Assuming that this bill has passed, what
thought has the Administration or you given to how we start
addressing the rest of them? I think it is going to become
painfully clear, especially if we start exempting our own ships
from this when they are not only [indisc.] alongside, but they are
competing with the other ships. None of us want dirty water and
pollution. So, what is the long term plan? Granted, I think that
right now, at least in my mind, and we talked about communities and
sewage and the city of Anchorage - you have a waiver to dump it in,
Juneau having to rig their own testing in order to pass things and
all of this stuff but what is the long term plan that we'll be able
to address at the next regular session so that we can bring all of
these entities into compliance if, in fact, we're going to bring
this entity in?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I know this is kind of a long question
but that's kind of what this is all about right now because that
was the hold up last time. It seemed like we were singling out one
industry because it was politically correct to get them because
it's, don't tax you, don't tax me, let's tax the fellow behind the
tree and, sure enough, those boats aren't from here so who cares,
and there's 5,000 people polluting us all at once so we can get
them. If, in fact, this is a problem, how are we going to address
all of the other ones, especially if we don't exempt the ferry
system or the fishing industry. They are concerned and I don't
know how you'd do that with people out here just fishing in a boat
if they have to do what they have to do every day. Have at it.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Senator Ward, through the Chair. Just to
clarify - and I do appreciate the interest you shared, by the way,
during this time in getting ready for the session and learning a
lot about this, is - the marine highway systems were always covered
in the bill so we never had any intention of exempting them. We do
think that if other vessels similarly situated are doing their part
to protect our waters, so should the marine highway system. On
shore side facilities, they are under a very detailed permit
program where we look at what's going in those facilities, how are
they treating it, how are the operators trained. We constantly are
checking on whether they're doing their job. They are self
checking, whether they are doing their job. We look at what is
coming out of the pipe, what's the nature of the receiving
environment, how fast are the currents, how much mixing is there,
what wildlife or resources are there, how sensitive are they. We
look at all of those things and set standards that, we believe -
and it's a very public process, standards that, if they meet those
standards the waters will be protected. And then there's a
rigorous compliance check and, yes, sometimes people don't do what
they're supposed to and then there's an enforcement action. So,
there is a rigorous climate for those kind of facilities.
When we initially started this inquiry, and we didn't do it because
this is an out-of-state business, what really set it off in our
mind was two events. One is, just seeing year by year, more and
more and larger and larger ships, but having no sense at all of how
that waste was handled and those ships generate a lot more waste
because of their size than a fishing vessel, even a large fishing
vessel. And then there were the actions that were taken when they
mixed up priority pollutants into their wastewater. So those
things caused us to start looking at this and we didn't start with,
okay, let's come regulate. What we started with, let's see what
the facts are. Do we have a problem? If we don't have a problem,
then maybe the systems that are in place are okay. What we found
out is we did have a problem. We had a serious problem and then we
set about, well how do we, in the future, figure out how to have
better technology, better waste management practices? We did this
with industry and with the public. And then, how do you verify
compliance because long term compliance is what we want here. We
initially, in the Governor's bill, proposed a permit system similar
to what the shore side facilities have so we would really look at
their operations, look what they're capable of doing - treatment at
a reasonable cost, look at the receiving environment, look at the
mixing and then offer them a number, an excellent number, that
meets those conditions.
Although we never did the analysis, my best guess is the effluent
number would have been higher by the time you do that analysis.
The industry did not want to do that. They did not want to have
that kind of scrutiny because they go from port to port, they
didn't want to have any chance of somebody trying to tell them,
gee, you ought to look at other equipment because they obviously
can't change equipment as they go from one area to the next. They
wanted to have more of what's called a performance standard - set
the standard, they'll test against it, if they meet it, they're in
compliance, if they don't, they have a violation. That was their
preferred methodology and we, in working with them, said okay, if
that's your preferred, it still will do the trick for us so we'll
do it and that will give us the same assurance we have as with the
shore side facilities but through very different means. One is
where you do an analysis instead of a limit, and so it can be
higher because you know it's safe or you set a safe number because
you're not doing that analysis and you expect them to meet it and
that was their preferred option so that's what came out in [HB]
260.
For fishing vessels, we have not looked at is there a problem with
their MSDs in part because they don't carry that many people. For
those of you who've been on them, they sure don't feed them the way
they feed them on cruise ships so the waste volume is different.
