House Public Health, Welfare And Labor Committee
Video
Transcript
Bills discussed (10)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
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HB1929
· 4 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “HB1929”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1568
· 2 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “HB1568”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1687
· 2 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “HB1687”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1772
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1772”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB2280
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB2280”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HR1043
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HR1043”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB1132
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB1132”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB410
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB410”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB482
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB482”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB736
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB736”
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Pre-2017 bill |
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We did what we said we were going to do. By we, I mean Phil. We moved a lot of the bills down to deferred calendar, so now we're down to 31 active, 71 deferred, which is similar to the Senate. They have 39 actives and 46 shells
and then 11 deferred. So that's kind of where we are. Again, 31 on our active calendar. We're going to try to keep that, keep them moving off and keep that calendar clear. one quick note we have the fourth annual behavioral health rotunda day that's today
from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. we all need more mental health so you can go
up there and check it out and see what's going on we do have a special order set up today it is hb 1568 by representative meeks with that objection i'm going to try to clear the calendar here a little bit. I talked to Representative Meeks. He's okay with
that. I want to get to that bill quickly, but we've got several bills that kind of need to be cleared out. Some of them are not controversial. Some of them are just related in material.
I'd like to clear those out of here first. First one is HB 1929 by Representative, I'm sorry, HB 1687 by Representative Branscombe. Representative Branscombe, if you will join us at the end of the table, you'll be recognized to present HB 1687 he has an amendment that we're going to distribute thank you
Representative David L. Branscum
Unverified
1:31
mr. chair I'll let you get the amendment distributed
amendment in front of you. Representative Branscombe, do you want to
adopt your amendment and then present your bill? Yes, sir. Okay. Representative Branscombe makes a motion to adopt the amendment. Any discussion on the amendment? Okay. All in favor, say aye.
Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The amendment's been adopted. Now, Representative Branscombe, you recognize to present the bill as amended.
Representative David L. Branscum
Unverified
2:42
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This bill is pretty much as it
Speaker 9
2:45
says. It has been amended several times to make a lot of appeasements to other parties affected.
We're down now to pretty much the language of the bill, of the title. We're trying to streamline the process. It's taken a lot of the years in expense out of the appeals process. The commission still is able to do its job. It's just kind of one of the little common sense things that we kind of like to do around here every now and then. And with that, I'll entertain any questions. If there's no questions, I'll close for
the bill. Okay. Members, any questions? Representative Letting. Motion at the proper time. Okay.
Members, any other questions? If not, we're going to have – there are – there is one person signed up to speak against the bill, Ms. Teresa Marks with ADEQ. If you'll join us at the end of the table, you'll be recognized to speak against
Teresa Marks
Unverified
3:45
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Teresa Marks. I'm the Director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. And let me first say we really appreciate Representative Branscombe and the folks who we met with to
try to address some of the issues in this bill, and some of them have been addressed, and we appreciate that very much. There's just a couple of issues left, and I just want to make you aware of them. We feel like that they're problematic and could be problematic to industry. If you determine they are not, then that's certainly your decision and we will enforce whatever law is passed. We're concerned about how the bill uses the term, you can grant these variances if they are not expressly prohibited by federal law as opposed to using the term preemptive.
So as you all know when you read some of this stuff, when federal law preempts a field, You have to follow federal law, and it does not, in the case law, when they talk about federal law overruling, it does not use the term expressly prohibited. It says that when federal law preempts the field, as it does in the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, you cannot enact laws that will be in conflict with that federal law. Now, as you all know, we have the delegated programs from the federal government, so if
We are delegated the enforcement of the Clean Air Act, the federal Clean Air Act, to enforce it at the federal level through a delegated program. Anytime EPA can come in and over-enforce, in other words, if they don't like this, if we try to put it in our state implementation plan and they don't like it, they cannot approve it. If we try to use it and they don't like the way we've used it, they can come in and take away that permit if we try to change a permit term or vary a permit term. That's always a possibility
So I put that out there for you to consider It's something that gives us cause for concern The only other issue that we have with the bill Is the fact that ADQ, pursuant to statute, long-standing statute Is the permitting authority in environmental regulation The commission is our appellate body and rulemaking authority And those duties are delineated clearly in the statutes.
This gives the commission the authority to come in and set a variance on a permit limit. And that is the authority of the department. The commission can, they can reverse our decision, they can remand it back to us to change it, but they do not have the authority to change a permit. They just have the authority to tell us we have to change it. and we think that's in conflict with current law.
Speaker 17
6:32
So I'll be glad to take any questions. Thank you, Ms. Marks.
Members, any questions? Representative Ward-Law. Thank
Representative Jeff Wardlaw
Unverified
6:43
you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for coming today, Director Marks. Did you ask for any amendments to this bill, and were they added?
Teresa Marks
Unverified
6:51
We did ask for some amendments. Some of them were added. These two were not. Okay, thank you.
thank you members any other questions okay thank you for your testimony representative Branscombe do you like to close for the bill
Speaker 9
7:10
yes sir I think you've heard the concerns and it was kind of like remind me going on the Marshall School Board again we get to make the decisions if somebody else says we can't so with that said I think I thought it was a pretty good bill streamlined it is what the intent of it was You can go through there and find things to make up, you know, and I'm sure Director Marks is accurate in her concerns, but I don't see that as happening. But, you know, we'll pass it and we'll see.
With that, I'm closed for the bill. Thank you. Thank you. Representative Letting, you're recognized for a motion. Do pass as amended. Motion do pass as amended. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any
opposed? Congratulations. You passed your bill. Thank you committee next representative Davis HB 1929
Thank You chairman committee members House bill 1929 is an act to amend the laws pertaining to the promulgation of water quality standards After the clean water act passed All states were required to designate a default water use for any body of water in their state. In Arkansas, we applied a drinking water designation to every body of water in the state. This applies to this day to any ditch or small stream, which may actually have no flow many times of the year,
into, you know, a lot of bodies of water that just practically are not suitable and not practical for a domestic drinking water source. When this designation is put in place, it results in standards for dissolved minerals. And dissolved minerals are problematic because it is possible, and we have seen in some cases, where streams could not meet these dissolved minerals water quality standards just naturally and also if dissolved minerals were limited on a systems
discharge there's not an economical way currently to remove them do these dissolved mineral standards in the way we collect and analyze some of the data that we have on our streams in the state many of these streams are placed on what we call the 303D list, or a list of impaired streams. This is done through TMDL studies. Once a stream is on that list, we have currently in our regulations a process that cities or
industries can go through to remove this drinking water designation. This process can take upwards of two to three years and cost $100,000 or more. In each case, this designated drinking water use has been removed, however, as I just told you, at significant cost in time to those systems. This bill amends the code that instructs ADEQ on rulemaking for Regulation 2 such that the
drinking water use is removed unless a body of water is already used as a drinking water source or if it has been identified as a potential drinking water source in the Clean Water Act. It also establishes more favorable flow and data analysis to prevent additional streams from being unnecessarily listed as impaired and it requires public notice and provides for additional stakeholder
input when the TMDL studies are performed thank you okay
thank you for the presentation members any questions representative love thank you mr. chair representative
Speaker 35
11:20
Davis can you give me an example of what types of body bodies of water that you're that you're trying to exclude with
this bill where the bill would exclude anybody of water that's currently not used for drinking water that is not identified
as a potential use as a potential source of drinking
water this bill it does exclude any existing reservoir lake and its tributaries so the you know an example of the something we would be excluding the use from would be uh you know a roadside ditch or a stream that is actually dry most of the time you may refer to it as a gully or just a drainage path not necessarily a creek that flows all the time we're primarily very small bodies of water
you're recognized are you done yeah I'm done thank you Mr. Chair thank you Representative Love members any other questions okay we do have a few people signed up to speak against first we'll do Ms. Teresa Marks with ADEQ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Theresa Marks
Unverified
12:46
With me I have, I'm Teresa Marks, the Director of the Arkansas Department of
Teresa Marks
Unverified
12:50
Environmental Quality, and with me I have Ryan Benefield, who's the Deputy Director, and Ryan is also an engineer, so if your questions get extremely specific, he's the one that can answer those and I'll be deferring. First, again, let me thank Representative Davis and the folks from AEF who have met with us a couple of times on this bill, and we appreciate that. We certainly understand the problem that they're trying to address. We differ on how the problem should be addressed.
The minerals criteria in Arkansas, Arkansas, again, has a delegated program from the federal government. We are delegated the enforcement and the authority to go ahead and implement the Clean Water Act law here at the state level. And we do that through a delegated process whereby EPA can still come in and over-enforce or take away our delegated program. So EPA is still kind of calling the shots on the federal program, the Clean Water Act.
We have, pursuant to the Clean Water Act, we have to adopt designated uses for our waterways, and we have to adopt water quality standards designed to support those uses. Well, again, as Representative Davis told you, early on, they adopted a drinking water use with the appropriate minerals criteria for that use on every stream in Arkansas. And the way to get rid of that use is to do a study. It's called a use attainability.
analysis where you can remove that drinking water use and that's been the only way in the past you can remove an existing use the the problem we have basically a couple of fundamental problems with the bill the first being that we understand that the minerals in Arkansas are extremely low the minerals criteria that criteria was adopted back in the late 70s or early 80s and the criteria is even lower than the drinking water standards it's extremely low and
the criteria was adopted based upon sampling that they did of streams in those areas because those in Arkansas we've been blessed with really clean water and those streams were actually meeting these very low minerals criteria now minerals is not a human health risk the standards for minerals are They're voluntary, they're under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and they're set at 250-250-500 for sulfates, chlorides, and TDS.
So those standards are designed as aesthetic standards more than anything else. They are designed to make sure that your drinking water tastes palatable and that it smells palatable and it can be used for domestic use purposes. And there's someone here from the Department of Health that will go into more probably on those standards. But that's the reason they're there. There's what's called a secondary standard under the federal law. They also protect aquatic uses.
