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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Oct. 15, 1999
99-212
Contact: Jani Gilbert, Public Information Manager, 509-456-4464; pager, 509-622-1289
SPOKANE-Three organizations that filed formal public-records requests with the Washington state Department of Ecology last winter received new documents today that the department believes were not included in the original responses.
The Spokesman Review, the Save Our Summers (SOS) activist group and the Northwest Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) all filed separate public-record requests with Ecology, on Jan. 6, Jan. 12, and March 4, respectively.
The Spokesman Review and SOS sought a broad range of documents pertaining to an agreement between Ecology, the state Department of Agriculture and the Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG) to reduce smoke from wheat-field burning.
In the agreement, which was signed last February, WAWG committed to reducing emissions from agricultural burning by 50 percent over the next seven years, beginning this year. The agreement supports a larger, multi-faceted strategy to reduce smoke from wheat-stubble burning.
The NEEF records request spanned a longer time period and sought an even wider array of records than the SOS request, including many related to Ecology's 1997-98 efforts to restrict other types of agricultural burning.
All together, Ecology's files on agricultural burning include approximately 100,000 pages of documents that fill more than three book cases, three feet wide by eight feet tall.
"Most record requests to Ecology involve no more than a few specific documents, but these requests were enormous," said Mary Burg, who manages Ecology's air-quality program.
In response to the initial requests, Ecology staff collected records from many employees in both the Spokane and Olympia offices, she said.
In early August, SOS filed a lawsuit claiming that Ecology deliberately withheld some records from the group last winter - documents that SOS found later when participating in NEEF's record review.
The new records were identified recently during a more-exhaustive file review in preparing for the court case. The same review turned up additional documents for disclosure to The Spokesman Review and NEEF.
NEEF today received 186 pages of new documents. Some of these pages also went to SOS and The Spokesman Review, depending on their specific requests.
The new disclosures include telephone notes, personal notes in day-planners, an invitation to speak, and fax cover sheets. Some letters of complaint from citizens also are included.
The stack also includes some documents that were previously disclosed, but had notes written in the margins or on the backs of the pages. Some older documents also have since been located that concern grass-seed field burning; NEEF had requested records regarding all agricultural burning.
The additional records measure less than one inch out of 71 linear feet of records, noted Burg.
"None of them appear to add substantive information about the wheat-burning agreement, but we certainly regret they were missed during our original response effort," she said. "In addition, our investigation has left us strongly convinced that the documents being questioned by SOS were not omitted from the records we disclosed last winter."
The experience of responding to a public-records request of this enormity has led Ecology to improve the way the agency responds to such requests.
Ecology reviewed its procedures in August at the request of Gov. Gary Locke and Ecology's Director Tom Fitzsimmons. As a result of that review, the agency is scheduling updated training for all Ecology employees to make sure the agency is responsive and thorough in filling public-record requests.
Copyright © Washington State Department of Ecology. See http://www.ecy.wa.gov/copyright.html.