Where we do look at their MSDs is on processing vessels because if
they are taking in water to deal with processing fish, you don't
want it to have been mixed with any waste that's coming out of the
vessel so we do do checks with them there - our seafood inspectors
do that. So, it's both a level of risk and a scale of risk that
made us look at this particular industry. The other difference is,
at least in my mind, a shore side facility providing waste
treatment for a community is an absolutely essential public
function. They have to do it for the residents who live there and
you need to make sure that they can do it in a way that is
protective but also affordable. That's different than a private
enterprise that's using our water for their waste discharges.
SENATOR WARD: One quick follow-up. So that I clearly understand.
Then, if in fact [HB] 260 is enacted, this bill, then your
department would - and I think I do understand, I just came from
the Kenai and I saw quite a few commercial fishing boats out there
and I've also seen them out there for all of my life. That's not
the same as a ship of 4-5,000 people dumping all at once. At some
point, there's 4-5,000 boats so, at some point, does your
department anticipate some kind of an analysis because I don't mind
exempting onshore or fishing boats or any of those things if, in
fact, they are not causing damage but just because it's easier to
see the damage from 4-5,000 people huddled in one place, then it is
from 4-5,000 people huddled in one place but on separate boats or
living in a small community like Bethel, that doesn't make it any
less into the pollution of the waters. I guess what I'm getting at
is the harder question of what steps are you administratively going
to take to bring into at least analysis to say we have done the
proper thing by not addressing those fishing boats or Bethel at
this time.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Thank you Senator Ward, through the Chair.
Right now we don't necessarily have any plans. We're looking at
what was the highest risk that we saw. The large vessels were, of
course, the highest risk. As we go through our clean water action
plan, which is a way - Senator Leman's familiar with it - a way of
assessing - it's trying to put our resources to our most critical
water issues. That issue may very well come to the forefront if
you have a very important watershed, like the Kenai River, and
there are starting to be water quality impacts on there, then we
will need to be looking at what are the sources of those and is
there a way to address it and should that be handled through a
permit, should that be handled by a performance standard, should it
be handled by some other innovative way. All those things will be
on the table so as we see where risks arise, then I do think it's
proper, as you've raised, that we look at it, see if it's a problem
and, if it is a problem, figure out a good way - good meaning a
protective and reasonable way to address it.
SENATOR WARD: Thank you Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: On that point, you keep saying what's affordable,
what isn't. Who makes those decisions? Is it a deep pocket theory
that you're working on? You know the - I know the coastal
communities here, you talk about pollution, approximately 77,000
people that dump, at a very lower standard, waste into our waters.
I think they dump something like 3.4 billion, is my calculation,
3.4 billion gallons a year into our clean waters and everything.
With that, it seems to me anyway, and I know you made a statement
in one of the things I've got here, something about me comparing
shore side facilities with cruise ships was like comparing apples
to broccoli, I think. My question was, how can you tell after it's
digested whether it's apples or broccoli? That was my answer to
that so it seems to me that we're all trying to get to the same
goal but I'm just a little concerned when you talk about what's
affordable. You know, we all want that and clean water and things
are expensive as the cruise ships can tell you but it seems to me
with the money it brings in, say for Juneau - I don't know how many
are in here today - we don't even have a dump site that they can
unload their sewage. Of all the money that comes in, why doesn't
Juneau, or some of the communities, at least try to accommodate
some of their problems? That's more of a statement. I don't know
if you want to answer it or not, that's fine. Senator Elton's
next.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Just one point, if I may, Mr. Chairman, is we
did - in talking in the industry about better waste practices, we
did look at the idea of shore side dumping. I don't want to speak
for them and I'm sure they'll testify in due time, but it was their
preference to look at onboard treatment because that way they can
treat well wherever they go.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Just the large ones you're talking about, not
the ferries or the smaller ones?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: The large ones. I think the small operators
are also aggressively looking at better treatment options. I think
while Mike may want to address the apples and broccolis, but what
we were talking about - yes, it's all wastewater going into the
marine environment so, to that extent, it's wastewater and that's
in common. But what we're talking about is how that waste is
managed and the level of confidence that we have that it's safe. On
the shore side facilities, because of the aggressive program we
have, we believe that it's safe and that they can discharge that.
When I talk about affordability, it's that kind of analysis that we
go through with them of, let's say, it cost $100 million to meet
the strictest water quality standards but for $10 million, they can
get 90 percent of the way there, so is it really worth the other
$90 million if you know that the receiving environment has good
mixing, there's no critters that would be negatively impacted, it
would disperse - if you have a mixing zone of 100 feet and then at
the end of the 100 feet, they will meet the water quality
standards? That's when I talk about - you look at the amount of
improvement for the amount of cost and figure out a way to get them
into compliance without causing any harm.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: You mean there's no critters in these mixing
zones?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Critters that will not be harmed.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: I guess they need nutrients too.