So the 250-2500 is designed to make sure that there's not going to be any problem with drinking water and that the aquatic use is going to remain the same. Now, granted, the minerals criteria can go up a lot higher than 500 and not affect aquatic use. There's some minor aquatic effect at the 500 level, 400, 500 level on TDS, but it's the harm there to human health is not existing.
I mean, it is a voluntary standard. The adoption of this or the use of this criteria across Arkansas was mainly done because we knew that our minerals criteria was very low. So what we have done is we have used the actual drinking water criteria when we have been looking at impaired waterways. So we know there's a problem with the ecoregion standards and we want to get rid of those and we want to raise them higher
and we're trying to work with EPA to do that but we're not sure that you can remove this drinking water use wholeheartedly off of all of these waterways in the state of Arkansas without having to do the appropriate studies to have it done I don't think that EPA will allow us to do a wholehearted removal of that designated use which will put the department in the position of having to go out and look at these thousands of waterways to determine whether or not there is a designated, whether or not there was ever the existing use, designated use
of being a drinking water source. So that's a concern that we have. We don't have a problem with trying to expedite the process where industry could come in if they need to discharge into a certain waterway and they could change the use, beneficial, the drinking water use. We don't have a problem with them coming in and changing that and not having to do the full exhaustive the UAA study, but we do have a problem with changing the default. We just don't think that's good for water quality.
We also have a concern with changing the standards. The standards that are in the bill would require us to use a flow standard that was basically artificial. It requires us to use a standard of 4 CFS or a higher standard, whichever is higher, the actual standard, whichever is higher. The 4 CFS is a standard that we have used in the past on very small watersheds when we didn't have the data to determine the actual flow.
This would require us to use it in all watersheds, that flow or higher, even if we had the data that showed that that was not the correct flow. So if we had data that showed the flow was 3 CFS, which will not allow you to discharge as much even if we have that even if we know that's the case we are prohibited under the terms of the bill from using that standard so that gives us cause for concern also as well as the fact that it's limiting our data that we use when we determine watershed quality for the impaired waterways list. EPA requires
that you use all readily available data. This bill requires us to use only data that are 60 regularly occurring samples in a five-year period right now that we do use five-year period of record and we use we get one sample month on most of our streams but the problem is if we go out to do a sample and there's no water there we can't get a sample then we're not going to have those 60 samples in a five-year period which would mean we'd have to throw out that data and I don't
think EPA will will allow that to happen either I think that they will consider that readily available data. When they say readily available data, it's not just our data. We have to use data from USGS, Department of Health, other sources where there's data readily available. So, our concern is, again, that this could be a problem with EPA coming in and over-enforcing. I don't think they'll take our program, frankly, they don't want our program, they just don't have the people to do it, but they can handpick permits if they think are affected by this
And they can over-enforce if they feel like we're not
Speaker 45
20:13
following the Clean Water Act. So those are our major concerns. I'd be glad to answer your question. We've got
a couple people signed up. I just want to ask one quick question that I want you to tell me if I'm summarizing in an unfair way.
What we're trying to say they can't do, they're already not doing. We're just taking their word that they're not going to do it.
Speaker 16
20:41
What we say they – who is that? What we
say – I guess the point – they're not already – they're not already – what we're saying we don't want them to do, they're already not
Speaker 16
20:52
doing. Is that right? No. Not – oh, on removing the
Teresa Marks
Unverified
20:55
drinking water designation. Right. They're doing that whenever it's necessary, when there's a discharger that it's necessary to do that. And to remove that designation, they have to prove that it's not an existing use. And we're just – we're changing the default, as
you said. Right. We're making it, rather than them having to
Teresa Marks
Unverified
21:10
take steps to remove it, we're saying we're just going to remove it with the stroke of a pen, and they're going to have to, if they want it back on, they're going to have to take steps to do it.
I got you. Representative Wilkins, Butch Wilkins. Ms. March,
Representative Butch Wilkins
Unverified
21:24
thank you for being here. You're always really on the spot,
I think, and really accurate. But I have talked to some of my district
water systems back home, and they said this bill has the potential to save them $100,000 on studies, and most of them are for this bill for that reason, to tell you the truth. And we understand that.
Teresa Marks
Unverified
21:53
Wastewater treatment plants have problems with minerals at times. A lot of them don't have problems that will go above the drinking water standards, but they do the ecoregion standards. We have never required anyone to put on reverse osmosis to meet the mineral standards. We know that that's not economically feasible, so we would not do that. What we have done is try to work with them to use best management practices to come underneath the drinking water standards. Now, some of these municipalities, and I know we're talking about discharging,
and some of these are like ditches and things that don't have consistent flow that these industries discharge into or that the municipalities discharge into. But the issue was that that tributary is going to go into something else, it's going to go into something else, and it's going to hit, as in the case of some of our municipalities, it's going to hit an extraordinary resource waterway. And several of the folks who are having problems right now are having problems because they have a site-specific criteria on an extraordinary resource waterway, and they're affecting that criteria, and it's causing it to be impaired.
So that's one reason that those companies or those municipal treatment systems are having to deal with those issues. Now, they still have the option of trying to remove the drinking water designation and trying to prove that they're not causing the impairment that's down on the ERWs. But you're right. Those are studies, and they can be expensive. What we have tried to do to work, and we're working with EPA to try to do, is to stay all those permits until we can change the ecoregion standards,
because a lot of these are based on ecoregion standards, which are the very, very low standards. And if we can get those changed, we'll be able to alleviate
a lot of those problems. Okay. Thank
Representative Andy Mayberry
Unverified
23:49
you, Representative Wilkins. Representative Mayberry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Director Marks, for being here and for your testimony today. Two questions, if I may, Mr. Chair. One, you had mentioned a couple of different times about that you didn't think that the
EPA would go along with the universal removal and that you didn't think that the EPA would allow the data that we're talking about here versus the readily available. Have you or anyone with your agency actually spoken with representatives of the EPA about these particular issues? MS. Yes, sir. We have. Actually, Representative Davis, the
Teresa Marks
Unverified
24:21
first meeting we had, we talked about some of these And he asked that we go ahead and send it to EPA and get their thoughts, which we did. They sent us back some written documentation.
The reason I say we think is because, yes, they objected to several of the provisions in this bill. When it comes right down to it, I don't know what EPA is going to do. You know, that's the reason I can't tell you, yeah, they're going to pull our program, or, yeah, they want to approve these permits, or they're going to come in and over-enforce, because I don't know. You know, they've indicated to us that they are not in agreement with some of these provisions, but how they would handle that, I can't tell you. I can tell you what they could do. Legally,
Speaker 58
25:00
they have the right to do, but I can't tell you what they will do.
Representative Andy Mayberry
Unverified
25:04
Okay, and my other question is a little bit off from that, but just help me for my own clarification. Some of the water sources that we're talking about here, if I understood correctly, maybe like dried up streams or stream beds, is that correct? Well, the water, they
Teresa Marks
Unverified
25:21
may be what we call intermittent streams. They may be streams that are not flowing. How
Speaker 57
25:26
do you take samples from something that's dried up? You don't, and
Teresa Marks
Unverified
25:30
that's part of the problem. If you know, especially folks in northwest Arkansas will know,
you have a lot of these mountain springs that will dry up in the summer. And when we go out to take a sample, and it's on our monthly routine to take a sample from this creek, we won't do it if there's not enough flow in it. You know, if there's puddles that are standing and it's not free-flowing, like it should be. We won't do it. We won't take those samples. That leads to the other problem in the bill that we have that it requires us to have 60 samples taken at regular intervals over a five-year period because if we can't take
those samples, then we won't be able to use that data. If we have to miss a couple of those samples because the creek's dry, then we won't be able to use that data. So that's another issue. But you're exactly right. We don't take samples. It would be unfair to take samples if you've got standing pools and it's not free-flowing because it won't accurately represent what's normally
the case. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Last
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
26:32
question, Representative Hammer. Ms. Marks, I was wondering, with regards to the question that Representative Burris asked
you on this particular issue, if you had to sit here today and guess how many rules and regulations that the EPA could at any given time step up to the plate and get actively involved with that they have a history of not being actively involved with? How many do
you think it would be? Let me just say
Theresa Marks
Unverified
26:59
they have the right to get actively involved with any of our regulations, but generally what we try to do
Teresa Marks
Unverified
27:04
is pass regulations we know that they're not going to object to.
Now, they have in the past objected to regulations, and they have sent them back, and we've had to change them, but it hasn't happened that
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
27:17
often. Do you know what the most recent case of where something like the potential impact that this bill is going to have as far as sending a message to them, what was the most recent case you had to deal with where they came back and said, okay, we're going to exercise our
Teresa Marks
Unverified
27:34
authority over you? We had a case in South Arkansas involving three entities that had wanted to get a pipeline
to try to dilute their emissions limitations to go into a larger body of water into the Ouachita River so they could have higher limitations. We were trying to work with them to get them to the point to where they could get, but they had been out of compliance for about six years. We had given them a compliance schedule, actually longer than that. We had given them a compliance schedule for three years. They didn't meet the compliance schedule. We worked with them. We worked with EPA to try to tell them EPA generally only allow a three-year compliance schedule.
We tried to keep that permit. They were getting ready for new permits. EPA would not let us keep the permit. They took the permit and the enforcement action away from us, and those three entities, there was an actual criminal, not a criminal, a civil action brought against one of them with tremendous penalties. So they took that action away from us, and we have not been involved with it since they took it away about two years ago, three years ago. What was
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
28:39
the amount of the civil penalty that they...
Theresa Marks
Unverified
28:43
They are still negotiating the last figures. They were in six figures, but they're still negotiating a settlement agreement. Low six figures? I don't
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
28:59
tune of the $100,000 that one entity is paying that was mentioned a while ago, so it would almost be a tradeoff as far as whether we wanted to run the risk, given the history of what they're going to get involved in enforcing and how severe it is?
