CCAgenda-3/10/04WS - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

To: Eugene City Council and Mayor Torrey From: Mary O'Brien, co-author of Eugene's Toxics Right-to-Know Law and six-year member of Eugene's Toxics Board (1997-2003) RE: How a Few Eugene Businesses shifted the fee system of Eugene's Toxics Right- to-Know Law Date: 23 February 2004 I wish to explain the fee-shiffing issue before you tOnight. Others will address how to fix it. There are two key elements of the toxics right-to-know law that Eugene citizens placed in our City's Charter: 1. Hazardous substance-using businesses must report their toxics releases. 2. Hazardous substance-using businesses must cover the costs of reporting their toxics releases. Throughout the law's seven-year life, NOTHING significant has changed in the first key element, the toxics use and release reporting requkements. The second element, the fee structure to cover the costs of toxics reporting, has only been altered. It has been altered at the behest ora few Eugene businesses. They first got a bizarre 1999 court opinion that Eugene's RTK program is like the State Fire Marshal's program which is a what-mixtures-are-stored:on-site-in-barrels-for- when-firefighters-come program. In the 1980s, the State Fire Marshal, in a power move to keep all fire marshal data in Salem, got the Legislature to prevent "quantity-based" fees on local hazardous substance programs that are like the State Fire Marshal's program. This was aimed against local fire marshals' programs, but years later, the Court applied it to Eugene's right-to-know law. In fact, the State Fire Marshal's program is completely different than Eugene's RTK program: It does not require any reporting of chemicals released to air, water, or soil; requires no input-output balancing; requires no reporting of hazardous substances produced on site; allows reporting of mixtures rather than individual chemicals; allows reporting of ranges rather than precise amounts, etc. But with this ruling, the businesses succeeded in prohibiting Eugene from collecting fees only from those businesses who actually report hazardous substance use. As a result, businesses that use fewer or even no hazardous substances and therefore don't fill out annual reports to the public must also pay fees. Next, these few Eugene businesses and the powerful Associated Oregon Industries got the 1999 Oregon Legislature to cap Eugene's toxics reporting fees at $2,000 per company, which cap goes into effect this year. This shifts fees from the large City Council Agenda page 655