SENATOR ELTON: Two things, thanks Mr. Chair, and I'm sorry the
member who raised the issue isn't here. I think it's unfair to
criticize the different fiscal notes....
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: He'll be back shortly if you want to wait.
SENATOR ELTON: If you want to re-recognize me or maybe we can just
pass it on again. It just seems unfair to me to criticize the
fiscal notes when the bills before both bodies have had several
different iterations and, in fact, the most recent fiscal note from
the Department of Transportation for $10.5 is for a bill that they
first saw late yesterday afternoon. I don't think it's fair to
criticize somebody for having different fiscal notes when we've had
different iterations of the issue in front of us. The second thing
is, the Commissioner spoke to this but I think it's important to
make sure that everybody understands. When you talk about
developing standards with other industries, you were talking about
industries like mining, timber, fishing, a host of other
industries. You were talking about communities that you developed
standards with and for, to protect public health and safety. You
right now don't have the ability to develop any standards at all
for this one industry, the cruise ship industry. Is that correct?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: That is correct.
SENATOR ELTON: Under this bill, the provisions of this bill, these
provisions, and I'll speak specifically to the 200 colonies per 100
milliliters and 150 total suspended solids, those are numbers that
the industry has told you and has told the legislature that they're
comfortable with. Is that correct?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Yes, that's correct.
SENATOR ELTON: Just to follow up on this point. It's also correct
that the standards that we will now - if this bill passes, the
standards that we will now apply to the cruise ship industry are
still - they don't give you the kind of leverage on this industry
as the leverage that you can now exert over the mining, fishing,
timber industries or individual communities.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Thank you. This is the only large industry
that we have no authority whatsoever to manage the waste that's
coming from them.
MR. CONWAY: I was just - through permits, that's the key when
you're talking about all of the other people there's a permitting
process, they get a permit and that becomes the tool for the
compliance agreements that you mentioned before. I was just
whispering to her - through the permits, that's how we have that.
SENATOR ELTON: And, in fact, you can revoke those permits but
because we're adopting legislation that does not have permitting
authority for you, you have no ability to revoke permits for this
industry?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: No, we cannot, but we can cite them for
violations of the performance standard.
SENATOR ELTON: And those would be civil - they would be satisfied?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: The bill has both civil and criminal
penalties.
SENATOR ELTON: Thanks Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Senator Ward.
SENATOR WARD: So, if I may, then not having authority over the
cruise ships - [HB] 260 giving you authority over it, that is the
emergency that has brought us all down here today. Is that
correct?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: That is correct. We need to have some state
authority to ensure that our standards for safe air and water are
met with this industry that currently does not have an obligation
to meet our standards.
SENATOR WARD: And, right now, we don't have a clear authority
without this permitting process to do that so that is why we're
here. I need to know. I've had a lot of people that - and maybe
because I'm from the Kenai and Anchorage, but there's a lot of
people wondering why we're spending this amount of money on
something that they maybe didn't see as a big problem. It's very
real what I'm saying right now. Not everybody is as excited as 83
people in this room and most of them are being paid to be here.
This is the emergency then, so that we can now have authority over
them to make them - and they are self-complying but make sure that
they comply. Is that correct?
SENATOR WARD: Okay. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: One other question and then maybe we've got some
other witnesses. Under Alaska statute 40.030.040, it directs the
department to formulate and annually review and revise a statewide
environmental plan. What provisions does your plan make for the
growing passenger cruise ship industry? In other words, what
provisions does your plan have for this growing passenger cruise
ship industry and how does your environmental plan address the
other sources of pollution in Southeast waters, you know, like in
Juneau and all of the coastal communities? Do you have a plan?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: For many years the department - it's been as
long as I can remember and that's been back since about the late
'80s, the department has used our agreement with EPA as to the
federal monies we will get from them because the bulk of our budget
is federal dollars and what that money will be allocated for to be
our environmental plan. We have not done a separate one from that
document.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: So you have really not, in this Administration,
updated any plans. Is that what you're saying?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: Well we update our plan with EPA and that is
put out for public notice and because that is the bulk of our
funding that explains what we will be working on and so that has
been in effect as our plan and that gets re-noticed and reviewed
every - it's now every two years. It was every year.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Well the way I understand, this is Alaska
statute, not EPA or federal, so you're not conforming to the Alaska
statute. Is that right?