Do they typically take what they perceive to be the most severe threats to the ecosystem? Is that where their priorities traditionally
lie? Yes, sir, that's true, but remember that these companies not only had to pay a penalty, that was on
Teresa Marks
Unverified
29:28
top of whatever they ordered them to do to come into compliance. Okay, all right, thank you. Thank you. Members, we do have a couple more people signed up to speak
on the bill. I'd ask everybody to keep in mind that I went off script a little bit here to try to accommodate. We've got a couple more bills that I would like to run before we get to the special order. Representative Meeks was kind enough to agree to that, so we kind of keep our calendar clean here. So just everybody keep that in mind, please.
Next, the only person signed up to speak for Robert Blandz. Mr. Blandz, if you'll join us at the
end of the table and say your name for the record, you'll be recognized to
Robert Blandz
Unverified
30:17
speak for the bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Robert Blandz. I'm representing the Board of Directors of the Arkansas Environmental Federation as the Chair of the Water Committee. Now, I have some prepared statements. I'm going to try not to be too repetitive of what's already been said in the interest of time.
As we've talked, you know, under the Federal Act, we have to designate uses, and we have to designate criteria to protect those uses. In the mid-1980s, Arkansas was one of the first states in the nation to use a regional approach to water quality criteria, and that was because, if you can imagine, the water is different in the Ozark Mountains than it is in the Mississippi Delta. And because of this diversity, what we originally did, and I was with the department back in this time, what we originally did was set up the mineral criteria as guidelines and
not drinking and not numerical. But at the same time, it protected the drinking water criteria of 250, 250, 500 that Director Marks mentions. In 1990s, ADQ adopted these numerical criteria instead of the guideline criteria. And as the Clean Water Act matured and lawsuits happened at the federal level, this assessment
methodology became very important as to the state reporting to EPA every two years on of which stream segments were meeting these numerical criteria and which ones weren't. And as has been said, those that weren't became impaired and they were faced with doing the expensive study or installing treatment. And the studies, although they're expensive, are a lot cheaper than the treatment. Basically to treat for minerals, you have to – it's basically a desalinization process.
It's very expensive to install. It's very energy-intensive to operate. They're difficult to maintain, and about 20 to 30 percent of the water that goes in is a concentrated bryant that has to be either deep well disposed or evaporated. There's not a municipal wastewater treatment plant in the state that is equipped to do that. There are other narrative provisions in the regulations that we believe are protective and provide ample protection for aquatic toxicity and pollution prevention, especially protecting
the drinking water use. So we don't feel like this is a pollution issue at all. We think it's a common sense issue, a good public policy issue, and good sound science issue. AEF has been dealing with ADQ on mineral water quality criteria for the last 10 years. can be fixed by regulation, as Director Marks said, but we think it can also be fixed by House Bill 1929. That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Members,
any questions? Okay, thank you for your testimony. Two more people
signed up to speak against, then we'll let Representative Davis close. Ross Noland. Mr. Noland, are you here? Okay, there we go. If you'll join us at the end of the table, you'll be recognized to speak against the bill.
Ross Nolan
Unverified
33:43
Morning, Mr. Chair, and thank you for recognizing me. My name is Ross Nolan. I'm a local attorney here in Little Rock, and I practice environmental law. I'm here today on behalf of myself and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel.
My testimony today is going to be very narrow. I'm going to specifically speak as to why this bill attempts to impermissibly remove a designated use. Pursuant to the Clean Water Act, water quality standards have three parts. That's water quality criteria, designated uses, and an anti-degradation statement. When you remove or modify one of those elements, you can jeopardize the whole program. So in Regulation 2, which is Arkansas's water quality standards, the drinking water designated use,
Along with industrial and agricultural uses is applied to every water body of the state by default Those are the designated uses for our water bodies of this state Bill 1929 attempts to eliminate the drinking water domestic Domestic use for any water body in the state which is not currently used as a drinking water supply or is not listed in the state water plan as a potential drinking water supply it's important to note that we
will all need additional water supplies in the future and the water plan at this time does not contain such a list the bill strips the designated use of drinking water from hundreds of water bodies in the state without complying with the Clean Water Act so how does it not comply with the Clean Water Act the bill creates many problems first it removes designated uses that may be be either existing I the designation is present and the water quality criteria for that designation is is met or that designated use may be attainable and I'll
go a step further than what director mark says and not only can you not remove an existing use you cannot remove a designated use which is attainable and this bill does not account for that requirement under the clean water act a use which is designated can only be removed in six specific situations which are defined by federal regulation those situations can only be found to be present through an administrative process do not believe it is proper to
find that you can remove a designated use through a legislative process so second and this is important on behalf of the public policy panel is that this bill cuts out the public from the water quality planning and criteria process pursuant to federal regulations it's also it is also required that a implementing agency have an opportunity for public comment and public participation in the water quality standards process though I am here today testifying on behalf of the Arkansas Public Policy Panel this is
not the process that is contemplated by the Clean Water Act it's an administrative process not a legislative process so what could happen if this bill passes a number of things could happen but mainly it's going to put the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and the public in the impossible situation of having a state law which is directly contrary to the process contemplated by the Clean Water Act and the regulations promulgated pursuant to
So in sum, I believe this is an administrative issue, not a legislative issue, and these designated uses cannot be removed unless they are unattainable and public participation and comment has been honored. And, Chair, I will be open to questions. Thank you. The
only question was Representative Link. I like your argument. I mean, you're talking about
Representative Kelley Linck
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37:39
policy. But isn't it also a policy that, and I've seen it happen, that in rules, which is where a lot of your administrative rules are made,
this body does not have any say other than the three months that we're in session. So we don't really have a chance to affect the rules and the administrative procedures of environmental quality except during this three months. So if we decide to do so,
Ross Nolan
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38:06
this is how we go about it. It's a delegated program. The rules for this program are set by the
Representative Kelley Linck
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38:12
federal government. Which come down and then they're implemented
Ross Nolan
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38:16
statewide. Yes, with the approval of the EPA, and that's key. Right. Because any change to Regulation 2 would have to be approved by the EPA,
Speaker 83
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and this bill attempts to change Regulation 2 without going through that administrative process.
Representative Kelley Linck
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38:28
Okay. I understand, but I believe that this body also has the right to make rules changes once every couple years. and when we feel that it's right for the people of our state. And so, anyway, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Darsha Ruth, Ralph? Ruth. Ruth, you'll join us. You'll be recognized to speak against the bill.
Speaker 88
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for accepting our comments here. I've got Lance Jones, who's our chief engineer. I'm with the engineering section of the health department, and we are the Safe Drinking Water Act people in the state of Arkansas, and I'm a professional geologist here, and I manage our source water protection program under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and I have some comments about the bill regarding domestic water use and exclusions for the bill.
In particular, we have a concern that our own program of delineating a source water protection area for rivers and lakes has not been included in the draft legislation. And in particular, we set a boundary for a river or a stream that's not been accounted for. There's some really vague definitions here. So we don't have details, but we do have that concern about that because we are the primacy
agency for the Safe Drinking Water Act and have some responsibility to EPA to have a program accepted. The other thing is that the amendments to the bill have provided greater protection for the lakes and reservoirs, and we really appreciate that on behalf of the public water supply systems in Arkansas, but they have not provided those for rivers and lakes. We have 39 active intakes on rivers and lakes, and 517 million people, 1,000, 570,000 people,
about half a million people drink that water right now. And the same concerns that Mr. Blance has raised for the $100,000 you'd have to spend to do the study would apply for drinking water resources for their treatment if they have to move from conventional treatment. All of our drinking water, if you have to move to advanced treatment, you're probably talking about about 2 million additional costs for these 39 systems, so we're concerned
about that. We actually set, we've had research done, it's an advanced kind of mature program that we do. limit of a three-day travel time for a stream and a 20-mile upstream, whichever is smaller actually. So we kind of understand what kind of an area you should be protecting around a river or a stream intake. And then we don't see a mechanism in this legislation for how
public water supplies would be protected from discharges because of that for the rivers and lakes. Again, we're designated by law to do this, to have a source protection program, and we feel like the current program that's delegated under the Clean Water Act to ADQ has a really good mechanism in place to do that. And we think it would really harm that we've not been involved in this process. So that's pretty much my comment, and I'll take any questions you might have.
I don't have anybody signed up for questions, so thank you for your testimony. Only other person signed up to speak against is Ms. Alice Andrews. I'm going to defer my comments. They've all been covered. It's almost enough to make me vote against this bill. Thank you. Well, it's
my birthday. The next present I can get a big vote. Well, I hope a happy birthday will
do. Okay. MR. Okay. Representative Davis, you're recognized to close for the bill.
MR. Thank you, Chairman. Members, just to clarify a few
points on things that you've heard, testimony by others. First is in the number of samples that the Department may be able to collect in five years. If you look at page four on line one, you'll see that the bill states that samples would be taken at regular intervals over at least a five-year period. So if it took more than five years, the bill would not conflict with that. As to the Clean Water Act, this bill does not change Regulation 2. However, this bill would require ADEQ to initiate the process to change Regulation 2 as required
by the EPA, which would then require EPA's approval and provide for public input. And to the Health Department's concerns, again, this does not change any water quality standards for existing
drinking water sources or identified potential sources for drinking water in the state water plant. With that, I appreciate a good vote. Okay,
members, you've heard testimony on the bill. What's the pleasure of the committee? Representative Wardlaw makes a motion. Do pass.
Any discussion on the motion? If not, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations, you passed your bill. Okay, members, I've gone off script, and we're all kind of learning here, and here's what I'd like to do. Representative Meeks was very kind. We've got two more people here that have asked to run non-controversial bills. I guess it will be up to you to determine if that's true. But I'd like to go ahead and do that because they've been patiently waiting.
