McMorris Rodgers requests EPA look into Puget Sound water pollution in Washington

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should look into water pollution occurring in her home state of Washington to help recover endangered salmon and orcas, said U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA).

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler specifically should consider the lack of action under Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, regarding Puget Sound, McMorris Rodgers said during a Feb. 27 hearing on the fiscal year 2020 EPA budget held by the U.S. Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment and Climate Change.

“For too long, Governor Inslee and others have turned a blind eye to the issues in their own backyard, and instead pointed a finger to eastern Washington as the source of all their problems and how we save salmon,” Rep. McMorris Rodgers told Wheeler during the hearing. “But yet nearly every week we have to defend our dams from those who refuse to look at the science and the facts.”

The congresswoman said the governor is focused on “the unattainable water quality standards” of the Obama-era EPA, as well as efforts to tear out several Snake River dams, actions that she called a distraction from solutions that would make a difference.

“Solutions like cleaning up Puget Sound,” said Rep. McMorris Rodgers. “His Department of Ecology has had a heavy hand in eastern Washington enforcing these unattainable water quality standards and threatening our dams, while at the same time seemingly ignoring the City of Seattle and King County dumping millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Puget Sound.”

The lawmaker asked Wheeler if he has looked at the Puget Sound situation, as well as what tools he has to hold the City of Seattle and King County accountable for the alleged water pollution.

“We would be happy to look into the City of Seattle and Puget Sound,” responded Wheeler.