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Australia Climate Change Authority loses last climate scientist.
David Karoly says without an expert to replace him, the Climate Change Authority will struggle to fulfill its legal mandate.
Imagine, if you will, a government board to champion Australian arts without any artists on it, or an agency to advise on medical research without any medical researchers.
Or perhaps even, imagine a government authority set up to provide expertise on climate policy without any actual climate scientists.
Well you don’t have to imagine that last one, because that’s what we now have – the government’s Climate Change Authority is now sans climate scientist.
Prof David Karoly, of the University of Melbourne, has just finished his term on the authority’s board – the only member to stick it out for the full five years.
Karoly says without someone to replace him, the authority will struggle to fulfil its legal mandate. He told me:
I think that it is critically important that at least one member of the Climate Change Authority is an expert and experienced climate change scientist. Such a member is needed to provide information and interpretation on the latest climate change science publications and data.
In my view, it can only do that with a climate change scientist as a member, to provide expert assessment of the effectiveness of proposed greenhouse gas emission reductions nationally and globally, and the projected impacts on Australia from current and future climate change.
The Climate Change Authority Act 2011 states that, in conducting a review, the authority must have regard to environmental effectiveness among a number of other matters.
I asked the Department of the Environment and Energy if there were any plans to replace Karoly with another climate scientist. The department said:
Government appointments to the CCA are a matter for the Government under the CCA’s legislation. The Chief Scientist is an ex officio Member of the Authority and can assist on scientific matters and in providing access to the scientific community, including climate scientists.
So in other words, it won’t replace Karoly and will instead just rely on the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, to act as a go-between, which of course is much more efficient and logical than actually having a climate scientist right there in the room. That would be silly, right?
Remembering too that the CCA has always had the serving chief scientist on its board so, by this logic, Karoly was always a spare part.
In reality, the makeup and character of the CCA was fundamentally altered after Malcolm Turnbull made changes to the board in 2015.
So why did Karoly decide to stick it out this long, when colleagues including Prof Clive Hamilton, Prof John Quiggin and Danny Price were throwing in the towel out of frustration that the government was listening to rightwing anti-science advocates instead of actual expertise? Says Karoly:
I decided to stay on because I believe that the CCA was established by the Australian Parliament.
I believe that it is important that the Parliament and the Australian people are provided with the best possible independent science-based advice on Australia’s climate change policy.
Unfortunately, after six new members were appointed by the Government to the CCA in 2015, I do not think this continued to be the case, despite my efforts. That is why Clive Hamilton and I published our Minority Report in 2016. I did not resign at the same time as Clive Hamilton as I still wanted to provide the best possible science-based advice to the members of the CCA and to the Government.
Karoly’s account of a shift in the authority under the Turnbull government matches that of Hamilton, who told me this year that “the whole character of the authority changed”.
In its earlier years, the CCA had been forthright in its advice to the government. Simply put, the authority’s detailed reports showed targets to cut emissions were well short of what was needed if Australia wanted to mount any sort of claim to be doing its fair share globally.
Under the former Liberal leader Tony Abbott, the government vowed to axe the authority entirely – but couldn’t get enough support in parliament. So instead, if you believe its former insiders, the authority was carefully manipulated and undermined.
As Hamilton put it, the CCA became “dominated by people who want action, but not too much action”.
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This city could become region's first to offer SDG&E alternative for electricity.
Amid controversy with traditional utilities, a growing number of cities and counties in California are embracing what’s known as community choice aggregation (CCA).
Solana Beach has for years flirted with an energy program that would give its residents and businesses a government-run alternative to San Diego Gas & Electric. On Wednesday, it could launch official steps toward becoming the first municipality in the county to do so.
While the City Council’s planned vote on a resolution Wednesday wouldn’t legally bind Solana Beach to what’s known as community choice aggregation, or CCA, approval of the measure would trigger a formal process that could lead to roll-out of the program within 18 months.
Amid controversy with traditional utilities, a growing number of cities and counties in California are embracing CCA or moving toward it.
Under such programs, municipal government officials — or their appointees — decide which power providers to contract with on behalf of ratepayers in their jurisdiction, from natural gas plants to solar and wind installations. Ratepayers can opt out of the program if they prefer to deal directly with the utility, which in either case continues to maintain the pipes and wires that deliver the electricity.
In California, most local governments that have adopted CCA aim to aggressively ramp up use of renewable energy as a way to counter climate change — by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases linked to fossil fuels.