COMMISSIONER BROWN: We do not do a separate plan because our
planners, the people who were in the department as planners are
long gone from budget cutting. What we do to comply with that
statute is where we have to make agreements on how monies will be
expended, either through our budget or through this agreement with
EPA that outlines the activities that we will undertake, which is
essentially the plan for the next year's performance.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: You've proposed that we empower you to deal with
the smaller cruise ships by regulation. That's what you're
proposing. But [indisc.] propose to base them on, not in writing,
I mean you're basing them on some federal statute that - we have
federal laws - maybe I'm out of here but it seems like the
Murkowski bill addresses what we're trying to do and there's a lot
of duplication here, it seems to me.
COMMISSIONER BROWN: The Murkowski bill does take an excellent
first step and the Coast Guard, I agree with you, does an
outstanding job but it doesn't set our own state requirements. It
doesn't give us the independent authority. There's no other area
that I know of where we just turn things over in the environmental
arena to the federal government. In fact, when they try to step in
over our actions we take great offense at that. We have a dual
system - all the environmental laws have federal, state, often
local, and Native aspects to them. With the Coast Guard, we
currently regulate together the TAPS crude carriers, the non-crude
carriers. There's a lot of areas where we have overlapping
jurisdiction because there are different interests and we do it in
a way that avoids duplication so we have a long history of doing
that.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Speaking of duplication and the time that we're
getting, are there any more questions of DEC or comments? We have
people on line waiting. Thank you. I'm trying to get through this
in a timely manner. We've got other matters to go and we also have
here from - Mike Harcourt - are you online?
SENATOR WARD: He's here.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Oh, he's here? Okay, Mike? I'm sorry, please
come forward and identify yourself, who you represent and give us a
brief - I hope you can do it in a short time.
MR. MIKE HARCOURT, OCEANS BLUE FOUNDATION: Well, Mr. Chair and
Senators, members of the Senate Transportation Committee, I'm
delighted to be here as a neighbor from Canada, as the past
Premiere of British Columbia and mayor of Vancouver for three
terms, and I want to thank you for being able to be here to talk
with you about the most magnificent coastal area in the world that
we share. I want to, first of all, reinforce what I think we all
recognize, which is the importance of the cruise industry to
British Columbia and Alaska. So, if you'll permit me, I'll just
briefly expand on the fact that from Vancouver and British
Columbia's part, we appreciate the one million people a year that
are now coming through our facilities. It's about a $500 million
plus impact on our economy in British Columbia. Those are in
Canadian dollarettes, not American dollars. The importance of that
activity is recognized by a variety of our authorities.
I happen to be a member here today for the Oceans Blue Foundation,
which is a very significant foundation, a charity, dealing with
environmental issues that was created by the tourism industry
itself. It is out of the business community in British Columbia's
concern about being successful economically and also being good
stewards, in terms of environmental issues. I also am a member of
the Vancouver Port Authority board of directors and a member of our
airport authority board of directors where we are investing
substantial sums of money to accommodate the growth in the cruise
industry that we see. $89 million has been invested as we speak on
an expansion of our cruise facilities that will be ready for the
2003 cruise season. At the airport we have invested over $1
billion in new runways, new international facilities, domestic
facilities and another $1 billion will be invested in upgrading the
airport to accommodate the growth that we see - a lot of that
around the cruise industry. We're looking at $1.5 billion light,
rapid transit system from the airport to the downtown. A lot of
that will be to accommodate our visitors who are coming in aboard
the cruise ships that we see now and we think there will be further
expansion into the future. I just wanted to reinforce what we
think is a very important industry to us as good neighbors in
British Columbia and Alaska. Having said that, I want to let you
know about the Oceans Blue Foundation's support for the legislation
that you're looking at and to tell you about a complementary
program that we are looking at introducing with the industry of a
stewardship program - a certification program.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Senator Ward.
SENATOR WARD: Just so that I know, and thank you very much for
coming up on this issue. What is the graywater standard for your
community for cruise ships?
MR. HARCOURT: Well that's why I'm here. We do not have
legislation yet. One of the points that I was going to make is we
welcome in British Columbia the pioneering work that you are doing.
I'm introducing some legislation because I think it's going to be
important that we cooperate on this. We have similar approaches in
British Columbia and Washington. So that was going to be, through
you Mr. Chair, Senator, one of the points I was going to make is
that we see what you're doing as very important so that we can have
similar standards for cruise ships, not just in Alaska but also in
British Columbia and I would say Washington state as well.
SENATOR WARD: Just one follow-up. Do you intend on doing just
cruise ships or will you do your communities also under the same
standards?
