Appendix A - Washington State Department of Ecology

we had to go through and we knew we needed to do something
about that and work with the facility on that and we decided that
the best way to go about doing that given these two issues was to
go into mediation. There were significant environmental issues
that we wanted to resolve, we started this mediation process in the
Fall of 2007.
Jerry: Sarah, move that just a little bit closer. This is – it’s up as far as
it’ll go.
Sarah: Okay.
Jerry: It’s just hard to hear you in the back.
Sarah: Can you guys hear me? Is this better?
Jerry: Speak up.
Sarah: Sorry about that. So we started this mediation process in the Fall
of 2007. It was subject to the Uniform Mediation Act so it was a
confidential mediation and we did that for a couple of reasons.
One, we wanted to have open discussions with the facility so that
TransAlta would be able to share some information that might be
confidential business information.
Because we’re a public agency unless we do that under a
confidentiality agreement we can’t protect that information and so
we wanted to be able to have that environment to have those
discussions with the plants. There was also the threat of litigation
here. Certainly under the Federal regional haze rules ecology had
the position that that facility was subject to a review to see if there
were additional controls required.
Doing this on the mediation allows us to proceed and to work
through with the facility and get to some resolution without having
to go through a lengthy litigation process. And we did agree going
through the mediation that there would be a public process coming
out of this. Before signing any agreement with TransAlta there
would be an opportunity for public review and comment.
We had a public meeting in the end of March of 2009 and now
today we’re having this public hearing, we also have a public
comment period that’s open and that will be open through
November 9.
Final December 2010
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