But what I'd ask the members to do is it's going to be really easy, as Representative Meeks begins presenting his bill, for everybody to kind of wander out. It's going to get closer to lunch. I'm sure he'll do it in a very efficient way. But he was accommodating to let these other members get some of this stuff off. I'd ask all of you to be equally accommodating and stay for his presentation. Representative, Senator Malek, make your way down. That being said, I'm not going to be able to stay. I've got to be in Harrison for a funeral at 2,
and so about 11, I'm going to bail, and Vice Chair Murdoch's going to take over. But again, I would just stress that Representative Meeks was accommodating
to let us clear the deck of some of the stuff. Just please stick around for the special order. With that being said, Senator Malik, you're
recognized to present your non-controversial bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'm glad you were only
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handling those kind of bills before the special order. But I appreciate your accommodation. And actually, Director Marks is for my bill. So this is Senate Bill 410, members, Senate Bill 410.
This bill sets up an asbestos abatement grant program. And let me say right off the bat, in the event any of you had any contact from any of your constituents when the bill was filed, the original bill did have a fee possibility in it. That's been amended out. We've worked with the industry and anybody that had concerns with it, and I think we've satisfied all of those concerns. What this bill does is sets aside or transfers $500,000 from the asbestos control fund
over to an asbestos abatement fund. And what this is for, it allows cities and counties, smaller cities and counties, under $30,000, to apply for a grant in the event they have a building that collapses or is destroyed by fire and there's an asbestos issue, they could apply for a grant out of this to take care of that. It's not just for remodeling of city or county buildings. This would be when there's a disaster. Representative Thompson has worked with us on this bill.
They had one of those situations in Marlton. I think there was one up in Kensett at one point. And this would limit the grant program to $150,000 for any one year. And then, of course, we can come back and revisit that. The only other concern that the industry had was would this limit their funds to do their regular monitoring of asbestos and the need for asbestos abatement, and the department has assured the industry that that does not do that.
So, again, I know Director Marks can speak for this, Representative Thompson can, but in the essence of time, I may just see if you all have any questions, or Director Marks, do you want to make any comments? Mr. Chairman,
Representative Fredrick J. Love
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47:24
I'd entertain any questions. Well, yes, we have questions first. Representative Love. Motion at
Speaker 102
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the proper time Thank you Okay, Representative Malone Thank you,
Speaker 103
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Mr. Chairman Very quickly, as far as the grant process go
Speaker 104
47:38
Who does the removal of the asbestos?
Who Who would be doing the removal? Well,
Speaker 98
47:45
a licensed contractor And a city would go ahead Or a county Would go ahead and take bids Or determine what that cost would be Then they could apply for some grant For reimbursement for this MS. Okay. Thank you. Are
Speaker 35
48:03
there any questions? Representative Love. Director Marks, I do have a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Does this
Speaker 37
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allow you all to access any federal monies like Brownfield's dollars?
Theresa Marks
Unverified
48:12
MS. No, sir. These are monies that come in through payment of license fees by licensed asbestos professional removers. And it
Teresa Marks
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48:19
involves no federal dollars. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay, are there any
Chair
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48:30
other questions from the committee? And Senator Malik, you had
Speaker 97
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someone you wanted to present? No, I think we're closed unless
Chair
Unverified
48:37
the committee has anything further. Okay. Representative Love, I think you had a motion.
So motion do pass. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, congratulations. You've passed your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
Speaker 97
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committee, and best wishes to Representative Meeks when we get to him.
Chair
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49:03
okay senator flowers you have a bill you want to run Senate okay you're
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
49:16
recognized here I have two non controversial bills I believe the first First is Senate Bill 482. It's an act to reinstate the minimum qualifications for our health officer. This bill is agreed to by the Department of Health, and we think it's a good bill. What it does, because Director Halverson has indicated he will resign at the end of April,
We thought we needed to have Hold on, Senator.
Chair
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50:00
We've got to get a point of order here. Just one
Speaker 125
50:12
second. Has it passed already? Yes, ma'am. Okay, good. Okay, well, I'll go
Senator Stephanie Flowers
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50:16
to the next one. Senate Bill 736, and thank you, committee. Yes, Representative Ferguson took care of it.
Thank you. Okay. Senate Bill. 736. You're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Meeks. 736 is simple as well, and it would be nice
to know that you all have already passed that, too. But it is a bill that would establish and allow authority for the Board of Alcohol and substance abuse counselors to set fees.
As many of you or some that are new should know, I think last term Senator Malone had got a bill passed that required all of these boards and agencies, instead of coming through the administrative rules and regs to put forth a bill that would provide for the fees that these boards and agencies would charge. And so that's what this does, and I would entertain
any questions from the committee members. Mr. Meeks, you're recognized.
Speaker 115
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Representative Meeks, I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Are
Speaker 129
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we going to have an opportunity to see what their fees are going to be in a chance to actually review them,
Speaker 130
51:43
or are they just going to set them however they
Senator Stephanie Flowers
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51:47
want to, whether it's $100, $1,000, $10,000? MS. No. I believe they'll
still come before the administrative rules and regs, but as well, I think in joint budget there would be some appropriation for cash fees, so that's one
way of seeing what they are charging as well. MR. Okay.
Chair
Unverified
52:05
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Love, you're recognized. Okay. Are
Representative Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
52:13
there any other questions from the committee? Seeing none, Representative Malone. She's
Speaker 127
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reading the bill. There you go. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 59
52:26
Okay. Back to the fee. Explain that again because it says it's fixed by the board.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
52:32
Well, it'll be fixed by the board, but it's still subject to review by
the legislative committee we still have our legislative committee of administrative rules and regs as well we have to approve their budget which allows for these cash appropriations oh thanks representative link chair murdoch if i can
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
52:57
just make a comment instead of a question it
would straighten all this up i think what
What Senator Malone's bill did in our last session, it says that no agency or no board or commission can charge fees and can set them without it being first in statute, which is here. So if they come before, they will still come before the Rules and Regs Committee, just as they always have. But this will at least let us all know that they are charging some sort of fee, although it won't set the amount. They'll still set the amount through Rules and Regs. This just lets us know which boards and commissions and stuff are allowed to charge fees
So this doesn't this isn't this is this is good is what I'm trying to say without saying it's good. This is good Okay, representative Lincoln spoken for the bill Appreciate
Chair
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53:44
it too Are there any other questions from the committee? Okay turning
to the audience are there is there anyone here to speak for or against the bill? Seeing none representative love you're recognized motion to pass all the favor those polls
Representative Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
54:05
you'll be able to pass representative Douglas are you ready to
run yours okay you recognize thank you mr. chair this won't take long I hope house bill 1772 this is state health department bill. What it does, it changes the fee structure for individual sewage disposal systems. Now
if you don't know what that is, that's a septic tank in my words. But before the fee structure we had a fee for the fifteen hundred square feet and under and one for two thousand and over. This is combining those two and changing it to a flat fifty dollar fee for those. The thing is these inspectors go out whenever they get the permit fee. That pays for their cost of going out to inspect the site prior and after.
Sometimes they make several trips during the installation process to make sure it's installed correctly. Price of gas, price of vehicles, this is just updating things a little bit. Basically, right now the fees cover about 10 percent of the cost of the programs there. This will make it about 12 percent. It's just a user-based fee, basically. Any questions? Thank
Speaker 141
55:35
you, Representative. Are there any questions from the committee?
Representative Justin T. Harris
Unverified
55:39
Representative Harris, you recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Douglas, just want to make sure this
Representative Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
55:48
is a fee increase of $20. It varies there, Representative Harris. It would be a fee increase of $20 on the 1,500 or less square foot house on a 1,500 to 2,000 square foot. It would be a $5 fee increase. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay.
Representative Love, do you have a question?
Chair
Unverified
56:11
Are there any other? Yes, sir. Are there any other questions from the committee? Seeing none, we have no one signed up to speak for or against.
that being said Representative Love you're recognized motion do pass all in favor
Representative Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
56:39
those opposed motion passes thank you Mr. Chair
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
56:43
thank you committee thank you Representative Mates Okay.
Chair
Unverified
57:05
Representative Ferguson, you're recognized to present, excuse me, Senate Bill 1132.
Representative Deborah Ferguson
Unverified
57:18
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry, Senator Flowers had to leave, so she just asked that I ask that Senate Bill 1132 be sent to interim study. It's to require an interim study to improve swimming pool water quality and reduce recreational water illnesses.
Chair
Unverified
57:49
Okay, just one second. Just one second. Getting straight
on. Okay, thank you. Are there any questions from the committee for Representative Ferguson? Okay, do we have, what is the pleasure of the committee? Representative Warlaw, are you recognized?
The motion is sent to be 1132 to interim study. Are those in favor? Aye. Those opposed?
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, committee. Okay. Moving
Representative James L. Word
Unverified
58:39
right on, we have Representative Perry to – if you go to the end of
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
58:53
the table to present House Bill 2280. thank you mr. chairman committee representative meeks thank you we've got
house bill 2280 and to help explain it I've got Robert Breck with me and I'll I'll let him help explain it. Mr. Chairman, if you would. You recognize, please
Robert Breck
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59:15
introduce yourself. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Robert Breck with the Department of Health. Two years ago in the 2011 session, the governor's office requested that a requirement in the law at that time that the governor sign the Board of Health's rules be removed.
It was the only agency's rules that had to be signed by the governor. To be frank, he got tired of me chasing him around trying to get him to sign those rules, and he asked that requirement to be taken out, which we did. However, in the interim, since the last session, I discovered there was a specific requirement in the EMS rules that the governor sign those. And so I contacted the governor's office and asked if he would also like that specific provision to be removed. from the EMS rules, you know, from the EMS laws, and that's what this law would do.