MR. HARCOURT: We have legislation for sewage treatment, if you're
talking about ....
SENATOR WARD: I'm talking about onshore communities, as well as
fishing fleets and smaller boats.
MR. HARCOURT: I think that's a very good issue and I heard you
raise that, Senator, and I think the question of other vessels is
something that we're going to have to come to grips with as
neighbors. For example, I think there is somewhere around 250,000
recreational boats in Puget Sound, the Strait of Georgia, and
Alaskan waters. The issue of treatment facilities for those boats
I think is one that we should address.
SENATOR WARD: Thank you Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: And while you're on the subject about the
economic thing, a concern that I have is the - Boeing in Seattle
thing. Alaska is unique, but I always like to attract dollars to
Alaska so I was always concerned that we get the regulations to the
point where they say - something like Boeing did. That is just a
comment more than anything. I don't know if you have any response
to that.
MR. HARCOURT: Well that's why I think it's important that we
cooperate on similar standards, Mr. Chair. That's the interest
that we have in British Columbia, particularly with the Oceans Blue
Foundation, of trying to not have different regimes in different
jurisdictions, recognizing the importance of this industry to our
various communities. I'm here to say that we welcome what you are
doing. We congratulate you on the leadership that you're showing.
It's of interest to us to cooperate with you and we look forward to
a continuing dialog on the issue of standards for cruise ships.
Now, as well, and I'm going to table with you, the Oceans Blue
Foundation, as I said, which is an environmental charity that was
formed by the business community itself to deal with this issue and
we are entering into a certification program with the industry to
reward those cruise ship lines that adopt the best standards so the
consumers can see that there are shipping lines who are attempting
to take onboard the best technology for dealing with wastewater,
for dealing with discharges, for dealing with air pollution issues,
the impact on local communities, and so that will be a voluntary
program between Oceans Blue Foundation, which exists both in Canada
and the United States, to work with the industry. I'll leave this
with you rather than getting into details and I am really here not
to advise you on the arcane details of the various bills that are
before you but simply in conclusion to say that we welcome what
you're doing. We'd like to cooperate and to see this industry
become even more successful.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Thank you. Senator Taylor.
SENATOR TAYLOR: I just wanted to thank Mike for his comments and
it's wonderful to see you again, it's been sometime and, to note
for the record, the many leadership positions that he's held in the
British Columbia government and the great efforts that he
personally has made to work with our state over the years. He and
I go back some period of time. It's good to see you old friend and
I applaud you for coming forward on this because the very same
vessels that we're attempting to regulate are literally based out
of Vancouver, most of them, and operating out of your major city. I
know that your B.C. fishermen on the coast, many of whom are
friends, and I've talked with them at length about this, they're
just as concerned as the fishermen in my district are about the
quality of our waters, that our products live and ranch and farm
and grow in. I think Senator Ward's question was very good and I
know how strongly you personally have worked to try to get Victoria
as an example to quit pumping sewage raw into the Pacific and to
work on Vancouver and Vancouver's now done a great deal to clean up
their own waste stream flows. The man sitting here has had a lot
to do with that and I applaud you for that. I thank you for taking
your time to come up here and join with us in this effort. As we
work toward that effort, I hope we can come up with a standard that
is uniform throughout the entire coastal regions of the North
American continent so that a vessel complying in one community
knows that it is in compliance in another so that each of us have
the same level of security about purities of water that you and I
have talked about in the past. Again, thank you for coming
forward.
MR. HARCOURT: Through you, Mr. Chair, Senator Taylor I appreciate
seeing you again too. We'll look at that road further.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: I'm purposely not - we have Randy Roy here -
Ray, I'm sorry. I see we have cruise industry people. I have
talked with them and, in the interest of time, unless they have
something drastically to add to this, they've given me indications
that they support this bill. So with that ....
MR. RANDY RAY, United States Cruise Ship Association: I do have
one amendment that I - we're down from 12 to one so I think we've
made a lot of progress. First of all, Randy Ray, United States
Cruise Ship Association. I want to thank the committee for the
work on the legislation and particularly the concern the committee
has shown for the small cruise ships. We can tell a lot of work's
been put into this, particularly by you Senator Cowdery. I want to
thank you for putting this in while your wife's been undergoing
treatment and there's been some technical changes on it we think
that are improving the bill and I think we have to thank Senator
Leman for some of those efforts as well and we'd like to do that.
