AGO News Releases With Topic: Environment

SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced that his office filed charges today against the owner of a Seattle fuel tank processing facility for allegedly dumping oil and sludge into the public sewer system.  

SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson is sending the U.S. Dept. of Energy, and its contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), a Notice of Endangerment and Intent to Sue. Ferguson seeks to protect workers at the federal Hanford Nuclear Reservation from hazardous chemical vapors that continue to jeopardize worker health and safety.

SHELTON — The Attorney General’s Office filed three misdemeanor charges today against a Tahuya man accused of using heavy machinery to fill and alter the course of the Tahuya River near his home without any permits.

TACOMA — Stephen Mason, owner of the derelict vessel the Helena Star, entered guilty pleas today to charges of abandoning a derelict vessel and discharging pollution into state waters. He was sentenced to 20 days of confinement (which may be served on electronic home monitoring) and two years’ probation, and is ordered to repay the state $300,000 towards the total cost of $1.25 million to remove the sunken vessel from the Hylebos Waterway in Pierce County. As part of the agreement, Mason will cooperate with Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) efforts to secure the remaining restitution from other Helena Star investors.

OLYMPIA – Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson are asking a federal judge to amend a 2010 agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy and establish new requirements for retrieving and treating Hanford’s tank waste and constructing new double-shelled tanks.

KENNEWICK — At the request of Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the Benton County District Court today ordered defendant Brandon Traner to pay the state $144,000 for the cleanup of a fishing trawler that Traner was recently convicted of abandoning in the Columbia River. Ferguson’s office obtained the first derelict vessel conviction in Washington state last month after Traner’s trawler, the M/V Forus, sank and released 50 gallons of diesel fuel and 8 gallons of motor and hydraulic oils into the Columbia,

OLYMPIA – Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the state will not extend today’s deadline for resolving the dispute with the U.S Department of Energy over cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation. The state has extended the deadline twice already since negotiations began in March.

OLYMPIA – The sunken 167-foot Helena Star has been raised, patched, and towed to Seattle, where it is being scrapped and recycled, announced the Washington State Departments of Natural Resources (DNR) and Ecology.

OLYMPIA—Negotiators from Washington state and the federal government have agreed to extend the dispute resolution period by 70 days, ending on Sept. 5.

Negotiators from Washington state and the federal government have agreed to extend the 40-day dispute resolution period triggered under a 2010 court order to clean up high-level radioactive and chemically hazardous waste at Hanford.