Stop the methanol refinery petition

Filing a petition with the City of Tacoma starts a process that takes about three weeks to complete. A ballot title must be written by the city attorney as well as a summary of what the initiative does, once that is complete, petitions will be printed and ready for signatures.

Complete text of the initiative filed:

WHEREAS, the Residents of Tacoma do not want to return to our polluted
past; and
WHEREAS, since 1980, Tacoma has spent an immense amount of money,
time and effort cleaning up the Superfund Sites left behind by the Asarco
copper smelter, Occidental Chemical, Kaiser Aluminum and others; and
WHEREAS, City residents use almost half of the water produced by Cityowned
Tacoma Public Utilities; and
WHEREAS, the City of Tacoma is projecting and preparing for residents
with a projected increase in population of 127,000 more residents by 2040;
and
WHEREAS, a 2009 state survey of public utilities shows that the Pierce
County Large Water Users Sector is 13.7% while in King County the Large
Water Users Sector is only 1.9%; and
WHEREAS, the City of Tacoma is responsible to the city’s residents and
small businesses first and must use all caution when issuing water permits
to any potential water user that wants to use more than one million gallons
of water per day; and
WHEREAS, the Tacoma Public Utility gets water from the Green River
Watershed and the concerns for the environmental impacts of large water
users are valid as more increasing demands for water for people and
community development must take into account droughts that will become
more frequent in the Pacific Northwest as the result of climate change;
and
WHEREAS, the people want policies and contractual requirements made
to industry secondary to the human needs of the citizens and households,
schools, hospitals, and homes for the aged for fresh potable water that
should take priority except in the case of emergency fire fighting needs or
any other natural disaster that cannot bereasonably forecasted; and
WHEREAS, the sustained availability of affordable and potable water
for the residents and businesses of Tacoma must be paramount over
considerations such as potential tax revenues or investor profits; and
WHEREAS, industrial users that would require excessive amounts of water
to operate will have potential long-term negative impacts on the local and
regional environment and future community development in the city of
Tacoma; and
WHEREAS, residents and businesses of Tacoma have been asked in the
recent past and may be required in the future to conserve water; and
WHEREAS, large water users pay discounted rates while residents
as ratepayers carry an extra financial burden for the conservation,
maintenance, protection and development fresh of potable water sources;
and
WHEREAS, industries that use large amounts of water daily would place
human, economic, environmental and homeland securities at risk; and
WHEREAS, the Citizens of Tacoma have recently shown a huge desire to
be involved when our affordable, fresh water is at risk; and
WHEREAS, the Citizens of Tacoma want to encourage clean and renewable
energy industries operating in the City of Tacoma; and
WHEREAS, the Citizens of Tacoma find that a proposed methanol refinery
with a projected use of 14-21 million gallons of water per day does not meet
the requirements of a clean, renewable and sustainable energy production
facility; and
WHEREAS, the City of Tacoma Charter provides for Initiative and
Referendum rights which provides the city’s citizens the right to place this
ordinance before the voters;
Therefore
Be it ordained by the voters in the City of Tacoma that:
A new ordinance is adopted and new sections of Tacoma Municipal
Code Title 12 are hereby adopted:
Section 1. Findings and Intent – The voters of the City of Tacoma find
that there is a compelling need to carefully consider the consequences
of issuing permits to a water permit applicant that intends to use large
amounts of fresh water daily.
Section 2. Subject – this Act deals with issuing water permits to any
industry needing 1 (one) million gallons or more of water daily from the City
of Tacoma, this Act is to be known as
“The Large Water User Ordinance”
Section 3. Text – The City of Tacoma shall place before the voters any
applicant’s request for a water permit for one million gallons or more of
water use per day and it shall be placed on the next General Election Ballot.
Any water users currently using 1 (one) million gallons or more of water
daily are grandfathered in and their rights to water are not transferable.
Section 4. Interpretation – The resulting vote by the citizens of Tacoma
shall be binding.
Section 5. Severability – This Act shall be liberally construed to achieve
the defined intent of the voters. The provisions of this initiative are declared
to be separate and severable. The voters of Tacoma declare that they
support each of the provisions of this Act independently, and their support
for this Act would not be diminished if one or more of its provisions were to
be held invalid, or if any of them were adopted by the City Council and the
others sent to the voters for approval.
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