It would also clean up some language that, to be frank, is unconstitutional in my opinion. It actually calls for EMS rules to come before the Public Health Committee to be approved, and that's really not appropriate. It's actually the proper terminology that's been changed in this bill. It's to come before the Public Health Committee and the Rules Committee to be reviewed. reviewed, that gives the opportunity for the legislature to change those rules or to modify what the rulemaking did in the next session.
So I did clean up the language that is also it's not consistent with the Administrative Procedure Act. I'd take any questions
Chair
Unverified
1:00:50
you might have. MR. Okay. Committee, do you have any questions? Seeing no questions, no one has signed up to speak for
or against this bill. Rep. Warlord, you're recognized. Motion to do pass. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes. Okay. Now what
Representative James L. Word
Unverified
1:01:05
I think we're going to do, we have
one resolution that we'll try to get to. Rep. That's okay at the end after a special order. Is that okay? That's not okay. Okay. We're going to try to get started with a special
Representative Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:01:23
order of the day. Rep. Meeks, if you will, Assume the position at the end of the
Speaker 159
1:01:32
table. The hot seat. The position to present your bill.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:01:40
I don't know how to start after that. This is actually going to be a little bit of a history. This is the first time that either one of the two brothers has appeared before a committee that the other one's on. So hopefully my brother will have mercy with me here. Mr. Chairman, if it is okay with the committee, I have an amendment. It's my own amendment. It's an amendment that is agreed upon language with me and some of the entities that are involved. So if it's the will of the committee, I would ask that you go ahead and start off by approving the amendment, and then I'll get into the meat of the bill as amendment.
Chair
Unverified
1:02:16
Okay. The pleasure of the committee. Representative Warlaw. Okay, there's
a motion to approve the amendment. Are there any questions on the motion? There's
no questions. All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay, the amendment is approved. Thank you,
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:02:38
Mr. Chairman. To present my bill this morning, I've got a PowerPoint presentation, so we have the projector and all that turned on.
Speaker 164
1:02:47
So while that's – yeah, I'm ready here. We got the – yeah, I think – yeah. Right. Are we ready? Yeah, yes.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:03:03
You're going to do it? Okay. Yes, sir. My involvement in this issue comes from my background in observational astronomy, is how I became involved in this particular issue. This all started two years ago. And what I did is went to numerous states around the country, see what they were doing,
looked at some model legislation by some of the groups that are involved in this issue, and the result was we see here is House Bill 1568. What I'm hoping to do is my goals in this talk is, first off, talk about what is light pollution, light trespass, and glare. Secondly, I'm going to talk about why we should care about it. And then finally, I'm going to talk about the bill and what the bill does. For folks that are not familiar with this, if you've never heard the term light pollution,
you may think this is a slightly crazy issue that doesn't bear our scrutiny. But I hope that after this, you'll see that this is an issue that we as public policymakers should be interested in. The photograph that we have there, I would submit to you, could be argued as the most expensive photograph in history. What you're looking at is a culmination of something that started in the late 1800s when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. And in order to create that image, we were talking about millions of light fixtures across the world.
You're talking about all the infrastructure, the power plants, the burning of fossil fuels, millions and millions of dollars, probably billions of dollars invested in order to create that view of our planet at night. So you could be looking at the most expensive image there in history. However, the result of that is, of course, it creates light pollution. Now, light pollution is a little bit different than other types of pollution. If you look at the image there on the left, you're dumping sewage.
That's pollution. That's cut and dry. It's easy to see. Smoke coming out of a smokestack. No one's going to argue that all the smoke coming out is a pollution. But with light, the problem comes in is that light can be good or bad depending on how it's used. The same bulb that's producing good light can also be producing bad light. Here's a few pictures of light pollution. Light pollution is simply that sky glow that's created over cities and towns by the excess use of light at night.
Little Rock is not exempt. At the bottom left picture is a photograph of the city of Little Rock at night. The most obvious impact of light pollution is on the number of stars that are visible at night. You go outside at night, you're in the city, you see very few stars. You may see as few as 10 to 20 stars. As you go to better and better environments, if you're under a pristine sky, the human And I can perceive about 2,500 stars at any one given time.
On this rating scale, nine being worst, one being best here in Arkansas, we can usually expect to get about two to three as the best guys we'll ever get in our state. We are, ladies and gentlemen, we're losing the night. This is a photograph of our Milky Way galaxy. And what I'd like to do is let's take a look at some statistics. The International Astronomical Union, which is the body that determines names for planets, asteroids, and so forth, they're kind of the regulatory body of the astronomical community.
According to them, 99% of Americans live in areas where there is some light pollution. 99% of Europeans live where there is some small degree of light pollution. Sixty-three percent of people across the planet live in areas where light-polluted skies. The areas or the number of our population that can no longer see the Milky Way at night, that's two-thirds of Americans, 50 percent of Europeans.
The bottom statistic there, where no dark adaption is needed outside, 40 percent of Americans can walk outside at night and don't have to adapt to the darkness because there's so much sky glow around them. About half of the people worldwide had never seen the Milky Way in their entire life. As a matter of fact, if I were to take just a poll in this room of how many folks have ever seen the Milky Way under a pristine sky, from similar polls I've taken in the past,
it's about 50% of people have never truly seen the Milky Way. As a matter of fact, that statement down at the bottom says, in 1994 when an earthquake knocked out power in Los Angeles, many anxious residents called local emergency management centers to report seeing a strange silvery cloud in the sky. What they were seeing for the first time was the Milky Way, which had been long hidden by the glow of the night sky there, by the glow of the city. And it's not just limited to our cities. This is a photograph of the sky from my house, and you can look all the
around the ring of the horizon. I live about seven miles outside of Greenbrier, 15 miles from Conway, and about 50 miles from Little Rock, and you can see the light pollution even from Searcy, which is about 20 miles away. All that is sky glow from our cities. This is a map showing just how much light pollution has changed over the last, since the 1950s. You can see the steady progression and what our skies are expected to be like just 10 or 15 years from now.
Now, all of this light pollution comes at a cost. There's about 4,000 million megawatt hours of electricity produced in the United States a year, and approximately 6% of that is used for outdoor lighting, street lights, so forth. Of that 6%, it's estimated that approximately 30%, or almost 70 million megawatts of electricity is wasted as light pollution. That's 72 million megawatt hours is equivalent to almost $7 billion.
Most of that is tax money. It generates an additional 66 million tons of CO2, and it's the equivalent to having another 9.5 million cars on the street. The effect of light pollution on wildlife. It's been shown that prolonged exposure to artificial light at night prevents many trees from adjusting to seasonal variations. Research on insects, turtles, birds, fish, reptiles, and other wildlife species show that light pollution can alter behaviors, foraging areas, breeding cycles, and it's
not just in the urban centers, it's also in the rural centers as well because that light pollution can extend out for miles away from the city. There are approximately 200 species of birds that migrate over the United States at night that are affected by light pollution. Of course, you've got the picture there with the bat wearing sunglasses, kind of a fun picture, but that picture there in the middle, those are sea turtles. Sea turtles, after they hatch there, are attracted by light. Now, in the normal conditions, sea turtles that are born on the beach, the sky over the
ocean is naturally brighter than the sky over the land, so the sea turtles naturally go to the ocean because they're attracted to the light. However, when that beach is located near a city, the sea turtles go inland and are killed. As you can see here, the sea turtles are all gathering around that light because they're attracted to it. The effects on humans. Let's talk about how this affects the citizens of our state. This report says it may not be entirely coincidental that dramatic increases in the risk of breast and prostate cancers,
obesity, and early-onset diabetes have mirrored the dramatic changes in the amount and pattern of artificial light generated during the night and day in modern societies over recent decades. The science underlining these hypotheses has a solid base. Further, why are we as a nation getting fatter? 150 years ago, a sedentary lifestyle was considered to be that of a farmer's wife, says Richard Simmons, M.D., a sleep specialist in Walla Walla, Washington. Our levels of physical activity have plummeted along with our caloric expenditure,
yet our caloric intake has not declined. When caloric expenditure declines and caloric intake does not decline, weight gain occurs. That's not the only factor. He goes on to say we're also getting less sleep than we used to. Add all those features together, and you have the perfect model for obesity. So not only light pollution can be an indicator of cancer, but it can also be a problem with obesity.
I found, you know, it's amazing what you learn when you do these things. The sleep pattern that was the norm before the invention of the electric light is no longer the norm in countries where artificial light extends the daytime. Here, a historian described how, before the Industrial Age, people slept in two four-hour shifts. There was a first sleep, a second sleep, and it was separated by a late-night period. In 1992, Thomas Ware, a psychiatrist at the National Institute for Mental Health, he actually conducted a study to see if humans were put back on that natural cycle of day and night,
We found that, indeed, the subjects did revert to a two-shift sleep pattern separated by one to three hours of quiet wakefulness. So because of our move into the period of the electric light, it has affected how we sleep at night. Glucose tolerance tests showed that short sleepers experience hormonal changes that could affect their future body weight and impair their long-term health. To keep their blood sugars levels normal, the short sleepers needed to make 30% more insulin than normal sleepers. Both studies were led by Yves Van Cotier, PhD, who termed sleep
deprivation as the royal route to obesity. Despite not yet being overweight, she said these young adults had profiles that predisposed them to putting on weight. So in other words, people who did not get the proper amount of sleep or sleep in the right way, it led to long-term health effects, including potential weight gain. Melatonin. This is where we get into the cancers. Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland. It's secreted at night and is known to help regulate the body's
biological clock. Melatonin triggers a host of biological activities possibly including a nocturnal reduction in the body's production of estrogen. The body produces melatonin at night and melatonin levels drop precipitously in the presence of artificial or natural light. Numerous studies suggest that decreasing nocturnal melatonin production levels increase an individual's risk of developing cancer. In other words, if you're not sleeping in darkness at night, you lose this production of melatonin,
and without the melatonin, it has negative health effects. As a matter of fact, two studies in Israel have looked at this, and they used satellite photos to gauge the level of nighttime artificial light in 147 communities in Israel. Then they overlaid the photos with a map detailing the distribution of breast cancer cases. The results showed a significantly significant correlation between outdoor artificial light at night and breast cancer. Even when controlling for population density, affluence, and air pollution, women living in neighborhoods where it was bright enough to read a book outside at midnight
had a 73% higher risk of developing breast cancer than those residing in the least outdoor artificial light. So these studies show fairly conclusively that women that live in these areas have a much higher risk for breast cancer. They've also done studies of nurses that work at night. Nurses that work at night have also been shown to have higher risk of breast cancer. So, not only does this become a major health issue, as this science becomes more and more founded,
it could potentially become a liability issue for our cities and for our employers. As a matter of fact, the American Medical Association said that support the need for developing and implementing technologies to reduce glare from vehicle headlamps and roadway lighting schemes and develop lighting technologies at home and work to minimize circadian disruption while minimizing, while maintaining visual efficiency. Basically, we need to find ways to make sure we're using light in a good way.