As we testified at the last hearing, while the original House
version exempted our types of vessels for three years, once we were
put back into the bill, essentially we would have been kicked out
of the state because we can't meet the House version after three
years. We presented a number of amendments to you at that point in
time and, again, you have perfected those amendments and now
included those in the bill and so your version fixes almost all of
our problems.
There is one issue that you did miss that we would like to - that
appears to be inadvertent and we'd like to present to you and that
has to do with the fees on the bill. Since we are exempted from
the regulatory scheme of the bill for three years, since we are
doing our own monitoring and test and we're just reporting that to
DEC, we are not really using DEC's services and we could use the
money to try and figure out how we're going to meet these standards
once the three years are up. One of the things I described to you
is the new technology that's available to the large cruise ships is
not available to the small cruise ships. The manufacturers are not
making those for our size. We've talked to them and so, besides
having to buy new technology, we may actually have to go pay to
have it designed and built and so that's when our expenses are
going to be much higher and so we've presented an amendment to the
committee, which is on your desk, that would, on page 17, line 19,
add 'and 46.03.480' which is the fee section. So we'd ask you to
adopt that and we'd like to close on a note and that is that we're
all here to protect, the Alaska environment, which is our top
priority, but as we move forward on this legislation what you are
doing here is literally creating the model for the rest of the
planet. I think we just had British Columbia here. I know that
Hawaii now is looking at what you're going to do. California and
Washington will soon follow and so the piece of legislation that
you pass through this legislature, this weekend, is going to set
the precedent for the planet and that's why we appreciate your
perfecting the bill.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Thank you. We have, and I'm sorry, John Palmes?
Is he in the ....
SENATOR ELTON: Excuse me - before we allow the U.S. flag vessel -
just a short question. I think that some of us may understand the
special problems that accrue to the smaller vessels, and you
alluded to them. It would be helpful if you could articulate what
some of those problems are - size of the vessel and some of the
other technology issues that the U.S. flagships have.
MR. RAY: In the original HB 260, it says that one cannot discharge
unless one is at least a mile from port and is underway. We simply
do not have a holding capacity in our tanks. We might be able to
hold our black water for eight hours but we are in port for 12 to
14 hours so all of a sudden we'd have stuff coming back up the
system. Many of our graywater pipes do not at all have - once you
turn the shower on it just goes directly over the side. The other
thing we've determined with our MSDs, which is the old technology
we're currently using, they work better if we run them 24 hours a
day. We're more likely to meet the standard of 200 if we can run
them 24 hours a day. If we have to shut them down while we're in
port and start them back up, we're probably guaranteed to violate
the 200 limit and then be subject to large fines. So, we are
currently stuck with the old technology.
As I said, the new vessels, as you've seen, the large cruise ships
have been moving on with some great new technology. We've met with
those manufacturers. They don't make those for our size vessel.
We just - they don't fit and so we don't know whether they're going
to or not. We've asked them and their answer currently is no,
we're not designing them for your ships. So the discharge, the
holding capacity, are a number of things that we have to do. On
the graywater, we've got systems that - as it comes over the side,
we don't have holding capacity. We looked at one of our ships
putting on 500 gallons for firefighting protection. We would have
had to lengthen the entire ship 20 feet. That's a million dollar
project so, to have a 4,000 gallon holding tank for graywater,
black water, which means basically we'd have to scrap the entire
U.S. fleet and start all over.
And, so we have got some major technical problems that we cannot
meet under the old [HB] 260. Now we're exempt for three years
under the House version of [HB] 260 but once we're thrown back into
in, that's when we have the problem. Your bill that you've got
here in front of us, perfects all that stuff now and so we would
just like to ask you to consider that one last amendment.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Thank you.
SENATOR TAYLOR: I offer that amendment.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Is there any objection? You make note and we
will - if there's no objection?
SENATOR ELTON: Object, just for the purpose of asking the
Administration if they see any problems with the additional
language. Thanks Mr. Chairman.
[COMMISSIONER BROWN nodded in support of the amendment.]
SENATOR TAYLOR: I just wanted to make sure this was not one of
those irrelevant issues? Okay.
SENATOR WILKEN: I have a question.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Yes.
SENATOR WILKEN: Mr. Ray, when you came to us 9 a.m. on Sunday
before we adjourned, you had a single sheet of paper that showed a
list of ships that you said to us that 80 percent of that list
wouldn't be able to ply Alaskan waters under [HB] 260.
MR. RAY: Yes.
SENATOR WILKEN: I wish in the last month, as I've tried to explain
to people why I am here, I had that handout in front of me. Could
I have another copy of that please?
MR. RAY: I don't have it with me but I will get you one of those
by tomorrow.
