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Washington legislators look to crack down on environmental crime

caption: Trident Seafoods' Kodiak Enterprise burns at the Port of Tacoma on April 8, 2023.
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Trident Seafoods' Kodiak Enterprise burns at the Port of Tacoma on April 8, 2023.
South King Fire and Rescue

A bill before the Washington state Senate would make intentional water pollution, air pollution, and spilling of hazardous waste felonies.

Under Washington state law, most environmental crimes are misdemeanors.

“I believe that criminal polluters who violate our environmental laws must pay the price for doing dirty business in Washington,” said bill sponsor state Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, a Democrat from Tacoma, at a Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology hearing Friday.

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“Too often, the corporations responsible pay an insignificant fine and then go on as business as usual,” Trudeau said.

Among other new penalties, the bill would make it a Class B felony to knowingly pollute in a way that places another person in imminent danger. Class B felonies are punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000.

“This will provide a bigger deterrence to polluters from disproportionately affecting my community,” said Tacoma Community College student Connar Mon, who testified in favor of the bill.

Mon said environmental crimes hit people of color and low-income communities, including his, harder than others.

“We have higher rates of asthma and also respiratory illnesses and lower life expectancies in South Tacoma, and a lot of my family members, too, are at risk, meaning that they have asthma already,” Mon said.

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Stevens County Republican Sen. Shelly Short expressed concern that the new law would snare ranchers or other individuals just trying to do their jobs.

“Does this also hold cities, counties, and the state responsible for when they make a mistake?” Vancouver Republican Sen. Paul Harris asked.

“This bill does not criminalize accidents, but it does criminalize negligent violations of environmental law,” said Brad Roberts with the Washington state Attorney General's Office, which supports the measure.

Association of Washington Business lobbyist Peter Godlewski said the state’s current approach to environmental crime is balanced and educational.

“Where a company is accused of wrongdoing, they are able to have a lengthy investigation and attempts to fix the underlying issue,” Godlewski said.

He said the business association opposed the stiffer penalties but was willing to work with Trudeau to improve her legislation.

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Melissa Malott with Tacoma-based nonprofit Communities for a Healthy Bay told the senators that stiffer penalties would help prevent environmental disasters, like the highly polluting ship fires that hit Trident Seafoods vessels at the Port of Tacoma in 2021 and 2023.

After the 2021 fire aboard Trident’s Aleutian Falcon fish-processor ship, federal investigators said workers had failed to take standard precautions to avoid starting a fire while repairing the ship with acetylene torches and spark-spraying grinders.

Firefighters successfully removed 98,000 pounds of ammonia, 200 pounds of chlorine, and 48,000 gallons of diesel before they caught fire, but 25 gallons of diesel spilled into Commencement Bay, and the ship was a total loss after burning for four days.

The Washington Department of Ecology fined Trident $25,000 for negligence, spilling oil, and not reporting the fire within an hour.

“For a $2.6-billion-per-year company like Trident Seafoods, that is a rounding error,” Malott said.

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During the 2023 fire, emergency officials ordered neighborhoods in Tacoma and Federal Way to stay indoors for two days to avoid smoke from Trident’s burning Kodiak Enterprise ship. The six-day blaze sent nearly 10 tons of planet-heating, ozone-depleting Freon coolant and smoke from 55,000 gallons of diesel into the skies above Tacoma. Trident has yet to be penalized for that fire, according to the Department of Ecology.

“Trident appreciates continued constructive and direct stakeholder engagement, and we decline to comment further,” Trident Seafoods spokesperson Alexis Telfer said by email.

“I have to think that if they had had a meaningful consequence from the first fire, the second one wouldn't have happened,” Malott said.

Trudeau said her bill’s tougher penalties would bring Washington state into alignment with federal treatment of environmental crimes.

In 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fined Trident, the largest seafood company on the West Coast, $900,000 for repeated leaks of Freon from its fish-freezing facilities and required the company to spend up to $23 million to prevent future coolant leaks.

Correction notice, Wednesday, 1/29/25 at 2:00 p.m.: A previous version of this story misspelled Melissa Malott's name on second reference.

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