They also recognize that exposure to excessive light at night includes extended use of various electronics, media, can disrupt sleep or exasperate sleep disorders, especially in children and adolescents. What they're saying here is children at night that sleep in bright lights can also be affected. You know, if you've got a bright nightlight in your child's room, it can also have negative impacts. Why does this occur? When you're asleep at night and you've got your eyes closed, how does artificial light from outside get in your room? Well, unless you have that light
completely blocked off, it gets through your eye. How many of you as children remember a time when you were asleep in bed? It was nice and dark in your room. Your mom came in and flicked on the light, it didn't matter that your eyes were closed. You saw that light, and a lot of us, and if you have teenagers, you know the story where they're pulling the covers over their head. That's because our eyes, even when they're closed, still allow approximately 30% of light to be transmitted through your eye. So even with your eyes closed, even while you're asleep, light still gets into your eye. Now let's talk about how our human eye will perceive light.
If we look at this scale from the brightest of sunlight to total darkness, our eye is not designed to see that whole range. Our eyes only see a small amount of range. And what our eyes typically do is the area that our eyes are focused on, that range moves up and down. So during daylight hours, the light range that we adapt to is going to be the brighter light. During the nighttime, when it's dark, our eyes will move to where we're seeing more of the darkness.
For example, I've got a car, the car headlight on during the daytime. The daytime, our eyes are adapted to that light. It's no big deal. But at night, those same headlights create glare. Our eyes adjust to that bright light, and now we lose our adaption to the darkness around us. As a matter of fact, all of us in our vehicles, we have rearview mirrors that we adjust to try to dim that light out. Same thing happens if you're in a dark movie theater. You walk out, you're completely blinded until your eyes adjust to that light level.
If you're in a bright outdoors, you go into a dark movie theater, same thing. You've got to wait until your eyes become adjusted to that light level. And that will become important as we get on. Now, efforts to combat light pollution, this is not only occurring in Arkansas. You can see this from NCSL, other states that have adopted light pollution measures. This is an issue that is growing across the country. There have been numerous studies that are done. If you just Google light pollution on the Internet, you can see these. There are various organizations that are working towards this end.
One of the most prominent ones is the International Dark Sky Association. They've been around since the 1970s. As a matter of fact, we have the Arkansas Chapter President for the IDA here. There are other groups and organizations that are involved in this. Flagstaff proudly announces that it's an international dark sky city. So communities are becoming involved in this. There are several communities here in Arkansas that have adopted night sky regulations. It's also working its way into the mainstream. This is from Lowe's website.
I just got this yesterday. If you look down in the bottom right-hand corner, they have dark sky lighting that they're adopting. Home Depot, this is their dark sky lighting. So they have moving into this area. So let's talk about, let's actually get into the issue and understand what I'm trying to accomplish here. Whenever you have lighting at night, if the light is aimed down towards the ground, it is useful lighting. The area in gray here on that top image.
If the lighting goes out to the side, the area in red, that lighting creates glare and reduces nighttime visibility. The area in orange, light that goes up, that light is wasted. That's not only wasted light, it's wasted taxpayer dollars. And it also is created from power plants that adds to air and water pollution. Here's where the problem comes from. these are some of the problem fixtures. The two fixtures on the top row, those are called
globes. Those light bulbs, the way they're designed is the most, the majority of the light that those fixtures are creating goes up, does nobody any good, goes out to the side, creates glare, and only a very small portion of it goes down to the ground. As a matter of fact, typically you have to have rows of them in order to compensate. Now, If the majority of your light from that bulb is going into the sky, that means in order to get the same amount of light on the ground that you would get from a fixture that's designed to send all the light to the ground, that bulb has got to be brighter.
The most common fixtures or the most common light polluting fixtures that we have in the cities are these street lights. They're called a dropped lens cobra light. Most of you are familiar, if you've driven around any of our streets, you've seen them. These are the streetlights that as you're driving down the road at night create the flash, the glare, glare, glare, glare as you go from streetlight to streetlight to streetlight. So let's talk about what my house bill does, and then I've got some experts to come up to try to help me answer some questions that you may have.
First off, let me tell you what it's not. This is not an extreme environmental or an Agenda 21 bill. A lot of times environmental bills tend to be at odds with industry. We've not done that. This is not the government trying to take control of anybody's life. It doesn't do that. Number two, this is not an unfunded mandate. This is not a mandate to cities and counties saying you're going to do this tomorrow and you're going to have to pay for it. This does not mandate that a city go out and change every fixture today.
This is a slow implementation over time. This is not telling everybody to turn off their lights. I'm not expecting the city to go completely dark. What we're asking here is for the lights to be there, but for it to be used in an efficient manner. We're not trying to limit property owners rights. If you want to light your yard up like daytime, you've got every right. And we are not limiting businesses with just a few exceptions, and I'll go over them. What we're trying to do is we're trying to protect public health.
We're trying to create an opportunity to save taxpayer dollars, be better stewards of the environment. And we also have the opportunity for Arkansas to be a model for other states to follow. I know this is not a big mainstream thing, but parties that have investments in this area are actually following this pretty closely. So let's talk about what this bill does. First off, it clarifies definition. Arkansas already has kind of one, but it doesn't do a whole lot. So the first thing, we're defining definitions. Secondly, it says that an agency, public corporation, county,
or municipal subdivision of this state shall not use public funds to operate, maintain, install, or cause to be installed any new or replacement permanent outdoor fixture that is brighter than 1,800 lumens unless the following conditions are met. Now, if you're not familiar with lumens, I couldn't list it as wattage because a 100-watt incandescent light bulb generates a different amount of light than a 100-watt fluorescent or a 100-watt LED. So, lumens is kind of the standard measure, but it's approximately equal to a 100-watt incandescent light.
So, this will not affect Christmas lights, decorations, any of that kind of stuff. For these lights that are brighter, what we're asking is that the light be fully shielded, that it be designed to maximize energy, that it's designed to reduce light pollution, light truss, plastic, and glare, and that it not be any brighter than is needed to do the job. So we only want to have the lighting levels as what's needed because anything above that, again, you're getting into waste. Those standards are set by the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America. And I know you all are familiar with them, right?
Below is just a couple of examples of some good lighting that would qualify under this new belt. The other thing is it does is it defines, makes illegal excessive light trespass. Right now, you know, if I want to go out and sue my next-born neighbor for light trespass, I can, but there is no directions for the court. This bill does give direction for the court, and basically light trespass is, you can see kind of like the two pictures. You know, if I burn leaves in my backyard and a little bit of smoke drifts over into my neighbor's yard,
that's to be expected. However, if I burn leaves in my backyard and I set up a high-power fan to blow all the smoke in his yard, he's going to have a problem with that. Likewise, if your neighbor sets up a floodlight so it lights up the side of his yard but at the same time is lighting up your bedroom, you know, he's trespassing and disturbing your life. So this offers, basically it makes that illegal. The other thing it says is, and I think this is a common sense, it says that athletic fields not in use after 11 p.m., shut the lights off.
If they're being used, no big deal, leave them on. After 11 p.m., you shut it off with the exception of safety and security lighting. How businesses are affected. The only businesses that are affected by this legislation are billboards and roadway advertisement. What this said is billboard operators. If you have lights on your billboards, that the lights, the lamp, the fixture needs to shine. Most of the light on the billboard, not send it off into space or wherever.
Most of it has to go on the billboard. And it also says that the lamp cannot be visible from the roadway. In other words, we don't want billboards on the side of the road creating glare for our drivers. The vast majority of billboards already comply with this, so it should be a low impact. The next thing it says is for roadway contractors, if you are building a subdivision and you're putting in lights, and after you put in those street lights, those street lights will then become the responsibility of a city or the municipality or the county.
Basically, what this says is that you've got to put those in so that they conform to the same standards as if the city installed it. Because what we don't want to happen is the contractor to put in lights that not conform, and then now the city have to come back in and fix them. The last thing it does is on aviation warning lights, radio towers, for example, This says on all new structures built that require aircraft avoidance lights that they use red lights at night instead of those bright flashing lights that light up the environment.
I actually have a pilot here that can speak to concerns that, you know, we've got a lot of C-130s that fly over the state at night. And if they're using night vision goggles, you can imagine them using night vision goggles. They get close to one of these towers, one of those bright strobe lights goes off. You blind the pilot for momentary, so this is to try to avoid that. Most businesses in the state, if you look at them, I know you all pay attention to what kind of light fixtures they use in their parking lots, but most of them are actually already using the full cutoff fixtures
because it makes good economical business sense. As far as for individual people, the only way this affects the general public is those night watchmen that are offered by our electric utilities. What this says is that all the ones that are in there are grandfathered in. What this says is going forward, new ones that they install must be either partially or fully shielded. Now, if the customer is just diehard, they want to have one of those, like the example there, if they want to have one of those, they can go out and purchase one,
and the utility is still free to install it and operate it at their discretion. Exemptions. This does not apply if a federal law preempts state law. This does not apply if there is a police, fire, emergency, or other temporary situations where we require outside work at night. Outdoor lighting for worker safety, road work, ranches, oil fields, that lighting is not affected.