They also have worked to keep CCA electricity bills at or below what’s offered by private utility companies.
Solana Beach is no different in its approach. It has negotiated with two private companies — The Energy Authority and Calpine — to possibly set up and operate its CCA. Under that agreement, the city’s officials can back out within the first six months of approving Wednesday’s resolution with little financial consequence.
“The council has directed staff to not rush this and evaluate all the possibilities and risks and benefits as we move forward,” said City Manager Greg Wade.
To permanently launch the program, the council would need to approve an ordinance, a step that could occur this winter.
If the city votes to moves forward with CCA this week, it would be “huge,” said Nicole Capretz, executive director of the San Diego-based Climate Action Campaign. “It builds the momentum and sets the stage for what’s hopefully possible throughout the region.”
San Diego Gas & Electric’s parent company, Sempra Energy, has set up the state’s first shareholder-funded lobbying group on CCA.
“We will point out that there is much regulatory uncertainty both at the California Energy Commission and California Public Utilities Commission for the new retail energy markets,” said Frank Urtasun, a top official with the lobbying group, known as Sempra Service Corp.
“We believe it is our responsibility to engage in a robust dialogue that enhances transparency so that customers can continue to count on the clean and reliable energy that they deserve, without greater financial risk,” he added.
Currently, there are eight fully operational CCA programs in California: Marin Clean Energy, Sonoma Clean Power, Lancaster Choice Energy, CleanPowerSF, Peninsula Clean Energy, Redwood Coast Energy Authority, Silicon Valley Clean Energy and Apple Valley Choice Energy.
Following closely behind are entities such as Central Coast Power, East Bay Community Energy, Monterey Bay Community Power, San Jose Clean Energy and South Bay Clean Power.
In April, Los Angeles County voted in April to form a CCA that would pull in roughly half a million residents and 200,000 businesses in unincorporated areas. Cities in that region, including Long Beach and Torrance, are considering whether to join the program.
The city of San Diego is expected to review a report this fall comparing rates for a proposed CCA compared with what SDG&E; currently offers.
San Diego County’s government in February rejected the idea of studying the feasibility of CCA after a lobbying effort by Sempra Service Corp.
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Can the Golden State go 100% green?
California's Senate leader wants the Golden State to shift to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2045, pushing it to lead the country in grabbing that green power goal.
California's Senate leader wants the Golden State to shift to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2045, pushing it to lead the country in grabbing that green power goal.
Environmentalists are cheering California Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León's (D) plan to double, and accelerate, the state's current renewables mandate of 50 percent by 2050. Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio even tweeted his thanks to de León among his 17 million followers.
The nation's most populous state switching to fully renewable electricity sounds idealistic. But several experts said it can be done — with a lot depending on definitions, technological advancements and acceptable price tags.
"2045 is a long way away," said Severin Borenstein, economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business. "A lot could happen between now and 2045."
Energy storage through batteries "could get a lot cheaper. That could make the goal much more attainable and much more cost-effective," he added. Wind and solar energy already are close in price to natural gas, he said. "If you could actually store the power cost-effectively, then you could make it work much more effectively."
Others warned major expenses would ensue. Large-scale solar and wind projects often go in deserts or other open areas, requiring added infrastructure to move the power to cities, said Evan Birenbaum, who led the environmental strategies program at Los Angeles-area utility Southern California Edison Co. before leaving in 2014. He now heads Chai Energy, which focuses on reducing household energy consumption.
"You would need to build new transmission lines to support the incoming [renewable] power," Birenbaum said. "Old power lines might not be able to support it."
Utility substations also likely would need upgrades, he said, adding, "You're talking about many billions of dollars that have to be invested in that new renewable energy future. It's the ratepayer who will have to pay for that."
Borenstein said that calculating how much it will cost nearly 30 years from now is "nearly impossible to answer. ... Imagine going back 30 years," when the internet-connected cellphones used now didn't exist.
"It's very hard to predict technology 30 years in advance," he added.
Electricity system shifting
De León's S.B. 584 comes as California leaders vow to aggressively push ahead on climate change policies and defy any attempt by the Trump administration to roll back climate and clean energy measures.
It also emerges as California's electricity market undergoes a multiyear transformation, said Jan Smutny-Jones, CEO of the Independent Energy Producers Association, a trade group that represents natural-gas-fired power and renewable generators.
