Legislative Update #5, February 9, 2001

HB2360 state forester; wildfire emergency enhancement (Flake, Cooley, Gleason, et al) gives the Land Department a blank check for fire fighting. Currently the Department can only use dollars for fire fighting in emergencies. I am uncomfortable with this proposal as it may mean the Land Department goes nuts with proposals to cut down more trees -- so they don't burn, of course.

SB1122 sales tax exemption; pallets; containers (Hamilton) exempts the sale of reusable or returnable containers from sales tax. The reusable pallets are returned to a pooling company that rents the pallets to farmers and manufacturers. The idea is that it will help cut solid waste and reduces the use of lumber by encouraging the reuse of these pallets. WE SUPPORT THIS.

SB1515property tax classification; conservation easement (Valadez, Gerard, Hartley, et al) changes the classification for taxing purpose for land with conservation easements -- basically it means lower property taxes for these properties. WE ARE AMBIVALENT ON THIS.

HB2072 solid waste management plan (Huffman, Binder, Carruthers) requires the state to notify operators of solid waste facilities six months before it makes any changes to the solid waste management plan and also requires that the plan be updated at least every five years. I am not sure why this bill was filed, but it could be subject to significant amendments throughout the process. For now, it seems okay.

HB2144 structural pests; integrated pest management (May) requires a person selling property to disclose the number of times it has been treated for pests in the previous three years, the types of chemicals, the target pest, etc. Also sets up a process for the structural pesticide commission to establish guidelines for integrated pest management. This is a good bill, amazingly enough. WE SUPPORT IT.

HB2197 aquifer protection permits; septic tanks (Poelstra, Cooley, Flake) prohibits the ADEQ director from enforcing the section of the new unified permit rule that addresses septic tanks. This was probably one of the better aspects of the new rule. Septic tanks are a huge problem in many areas, especially when they are placed on small lots; they contaminate wells and contaminate the aquifer. Yuck! WE OPPOSE IT.

HB 2426 environment; NPDES program (Huffman, Blendu, Graf, Landrum, et al) provides the foundation for ADEQ to pursue primacy for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program for discharges to surface waters. Right now the Environmental Protection Agency administers these. There will be a strike everything amendment in committee and that amendment is not yet available, but we have a number of concerns. We are not confident that the legislature will provide adequate funding for the program and ADEQ has already given up the idea of charging fees for permits (the cities helped eliminate this). ADEQ has had a lot of difficulty over the years implementing the programs it has already, including and especially the aquifer protection permit program. We are concerned about the level of enforcement and we are concerned about how ADEQ will address endangered species issues.

HB2598 air quality; conditional orders (Tully) makes several changes opening up the opportunity for conditional orders which in effect allow someone to get around the conditions of their air permit. I have some concerns about this bill.

SB1283 county land divisions procedures (Brown, Bowers Aguirre) shows the form for the disclosure affidavit for lot splits. This legislation is totally inadequate to address the problems with wildcat subdivisions, but the Legislature seems intent on do-nothing legislation when it comes to growth management. It also eliminates the ten-lot limit for which the counties can waive certain infrastructure standards. I continue to have concerns about this, but the counties think it will encourage more of the wildcat developers to go through some type of subdivision approval.

SB1292 land conservation fund; development rights (Cirillo) deletes the dollars for "conservation based management" contained in one of the Growing Smarter iterations and appropriates the $2 million for purchase of development rights. They are going to amend it to take $2 million from the dollars available for matching grants for the acquisition of state trust lands and leave the dollars for "conservation based management." That means there will be $4 million instead of $2 million in this fund with almost no accountability to the public. At least if the property is acquired, the public can see some benefit from the use of their dollars. WE OPPOSE THIS.

SB1375 sewage connection; requirements (Bowers) says a municipality cannot require that someone hook up to city sewers if they already have a septic tank. This is not a good idea. Sometimes it is essential to get people to plug into sewers in order to better protect the water from contamination.

SB1389 Arizona agricultural heritage act (Guenther, Arzberger, O'Halleran, et al) sets up a program for purchasing development rights and is targeted at agricultural lands. There are a number of problems with this. First of all, it includes a basic assumption that cotton fields and cows are environmentally beneficial or at least environmentally benign. In some instances, a couple of houses would have much less impact than a bunch of cows or irrigated agriculture. Anyway, our big concern is, again, the lack of accountability with this proposed program. The public shells out the dollars, but has almost no say in what happens with the land. There are no monitoring or management requirements that go along with it.

SCM1002 Glen Canyon Dam (Guenther, Bowers, Bennett,) urges Congress to oppose efforts to breech Glen Canyon Dam.