SENATOR WILKEN: I'd very much like to have that.
SENATOR ELTON: You can stop by my office and get a copy.
MR. RAY: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: And the last person that I've got here scheduled
is John Palmes. If he would come forward and identify himself and
his affiliation and background.
MR. JOHN PALMES: I have no affiliation right now.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: And if we could keep this to five minutes we've
got other things.
MR. PALMES: I'll do my best. I'm a retired habitat biologist. I
began my career with the Department of Fish and Game in 1971. I
also have worked with the Governor's Division of Policy Development
and Planning, coordinating state reviews of permits and
environmental impact statements, oil and gas leasing documents, and
a lot of people who think that they're my friends aren't going to
want to hear what I have to say. As a habitat biologist, I soon
learned that conservationists don't support you if you allow any
trees to be cut. The loggers don't like you if you won't let them
cut all the trees, and when the legislature routinely threatens to
cut your budget to zero, everyone you work with just wants you to
keep your mouth shut. They're afraid your opinion is going to
cause the loss of their job, so as a result of budget-cutting
paranoia, I decided to become a retired biologist.
I'm here because as a citizen I'm concerned that we're avoiding our
biggest problems like subsistence and alcohol related crime and
violence while we focus on trivial issues and politically
vulnerable targets. I'm also a boater and a commercial fisherman
and I'm concerned that most boaters and Alaskan communities cannot
meet the standards proposed for the tour industry. In fact, most
of us have been outlaws for years as a result of the Clean Water
Act passage. I'm concerned that we create and perpetuate a system
of laws that can't be applied uniformly or rationally. I'm even
more concerned that we will then decide to enforce against one
group or another, based on how politically correct or how easy it
is to cite and convict them. As a biologist I'm most concerned
that everybody's talking buzz words rather than using their heads
to estimate the potential impacts of tour boat sewage. The tour
boats don't dump pollution. It is very important to realize that
sewage is just food that's been digested and that fecal coliform
bacteria, with a few rare exceptions, are harmless. Sewage and
graywater are not pollution and the materials discharged are not
pollutants unless they cause some kind of damage or nuisance.
For three decades or more, sewage has been discharged into the
donut holes and no effects have been noted or even suggested. When
the tour boats flushed out their holding tanks in the donut holes,
it was perfectly legal to do it. In fact, it's likely that
lobbyists for the tour companies worked hard to see that the
federal Clean Water Act had some little loopholes in it - or donut
holes in it - some convenient place to get rid of their sewage. I
think a lot of people have known about these donut holes and the
fact that you could discharge in them for a long time.
Some people have said that if you wait until sewage becomes a
problem before you do something about it, then you lose the war but
vigilance has its price. A little application of what we already
know about sewage and the ecosystem leads to the conclusion that
all this concern about sewage in the donut holes is just an
exercise in political correctness. We'd all like to believe that
Alaskan waters are pristine but most of us discharge our own sewage
into it. Tour boat sewage could be a problem if it caused so much
growth that oxygen became depleted in the affected waters.
However, given the amount of sewage that tour boats could
discharge, and the high mixing rate and oxygen content of the
receiving waters, this affect is unlikely. However, we know that
sewage has to have some effect and I guess that the effects were
trivial and unmeasurable, but let's assume that enough sewage was
discharged to cause some significant environmental change. Sewage
isn't toxic, it's just digested food. It's a great fertilizer.
Sewage is rich in amino nitrogen compounds and Alaskan ecosystems
are relatively poor in these nutrients. Depletion of nitrogen in
mid-summer in ocean ecosystems can temporarily reduce their
productivity. If the discharges were large enough to cause
significant environmental change, and no undesirable changes were
noted, the nutrients in the sewage must have contributed
significantly to the productivity and biomass as a system. Instead
of damaging the ecosystem, it's more likely that sewage in the
donut holes provided a valuable input of nitrogen at a time when it
was most scarce, thus allowing the system to support a greater
biomass and increasing the productivity and fecundity of the
endangered humpback whale.
When the U.S. Park Service began to study humpback whales in
Glacier Bay, their first problem was to find the whales. It seems
that they spend more time about Point Adolphus feeding than they do
in the Bay. It's possible that the tour boat sewage and the large
donut hole just a couple of miles east of Point Adolphus is what
makes the area so productive and so attractive to whales.
Frederick Sound also has a large donut hole and it's another area
that supports large concentrations of endangered whales.