The demand footprint of big utilities is shrinking as several cities have opted for community choice aggregation (CCA), forming groups that contract to buy power. Meanwhile, more people put solar power on their rooftops, and there's a state-ordered push for more energy storage.
California Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León (D). Photo courtesy of @kdeleon via Twitter.
Utilities, regulators, environmental groups and others, meanwhile, are dealing with the implications of a de León bill passed last year. S.B. 350 increased the renewables mandate to 50 percent by 2050 and ordered a doubling in the energy efficiency of buildings. It also ordered all utilities, including municipal ones and CCAs, to show they're making progress toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The new bill in addition to the 100 percent mandate would speed up the 50 percent deadline to 2025.
The measure is intended as a draft to get people talking, see how much support exists and figure out what would be needed politically to get lawmakers and interested parties on board, said people familiar with the process. Competitive juices are flowing as Hawaii and Massachusetts look into 100 percent renewable power.
California's largest investor-owned utilities mostly declined to comment on the proposal. In conversations with legislative officials in Sacramento, they've indicated the 2045 goal is far enough out that they aren't panicked. But they wanted to discuss what flexibility would exist to reach the proposed mandate, said those aware of the talks.
Pedro Pizarro, CEO of Edison International, said he thinks it's technically possible for California to go to 100 percent renewable power, as resources could be paired with batteries. But he said questions remain around economic feasibility, reliability and timing.
"Is it doable tomorrow? No," Pizarro said in an interview at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit conference in Houston. "You don't have storage at scale. You also don't have the renewables at scale. You have to build up the renewables. You have to build up the storage."
California alone can't solve climate change, he said, but "I do think the long-term trend, certainly in California and probably more broadly, is going to be towards more and more renewables."
"Eventually there will be 100 percent," he added.
The proposed goal of speeding up the deadline on the 50 percent renewables to 2025 is likely to have utilities more concerned, Smutny-Jones said.
They'd likely argue against buying more renewable power "because they don't know who their customers are," as the growth in CCAs and in rooftop solar shrinks their demand base, he said.
How to calculate costs
The largest utilities in California said they are on the path toward meeting the existing 50 percent by 2050 mandate. That edict requires them to use wind, geothermal, biomass, small-scale hydropower and utility-scale solar. They cannot count household rooftop solar, large hydropower or nuclear.
San Diego Gas & Electric Co. now has 43 percent renewable power. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., located in the San Francisco region, generates nearly 33 percent. Southern California Edison for 2015 was at 25 percent. It hasn't yet updated the total for last year.
Statewide, renewable generation was 24.5 percent in 2015, the most recent year available. With solar alone and including panels on rooftops, California has an abundance of renewable power to meet daytime needs, experts said. On some days, there's too much solar energy, forcing the grid manager to ask generators to back down their production.
Calif.'s overall electricity mix,
including imported power
A breakdown of sources of electricity generation in California for 2015, including imported power. Data courtesy of the California Energy Commission; graph by E&E; News.
California also imports electricity. Last year that constituted about a quarter of the California grid's average daily demand, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Imports as a portion of overall generation have steadily increased in recent years, said Cara Marcy, renewable electricity analyst with EIA. In-state generation has been trending down since 2007. That has happened because of the 2008 recession, and then as the economy recovered, people bought more efficient appliances, electronics and lighting, Smutny-Jones said.
Mark Jacobson, professor in Stanford University's department of civil and environmental engineering, said the state can hit 100 percent renewable power.
"It's mostly a question of willpower," he said, adding that "from a technological, economic point of view it's possible to do it." The main obstacle, he said, is that there are people with a financial interest in stopping it from happening.
There are all kinds of energy storage options beyond batteries, he said. Stanford at night freezes ice in rooftop tubing, with the melted cold water from it used for air conditioning during the day. A pilot system in Okotoks, Alberta, uses solar plus heated rocks underground for winter heating.
Jacobson rejected the idea of consumers having to pick up the costs if natural-gas-fired plants in California were put out of service early. If you factor in health costs connected to air pollutants, he said, the plants "cost more to stay open."
Jacobson added that while aiming for 100 percent electricity is "a good start, we have to go a lot further than that." The emissions for electricity constitute about one-fifth of total greenhouse gas pollution, he said. The country needs to deal with emissions from aircraft and ships and electrify all transportation, he said.
