Goschka changes language in environmental bill
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
JEREMIAH STETTLER THE SAGINAW NEWS

State law could include a money-back guarantee for accused polluters who prove themselves innocent, a bill before the state Senate reads.

In an 11th-hour compromise, Sen. Michael J. Goschka has changed the language of an environmental bill that would limit the state's ability to declare any property a contaminated "facility."

Instead of giving the accused polluter a voice in deciding which properties are part of a "facility" -- as a previous version did -- the language Goschka inserted would give an industry its money back if testing revealed that the state had incorrectly labeled a property as polluted.

The text applies only to properties that are not sampled, but which are included in a "facility" at the request of the property owner and state Department of Environmental Quality.

The Senate likely will vote on the bill late this week.

Goschka said the language protects both the property owner and accused polluter from unjust assumptions.

"If a company can prove through testing that contamination has indeed not taken place, then I think any logically minded and fair-minded person would support the notion that they would not have to pay for contamination that doesn't exist," said Goschka, a Brant Republican.

If signed into law, the bill would require testing on every property before including it in a "facility" -- a designation used to trigger cleanup.

Without testing, the property owner and Department of Environmental Quality would have to agree to the designation in writing.

Goschka's revision applies to the properties without testing.

If a property is added to a "facility" without testing, the accused polluter is allowed to test the property to prove the contamination. If the samples come up clean, the state must reimburse the company for the cost of testing.

James Clift, policy director for the Michigan Environmental Council, said the money-back provision is inappropriate.

"Under current law, the responsibility is on the person who allows contamination to leave their site," Clift said. "They are supposed to figure out how far this contamination has gone. This bill switches responsibility to the state to pay for all the tests that fall just outside the contamination boundary."

He disputes Goschka's claim that it is only fair to refund a company's money if the property isn't polluted.

"No one would be having to do that testing if they didn't allow the contamination to leave their facility,"
he said.

Another change to the bill includes striking language that would have kept the state from accessing properties without written permission or evidence of an imminent health threat.

The senator also narrowed the bill to apply only to soil contamination that occurs after the bill is passed and to "toxic pollutant exposure areas" that consist of sites that include more than 50 properties, pollution by a persistent and bioaccumulative toxin and dispersion by air and flood waters. v

Jeremiah Stettler is a staff writer at the Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9685.
 

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