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Water:
Toxic Mixing Zones - Right to Know

Our Position: support
Bill Number: SB 317
Sponsor: This bill was pre-session filed after passing out of the bipartisan Senate Interim Committee on Natural Resources and Alternative Energy
Legislative Session: 2007

Required water quality permit holders who discharge persistent bioaccumulative toxins into Oregon waters at concentrations that cause waters to fail to meet water quality standards to pay for installation and maintenance of marker systems, including buoys and signs.

Status

SB 317 died for the session when a hearing was not scheduled on the bill by April 30. Attention on toxic pollution prevention and reduction - and the public's right to know - has shifted to SB 737A, which will result in a DEQ report to the Legislature identifying major sources of toxic pollution in Oregon's waters, and what options exist for preventing or reducing this pollution.

Action Needed

Contact

Please contact Ivan Maluski at 503-238-0442, x304 or ivan.maluski@sierraclub.org

Background

The Sierra Club has been working for years to convince decision makers of the need to prohibit 'toxic mixing zones,' where persistent bioaccumulative toxins such as lead, PCB's, arsenic and mercury are discharged directly in to rivers from industrial polluters and municipal sewage systems and allowed to mix into surrounding water. Over twenty major polluters with toxic mixing zones exist on the Willamette River alone.

We have proposed plans that would phase-out these mixing zones using new pollution control technology that can create jobs while protecting the environment. We also while also support increasing the public's right to know about the location where toxic pollution is being discharged into rivers as well as increased funding for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to test, monitor and address point-source toxic pollution in the Willamette, Columbia and other Oregon rivers and streams.