Designing for rare peaks
The challenge in seeking 100 percent renewables is how to address peaks in demand that are well above the system average, said Arne Olson, partner at Energy and Environmental Economics, an energy consulting firm.
On the grid managed by the California Independent System Operator, the average electricity demand ranges between 20,000 and 35,000 megawatts. But there have been peaks of more than 50,000 MW. Those spikes have driven infrastructure planning for decades, he said.
"Every electric system in the developed world is built around the expected peak demands that might be placed on," Olson said, from the size of the transmission system to the size of distribution wires. "Every piece of infrastructure is designed around the highest peak it might see in 10 years."
Where renewable power stands in
Calif.'s electricity mix
Sources of electricity generation in California in 2015. Data courtesy of the California Energy Commission; graph by E&E; News.
It's "a matter of how much expense are we willing to bear to make sure that we've kept that level of reliability that we're accustomed to," Olson said.
It gets increasingly expensive to provide power as the renewables share of electricity gets closer to 100 percent, he said. It's similar to natural gas "peaker" plants that sit idle for most of the year and run only when needed. "This has been the way that we've done it for years," he said.
Birenbaum with Chai Energy noted that utilities in recent years have put about $100 billion into infrastructure and now are looking at more investments in battery storage. Anything additional utilities had to spend for an upgrade to meet the state's proposed 100 percent goal is "going to cost the customer more money," Birenbaum said.
"Everyone wants to push it farther and farther," he said. "All of a sudden the lights go out, like in Germany." In that country there were some blackouts in 2012 that some blamed on adding more renewable power than the grid could handle, without enough base load to support it.
"That's a very dangerous game that we're playing here in California," Birenbaum added. "We always try to put burden on utilities or think technology is going to solve it."
Birenbaum argued that the state needs to take steps to shrink electricity consumption and improve energy efficiency. About 30 percent of electricity use comes from waste, such as leaving lights on, he said.
Definitions matter
Lawmakers would have to decide if they are sticking with the current rules on what is renewable.
The state does not allow utilities to count large hydropower as part of their renewable electricity makeup. The intent of that was to prevent creating a reason to build more large dams, said a person familiar with the original renewable portfolio standard legislation. That's one aspect that might need another look if the state considers going to a 100 percent green power mandate, he said.
Large hydropower in recent years has generated 6 to 12 percent of the state's electricity, depending on precipitation and other water needs.
Smutny-Jones said his group would oppose allowing large hydro, because excluding it as a renewable has been state policy for decades.
The trade group also would oppose allowing rooftop solar to count. Panels on roofs already lower the amount utilities have to generate to meet their renewables mandate, he said. That's because the RPS requirement is based on a percent of retail sales. A consumer with rooftop photovoltaics is buying less electricity. So including household PV toward the 100 percent renewables would be "double-counting," he said.
California needs to look at how it will define 100 percent renewable electricity, Berkeley's Borenstein said. Does the state only want clean power within its borders on an every-second basis, he asked, or does it want at the end of a year to say it consumed all clean power?
If the latter, the state could calculate how much power it consumes, then buy from outside the state what it couldn't make in California. It would sign agreements for renewable power amounts to match what's needed, Smutny-Jones said.
"It really comes down to more of a system of accounting," he said.
If California wanted to ensure 100 percent all the time, it probably couldn't expand its grid to take power from other Western and Midwest states. California might aspire to get wind power from Iowa overnight, Borenstein explained, but there wouldn't be any guarantees that the Golden State wouldn't take in fossil-fuel-generated electricity.
"Electricity is electricity," Borenstein said. "You can't identify the electrons coming in, where they came from."
Reporter Edward Klump contributed.
Twitter: @AnneCMulkern Email: amulkern@eenews.net
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Australia is blowing its carbon budget, projections reveal.
In less than four years the country has ‘spent’ almost 20 percent of its greenhouse gas allowance to 2050, analysis shows.
Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising despite global reduction efforts, according to detailed projections made by the consultants NDEVR Environmental.
Australia’s emissions jumped by 2.56m tonnes in the three months to September, putting them 1.55m tonnes off-track compared with commitments made in Paris, and 4.06m tonnes over levels demanded by scientifically based targets set by the government’s Climate Change Authority. Emissions for the year to September are above those for the year to September 2015.
The results mean Australia has emitted about twice what is allowed by the CCA’s carbon budget since 2013. In the three years and nine months to September 2016, the country emitted 19.8% of its share of what the world can emit between 2013 and 2050 if it intends to maintain a good chance of keeping warming to below 2C.