Of course, we're not going to affect navigation aids for aircraft and watercraft, monuments, historical or flag lightings. We're still going to light the Capitol Dome up at night. We're still going to light the flag up at night, even though that's direct light into the sky. We are exempting correction, mental health, K-12, and higher ed. There is a subchapter there that says that this is to act as a guideline, but it's not binding. So we're telling K-12 and higher ed, work towards this goal as opportunity allows.
We also create exemptions if there's excessive cost. I'm trying to make this to be as low burden on our cities and counties as possible. Excessive cost here is defined as 1.5 times. So if they have to pay one and a half times more to buy a conforming fixture, it's exempt. If it requires extensive structural modification, it's exempt. Or if there are safety issues involved, it's exempt. So, you know, I'm trying to be realistic and practical about it. All current outdoor lighting is grandfathered in and exempt until replacement is needed.
I'm not going to read all this, but one of the concerns that critics will raise about outdoor lighting is that you're creating a safety and security issue And what a lot of folks do is they light their warehouses or light up their streets with these floodlights Well, it's been shown that floodlighting, if it's not done properly, can actually increase crime because what you're doing by lighting your property up is you're showing the bad guy where all the entry points are.
You're showing them all the goodies that are to be stolen, vandals that are coming in. It makes it easier to see. It says in here that San Antonio school system actually darkened their property at night, and they found that vandalism at night went down because teenagers don't find it as much fun to go on school property and have to hold a flashlight in one hand and a spray can in the other hand. So all that went down. You know, if this is something that you all are interested in pursuing, I'll be happy to go into it further. There have been other studies that have been done worldwide that says if you lower the lighting to a dimmer level,
it is actually better for safety and security. Here's a couple of examples why. In situations where you create bright glare, you create high contrast, that top image, you can see somebody standing there, but you can't see any details about them. Now, because of the way your eyes are adapting, that's that contrast range I was talking about earlier, if that was more of a gentle glow, you would be able to see details about that person. What color clothes are they wearing? Is it a man or is it a woman? Things like that.
That bottom image, you can't see it, but in that open gateway, there's actually somebody standing there. But you can't see it because of the contrast created by that glaring light. Here at the Capitol, right out front, here's a good conforming fixture. It's low to the ground. It lights the sidewalk up. It's properly shielded. This kind of lighting is much cheaper than putting up a big pole. It's easier to maintain. You don't have to get ladders out to change out bulbs. You accomplish the same thing in a much better, more responsible way.
The big sticking point in talking to folks, most of the entities involved agree that light pollution is an issue that we need to address. Here's the biggest concern. It's going to be the cost. Pulaski County sent me an estimate that told me that they were expecting this was going to cost them $2 million to $5 million annually. Let me break this down and tell you why that is not the case and where they came up with this number. Right now, Entergy charges Pulaski County per poll $5.33.
So every streetlight pole in Pulaski County that's generating light is costing the taxpayers $5.33 a month. If they change that out to an unshielded light, it's going to raise that cost about a dollar. So let's say that in the next year that 1,000 streetlights have to be replaced. Streetlights last about 10 years on average from what I've been told. So if they replace 1,000 streetlights in this next year, it costs $1 more a month.
So for them to do that, it's going to cost them about $12,000 more a year. As they go forward, year after year, it's going to cost them more. Let's say that there are 100,000 streetlights in Pulaski County, which, by the way, there are not. But let's say, just for the math's sake, 100,000. That means it would cost them $100,000 more a month or $1.2 more million a year. So you can see their estimate of $2 million to $5 million is overstated. I don't know if there's someone here from Pulaski County. They may, you know, rebuke that.
But when I talk to Energy, I ask them this question. Why is the shielded light more expensive than the unshielded light? If you go out on the Internet, I've got two websites here, and I know it's hard to see on the projector there. The one on the left is your standard Cobra head. The one on the right is a replacement fixture that's conforming. So that little blue drop-down area, when you go to buy these, you can choose either one of those, and the cost is the same. So as a citizen or as a city, if I want to go buy these on the open market, they cost the same.
So why is there a dollar difference in the cost between the two? Well, when energy goes and buys streetlights, guess which ones they buy in volume? They buy the unshielded ones in great volume, so they get a discount. As if this bill goes into place, as they start buying the shielded lights in volume, you're going to see those numbers reverse. As a matter of fact, in order to try to help this happen in a more standardized manner,
right now the energy companies, they come before the PSC whenever they deem appropriate to ask for rate changes. What I'm asking for in this bill is for the first 10 years that at least once every three years, the electric companies come before to adjust these rates so that they are properly reflective of the volume between these two different kinds of light. The PSC is in agreement, and I talked to Energy this morning, and they have no problem with that language as well.
So initially there may be a small increase in price, but that small increase in price will come back down. and using a dynamic score five or ten years from now when this is in place, you should see those prices reverse, and we'll have the light pollution reduced, so we'll have that, and we will also have it at a price that's similar to today. Now, the other advantage is this. The dropped lens, one on the left, which is a light polluting fixture, that one sends light out in all directions, so you need a slightly brighter light.
If you go to the full cutoff fixture, the light's more concentrated, so you don't need as bright of a lamp to get the same amount of light on the ground. So you can actually see potential savings there. This is what we're asking. We're asking to go from that lamp in the top left to one of these two fixtures here. Those fixtures are already going out. As a matter of fact, in that picture down in the bottom right, you can see the difference it makes. This is from Calgary in 2001. The lamps that are closest to us in the picture are the full cutoff.
There's no glare. The ground is properly lit. There in the distance where you see all that glare at, that's from the old-style fixture. So we're reducing glare. It makes it better for drivers, and it also reduces light pollution, saves energy. There is newer technology coming down the pipe. So as we go out into the future, you're going to see this more and more often. The bill does not require cities and towns to do this. However, if they do choose to do this, you'll see even greater savings.
New LED technologies allows the cities to actually dim the bulbs at night. So when you get in a situation where you've got a bright full moon at night, you can actually dim those street lights down so they're not operating at full power when you don't need them. When the moon's not out, you need the lights at the fullest, you turn them on to their full extent. So the cities have greater control. Cities that have made this investment, this is just some of the returns.
And as this technology grows, I think these numbers will increase. Boston has 64,000 streetlights. They've changed out about 25,000 thus far, and they're saving $2.8 million in annual electricity costs. Seattle is saving $1.2 million. They think by the time they've got their system retrofitted, they'll save about $2.4 million a year. Ann Arbor, Michigan, small city, probably about the size of Conway. They've changed out 1,000 lights to this LED technology. They're saving about $100,000 a year.
Los Angeles has changed out about 100,000 units. They're saving $5 million a year in electricity savings. There's someone here from Little Rock, I think, to testify, and they can testify to this a little bit better. But my understanding is the city of Little Rock is spending 1.2, I've heard between 1.2 and $2 million a year. in street lighting, if they were to adopt this technology and save even 20% to 30%, we're talking about tens of thousands of dollars that the city can use for teachers, police officers, and in other areas.
So with that, that will conclude my talk, but we've got the opportunity to decide, you know, which one of these two skies are we going to leave the next generation. And what I'd like to do, Mr. Chairman, if we can have the lights back on, I'm going to ask, I've got a couple of experts that I'm going to have come to the end of the table to try to help answer any questions the committee has. First off, I've got Dr. Austin. He is an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Central Arkansas. I also have David Mitchell, Ph.D.
He's an economist at the University of Missouri. He was kind enough to come down. He has done, he's probably one of the leading authors of the economics of light pollution. And then also John Reed, he's from here in Little Rock. He's a lighting electrical engineer. So he'll be able to answer any of the technical questions you might have, you know, everything you wanted to know about street lighting, but were afraid to ask. And now is your opportunity. So with that, I'm going to ask, since Dr. Mitchell drove all the way down from Missouri to be with us this morning,
I'm going to ask with the pleasure of the chair if he can make a few comments about the economics of light pollution. And then we'll open it up
to any questions the committee might have. Okay. Just one
Chair
Unverified
1:39:36
second. Before we do that, let's see if the committee has any questions for Representative Meeks himself. Are there any questions for Representative Meeks?
Representative Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:39:43
Seeing none, you may allow. All right. Dr. Mitchell, if you would. Thank
Speaker 174
1:39:53
you very much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to come.
David Mitchell
Unverified
1:39:56
My name is David Mitchell, and myself and some colleagues have been doing some research on the economics of light pollution for about five or six years now. And some of the research that you, some of the numbers that you saw up there were actually numbers that we actually generated. And I actually went back and looked at some of the data for Arkansas as a whole. Arkansas generates about 61 million megawatt hours of electricity. This was in 2010, the last year that you had reliable, consistent data over all of the things that we needed.
Chair
Unverified
1:40:28
And so what that means using kind of Excuse me one
second. I'm so sorry. Just a matter of procedure, after the bill has been presented, there is no questions from the committee for the bill presenter. Now we're in a for and against mode. So I want to make sure, because this is not a part of the presentation, you're going to speak in favor of you're not answering a question because there was no question asked of you. So you're going to speak in
Representative James L. Word
Unverified
1:40:51
favor, which is fine, but I don't want to start that process improperly. So I want to make sure we do that the proper
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:40:57
way. Mr. Chairman, if it was okay, I had intended for him to be part of my presentation.
I don't know if it practically, if it makes any difference or not. I'll, you know, yield to your wisdom there.
Chair
Unverified
1:41:10
I think that your presentation has been very much received. I think we've heard a pretty extensive presentation. But I do, you know, they're here. If there are any questions, you may have done a good enough job. I don't
Chair
Unverified
1:41:24
do, we do have a question from Representative Love. Who's your question for? Actually, I have a motion. Oh, he has a motion. Okay.