Therefore, if you're worried about the effects of what you believe
might have been tremendous quantities of sewage, then you should
move quickly to resume discharge of sewage into the donut holes so
the ecosystem, which supports the endangered humpback whale, is not
deprived of a valuable source of nutrients. Maybe it's best not to
wait for something to become a problem before you act to head it
off but it's not prudent to ignore real problems while you try to
watch out for everything that might be one, particularly when the
Coast Guard and EPA are already doing the job. Furthermore, if you
can't tell the difference between a potential hazard and a
potential benefit, you really do have a problem. You better be
able to prove or disprove the hypothesis that this is really a
great thing that's been going on.
In the case of sewage, we have problems but they're not in the
donut holes. They're in villages and small towns where sewage runs
in the street. I'm concerned that we have real problems with
alcohol and with subsistence management of fish and game but we
won't deal with them. The state's interest in clean water is not
the same as the federal government's. Alaskans, fishermen, small
towns, canneries, logging camps break the existing federal laws on
sewage and garbage every day. It's a crime to piss in the ocean.
I suggest that the state would make better and more perfect use of
its resources if it let the Coast Guard and EPA do the work while
we monitor the thoroughness and effectiveness of the federal
agencies. We're only 600,000 people and our revenues are declining.
We need to be vigilant but we don't have to take on the work if
someone else is already doing it, and especially if the risks of
doing nothing are trivial.
Look at the affect of the federal legislation anyway. Notice that
the donut holes are three miles offshore and that tour boats will
still be allowed to discharge at three miles from our coast, just
not in a donut hole. That means that places like Cross Sound,
Dixon Entrance and Salisbury Sound will become the new discharge
locations. Why don't we have the same concerns for those places?
Finally, we should note that treatment with chlorine is one of the
ways that coliform counts are reduced in sewage and graywater.
Chlorine is deadly poisonous and it poses a great risk on a ship if
it's stored as a gas because if it gets lose it can kill somebody.
Chlorine also combines with organic compounds to produce substances
that tend to cause cancer. Although I'm personally not worried
about it, those that are concerned with the release of potential
carcinogens need to understand that it might be better to discharge
more bacteria and treat the sewage less.
In summary, if the discharge of sewage into the donut holes were
significant, and it's more likely that such discharges were
beneficial and they should be resumed in order to ensure the well
being of the endangered humpback whale. Federal pollution laws
also make most rural Alaskans outlaws. The state's role should be
to oversee the pollution control efforts of the federal agencies
and to intercede for the public ... .[END OF TAPE]
TAPE 01-20, SIDE A
MR. PALMES: ... more money if we deal with the head end of the
regulatory animal rather than the sewage producing end of the
critter. Thanks for the opportunity to provide a different
perspective on this not very critical environmental issue.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Could we have a copy of your statement for the
record?
MR. PALMES: Yes.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: I appreciate that and you can give it to my
staff. What's the will of the committee?
SENATOR WARD: Mr. Chairman, I move SCS CSHB 260(TRA), Version R,
with the accompanying notes out of committee with individual
recommendations.
SENATOR ELTON: I object.
SENATOR WARD: Question.
SENATOR TAYLOR: There was objection, I think.
SENATOR ELTON: I object. I object for the purpose of a couple of
amendments, Mr. Chair.
SENATOR WARD: I have a motion before us.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Let's vote on the motion and then ....
SENATOR TAYLOR: That's the only question I had, too. I had
brought that one amendment and wondered if you wanted to do that.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Oh yes. That's right. Staff will put that in.
What's the procedure?
SENATOR WARD: Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my motion and I would move
Amendment 1 as identified by me to the committee substitute and ask
unanimous consent.
[AMENDMENT 1 reads as follows:
Page 17, line 9, after "d" insert "and 46.03.480"]
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Is there any objection? Hearing none ....
SENATOR WARD: Mr. Chairman I would move SCS CSHB 260(TRA) out of
committee with individual recommendations, Version R, with
accompanying notes.
SENATOR ELTON: Mr. Chairman, we can do this in a way that may be
appropriate ....
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Is there objection?
SENATOR ELTON: ... and we can do it in a way that allows only one
person to make an amendment to this bill. I mean it's up to you,
the Chair.
SENATOR WARD: Is there no objection?
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: We have a motion on the floor. Is there
objection?
SENATOR ELTON: I object.
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: Roll call vote please.
[A roll call vote was taken. Senators Ward, Taylor, Wilken and
Cowdery voted in favor, Senator Elton voted against.]
CHAIRMAN COWDERY: So the bill moves to the next committee of
referral. Anyway, if there's nothing more to come, I'm glad to get
rid of this one. We're adjourned.
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