If Australia continues to emit carbon pollution at the average rate of the past year, it will spend its entire carbon budget by 2031. Projected to the current second, the graphic shows how much of the carbon budget has been spent.
The government has failed to report its emissions since the quarter ending December 2015. Last year it released data on Christmas Eve, when it reported a jump in emissions.
The analysis was produced by NDEVR Environmental, which analysed data for all of Australia’s major emissions sources and compared the results with the government’s commitments made in Paris and the cuts recommended by the CCA.
“The national greenhouse gas inventory, it’s six to nine months behind, it doesn’t compare against any targets, and it doesn’t mean a whole lot to a lot of people,” said Matt Drum, director of NDEVR Environmental.
“So we put our backs into it and replicated their report, updating it to the latest quarter. It was no mean feat. We wanted to show how Australia is tracking, not in real time, but as close as we can get.”
The jump in the latest quarter was not unexpected, since it represents increased use of power during winter months, according to Drum. But the analysis suggests Australia’s emissions have not fallen over the longer term either, with emissions over the year to September rising by 1.3m tonnes compared with the previous year.
“Since the carbon pricing mechanism was repealed, slowly but surely carbon emissions have been increasing both in intensity and in volume, so it’s no surprise that overall emissions have started creeping up as well,” Drum said.
The government has not committed to any interim targets before 2030 but the analysis shows that Australia is not cutting its emissions at all – and certainly not at a steady rate that would meet its 2030 targets.
The carbon budget recommended by the CCA, which it described as “equitable and feasible”, was never agreed to by the government, but represents the authority’s view of Australia’s fair share if global warming is to be kept under 2C.
Australia’s emissions did drop steadily from 2005, almost entirely owing to changes in land-clearing laws in Queensland and NSW. Those changes have now been reversed in Queensland and New South Wales has also just made the clearing of land easier. This is expected to cause an increase in emissions which may not yet be reflected in the projections.
The federal government’s primary carbon reduction tool is Direct Action, under which it pays polluters to pollute less through a reverse auction – the emissions reduction fund.
There is no evidence the emissions bought through that fund reduce overall emissions, and many of the emissions the government pays to avoid are unlikely to have occurred anyway.
About 83% of the emissions reduction fund has been spent, with the latest auction attracting relatively little interest from polluting industries, resulting in fewer reductions being offered and a higher price being demanded.
The government has committed to reviewing its climate change policies in 2017 but there have been doubts about how rigorous that review will be since the minister for energy and the environment, Josh Frydenberg, described it as merely a “sit rep” – a situation report.
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Climate authority split is no surprise - Australia has fought the same battle for 10 years.
Australia’s climate debate is dominated by the the clash between what is necessary and what is possible, but the new report might permit a compromise.
The split in the Climate Change Authority is a rerun of the climate policy fight Australia has been having for the past 10 years – the clash between what is undeniably necessary and what is politically possible.
The CCA report, to be released on Wednesday, lands exactly on the spot where the major parties might, just might, be able to reach a compromise and finally end the barren years of climate policy “war”, policy reversal and time-wasting gridlock.
Climate Change Authority splits over ETS report commissioned by Coalition
Read more
Guardian Australia understands the report recommends a type of emissions trading scheme for the electricity sector where generators are penalised for polluting above an emissions-intensity baseline.
It’s the policy Labor took to the last election and exactly what most observers assumed the Coalition’s Direct Action would morph into after next year’s review shows what everyone already knows, that it isn’t fit for purpose in its current form.
The CCA is also understood to recommend a strengthening of the current “safeguards mechanism” for other big polluters.
The dissenters argue the authority is supposed to make recommendations based on what is scientifically necessary and leave it up to the politicians to make the political compromises – and that the recommended policy cannot meet the increasingly ambitious greenhouse gas reductions that Australia agreed to in Paris last year.
They are probably right.
But over the past decade the undeniably necessary task of doing our part to avert global warming has become ever-bigger and the politically-possible solutions seem to have shrivelled. We’ve actually done very little.
Coalition's policies go around in circles instead of finding the sensible centre
Lenore Taylor
Lenore Taylor Read more
The new energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, started out in his new job saying Direct Action needed no change at all because it was “very successful”. An authority report pushing for change – backed by board members mostly appointed by the Coalition – could help make the case that that starting point was never tenable.
The last time a politically possible policy was defeated because it wouldn’t achieve the scientifically-necessary greenhouse gas cuts was when the parliament voted down Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme. And that started the long and sorry story that led us here.
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Climate Change Authority splits over ETS report commissioned by Coalition.
A Climate Change Authority review charged with advising the government on how to meet its climate change commitments has led to an unprecedented split in its top ranks, with two of the body’s 11 members writing a dissenting “minority report”.
A Climate Change Authority review charged with advising the government on how to meet its climate change commitments has led to an unprecedented split in its top ranks, with two of the body’s 11 members writing a dissenting “minority report”.
Guardian Australia understands the official Climate Change Authority report will recommend Australia adopt an intensity-based trading scheme for electricity generators.
A similar scheme was taken to the 2016 election by the Labor party, and was also proposed by Malcolm Turnbull in 2009 when he was opposition leader. Many believe it is a promising way to form a bipartisan approach to climate policy.
It is understood the report will also recommend the government introduce something like a strengthened “safeguards” mechanism, which forms part of the government’s Direct Action policy.
That mechanism has already been in force, and sets emissions “baselines” for 140 of Australia’s biggest polluters, which are supposed to cap their emissions, but is currently so generous it will not lead to a cut in carbon emissions.
The “special review” was commissioned by the former environment minister Greg Hunt in December 2014, after the government failed to pass legislation to abolish the Climate Change Authority through the Senate.
The review was primarily intended to assess whether Australia should have an Emissions Trading Scheme and what conditions should trigger it.
In doing that, the authority was ordered to consider what other countries were doing, as well as what Australia’s international commitments were under international agreements.
The report will be released publicly on Wednesday afternoon, but two authority members – the economist Clive Hamilton and the climate scientist David Karoly – were so unhappy with its contents they will be writing a dissenting minority report.
Hamilton told Guardian Australia he and Karoly will be preparing the report, but declined to comment further.
The point of contention between the dissenting members is understood to be over what level of emissions cuts the recommendations are designed to achieve.
It is understood the dissenters believe the current report is not consistent with the terms of reference of the review, which requires the recommendations to consider Australia’s international commitments, including those made at Paris.
Guardian Australia understands the CCA’s review was backed by all other members of the authority, including:
former federal National party parliamentarian John Sharp
former head of the Productivity Commission Wendy Craik
associate director of the ANU Centre for Climate Law & Policy, Andrew Macintosh
Australia’s chief scientist Alan Finkel
Managing director of economics consulting firm Frontier Economics, Danny Price
economist and Australian laureate fellow at the University of Queensland, John Quiggen
currently acting chief executive of the Climate Change Authority, Shayleen Thompson
former Liberal chief minister of the ACT and former chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kate Carnell
energy consultant and manager Stuart Allinson
The minority report is expected to be published on Friday on the website of the Climate Council – the body that emerged from the Climate Commission after it was abolished by the Abbott government in 2013.
The CCA report was expected to put pressure on the new energy minister Josh Frydenberg, who recently indicated the Direct Action policy didn’t need to be changed significantly.
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BNSF to pay $75,000 for polluting Whatcom and Skagit waters.
BNSF railroad will pay a $75,000 penalty for placing creosote-treated railroad ties and other materials in local waters during work in Whatcom and Skagit counties in 2013 and 2014, according to the Department of Ecology.
BNSF railroad will pay a $75,000 penalty for placing creosote-treated railroad ties and other materials in local waters during work in Whatcom and Skagit counties in 2013 and 2014, according to the Department of Ecology.
BNSF was originally to be fined $86,000 for four water quality violations, but the Department of Ecology reduced the penalty in a settlement agreement.
Under that agreement, BNSF agrees to get seasoned ties or ties that won’t drip preservative, stage and store new ties in areas where they are less likely to contact water, and take reasonable care to make sure ties stay in place and don’t roll down nearby embankments while being unloaded.
Officials say creosote-treated wood is toxic to aquatic life, and Washington state has invested millions of dollars removing creosote-treated wood from waterways.
Ecology and BNSF will pick a project in the South Fork of the Nooksack River or near shore marine environment in Whatcom or Skagit to get $45,000 of the fine, and the other $30,000 will go into Ecology’s coastal protection fund.
Samantha Wohlfeil: 360-715-2274, @SAWohlfeil
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