Your motion. What is your motion first? To
Speaker 180
1:41:37
limit the debate to 10 minutes. Okay. Per
Chair
Unverified
1:41:44
side? Per side. Okay. So Representative Love motion is to limit the debate to 10 minutes per side. All in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Okay. So we'll set the order with that. Appreciate that. We have 10 minutes on each side, for and against. And we'll start with the we've heard, well, you're at the end of the table.
I guess we'll start with four with you being at the end of the table if that's proper, Mr. Brooks. That's proper. So we'll start with four, and
David Mitchell
Unverified
1:42:15
then 10 minutes will start now. All right. Dr. Mitchell, please go ahead. So using those same numbers that we've already generated in our previous research applying them to basically the state of Arkansas, we see that in essence Arkansas wasted about about $79 million, actually almost $80 million on light pollution. And what we can do is we can translate this out to about 1.2 million metric tons of carbon
dioxide. It's the same thing as removing about 175,000 cars off of the road. One of the things that we did in our research is we actually went out to different areas where there was very little light pollution. This was actually out in national parks. And we conducted a survey. This was in conjunction with the National Park Service, and we asked people a variety of questions. It was a pretty extensive survey. One of the, and this is just basically, like I said, for Arkansas as well. I've kind of condensed the results here, but I actually did my, most of my research is
actually in water pollution. So when you guys were talking about water today, I was really excited. And it's just kind of a similar format. You've got pollutants coming out here, and it's an externality that people aren't necessarily aware of, and some people are actually willing to pay to reduce the externality. So our research shows that people here are willing to pay about $16 a month on their utility bills if they were to actually be able to double the stars at night, and they'd be willing to pay almost $17 to actually triple the amount of stars at night.
So it's actually kind of a willingness to pay issue that you can see where people are how much are they willing to pay to go to the Grand Canyon, to see the Grand Canyon, how much are they willing to pay to go to Acadia National Park in Maine and see nature and things like this. Some of the other things that I wanted to talk about were already kind of discussed in the presentation, and that is that our next area of research is dealing with basically trying to match up spatially light pollution with cancer and obesity, and we're actually
working on NIH grant to get some data for that, and we think a lot of that is due to the hormones. We're not quite sure yet. It's still a new area of research. And then one other thing that we kind of discussed here, this is already done in lots of areas. One of them, the most recent city, is Paris. Paris is known, of course, as the City of Lights. You know, New York's the Big Apple, Chicago's the window city. Paris is the City of lights, and they're actually engaging in a lot of steps to reduce their light pollution
by turning down lights and encouraging full
Speaker 174
1:44:47
cutoff fixtures within that city as well. And I'm open to questions, but I don't think that's the proper procedure at the time. Okay,
Chair
Unverified
1:44:54
committee, is there any questions? Are there any questions? Yes, Representative Warlow. Thank you,
Representative Jeff Wardlaw
Unverified
1:44:59
Mr. Chairman. Can you explain to me, you said that people were willing to pay, I think it was $16 more to see so many lights and stars and $17 see a third more. Can you tell me that by doing this bill are we going to see electric bills go up?
David Mitchell
Unverified
1:45:16
No, it's not a matter of seeing electric bills go up. It's what we talk about. Let me use the explanation that I use in my classes with the Grand Canyon. If we want to know how much the Grand Canyon is worth to people, because we could, I mean, it's in essence a giant hole. We could turn it into a giant landfill. And so if you said to people, we're going to turn the Grand Canyon into a giant landfill, people would be willing to pay to not see that happen because it's a scenic asset. They want to preserve it. The question is how much are they willing to pay? And it's easy to ask how much people are willing to
pay for a loaf of bread because they buy bread all the time. But it's difficult to ask people how much are you willing to pay to preserve a scenic or an environmental asset. That's a little bit more complicated. So what this is saying is it's not saying it's not a matter of cost per se, it's a matter of it's the exact opposite, it's a matter of value. People are saying I value being able to see the stars at night and here's how much I think I'd be willing to pay, I'd be willing to pay maybe an extra about $15, $16 a month to see
twice as many stars. So it's kind of like asking people how much would you be willing to pay to not have
Speaker 174
1:46:26
the Grand Canyon become, you know, a giant landfill. And,
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:46:28
Representative, this should have little to no impact at all on electric rates. This is something
that's slowly going to be phased in over time. It has no impact on home users, so it should have little to no impact. Thank you.
Speaker 183
1:46:43
I just wanted to make sure I understood
Speaker 116
1:46:46
that right. Okay. Are there any other questions for Mr. Mitchell?
Chair
Unverified
1:46:50
I think that's his name. Okay. If there are no other questions for Mr. Mitchell, I'm going to ask that group if you can remove yourself. couple what we have someone to speak against the bill Ronnie low if Ronnie low is in the room if he will come to the end of the table and first introduce yourself of his matter of record and then you may present thank you mr.
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
1:47:22
chairman I'm Ronnie low I'm with the city of Little Rock I'm here to speak against the bill. We understand what Representative Meeks is trying to get to with this, and we appreciate that, but from the perspective of the city and streetlights, we don't see this as a cost savings or conserving energy. The way streetlights are done, at least for Little Rock in most cities, is they're under a tariff structure with energy, and you're paying for a wattage through that tariff structure, and as you saw, there is a cost
difference you know cost increase for shielded fixtures in the current tariff structure when this was first introduced years ago that cost difference was almost double and and at that time CDs were exempted out because of the significant cost increase that there isn't there is the cost of those fixtures has come down with recent tariff changes through the PSC however there still is a dollar something difference per light fixture and in In Little Rock alone, there's over 25,000 light fixtures out there
that we pay a monthly bill over, so that's $25,000 a month in the range of $300,000 a year. That would be a mandated increase for Little Rock. That is one issue, is cost. The other issues that we see are with the amendment, I'm not sure what the exact amendment changes were, but there were some issues in there with the highway department being in control of when streetlights go in and where they go in on all streets, roadways in the state.
I don't know. The highway department doesn't really have any control over streetlights now, other than on state highways. They give permission for them to be there, but they don't pay for them. In Little Rock, Little Rock pays for and maintains the streetlights on I-30, 630, the interstate highways and state highway systems, as well as all the city streets in Little Rock. So we're essentially putting somebody in control of something that they don't want to have any input with and would take that control away from the cities.
There's also language in there about limiting streetlights to locations where there are two or more intersecting streets, which are limiting new streetlights to that. And we see that as a public safety issue. A lot of the street lights in Little Rock are there at the request of the residents and the people who live in the community because of the safety issues they see, and it's a quality of life issue for them to have lighted streets. The final thing that we see in the bill is that there's a definition for light trespass
or a very vague definition for light trespass and makes it illegal, which I see as a significant burden to cities as far as having to defend themselves against light trespass from 25,000 streetlights and on with something that's very vaguely said to be illegal so though we would ask her we think that that is a concern also that open the
Chair
Unverified
1:50:31
question okay thank you mr. Hello, Representative Harris.
Representative Justin T. Harris
Unverified
1:50:35
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Lowe, have you not seen the amendments? I have not seen the amendments. Okay, I'm sorry you didn't get a chance. So you would agree with me then that any time the state government sends something to the local municipality and tells you to do something, that is considered a mandate? That is correct. Okay, and so, and one thing I find troubling in the amendments, it takes ADEQ out, and it puts in place of them, it takes the court system.
And so, when you're talking about light trespass, which I found in the presentation, I mean, that puts homeowners, I mean, it looked like on there in the city of Little Rock, you know, could be court put into the court system for you light trespassing I mean do you agree with that when you were watching that I do agree with that yes and I think one thing you also may see when we walk in downtown Little Rock we feel pretty safe because of the way you have your light system would you agree
Speaker 192
1:51:43
with that yes all right thank you very much
Speaker 102
1:51:48
for being here are there any other questions being done thank you so much mr.
Chair
Unverified
1:51:54
low now we have someone else to speak take forth the bill that is Mr. Fisher, James Fisher.
If you'd... Good morning. Excuse me. Hold on. Hold on before you testify. I got a
Speaker 35
1:52:11
question here. I just have a point.
Mr. Chair, how much time does the foresight have left? I got
James Fisher
Unverified
1:52:25
minutes. Okay. Thank you. I'll make this very brief. Good morning. My name is James Fisher. I am a volunteer with the International Dark Sky Association. And we obviously support Representative Meeks' legislation. We recommend the legislature to pass it. We think that it's very important to reduce light pollution in general.
One thing I want to emphasize is that the mandates of the law do not take away private citizens' rights to put lights on their property. What we encourage everyone to do from the IDA's perspective is to light only when and where you need it, and that is both in time and how you light it. And we're trying to create a situation where everybody feels safe, is not hampered by disability
glare and there's not light being shot up into space. And I'm also an attorney and I've practiced for many years environmental law. If you have any questions about the legal aspects of the law, I'd be happy to answer them. Thank
Chair
Unverified
1:53:35
you. Representative Harris, you recognize. Thank you. Well, he's left the end of the table, I guess.
Speaker 102
1:53:41
Okay. Let's move on. You have a question for whom? Well, can I make my question,
Representative Justin T. Harris
Unverified
1:53:47
and if he wants to comment or?
Sure. I think it's pretty rude of him to leave. Mike, because he said he would answer any question. He did. My question to him, then, as a private business owner, there's a city code on lighting, and if this law was to be put into place, I have to have certain lighting. So if my neighbor next to me feels like my lighting's wrong, would that be considered my light?
James Fisher
Unverified
1:54:25
Would I be trespassing on their property? Here's what light trespass is. I equate it to a nuisance rather than a straight trespass because you're not physically going on your neighbor's property. But if you're lighting in such a way that it creates a nuisance to their way of life, say it shines into their bedroom at night and hampers their ability to sleep, then that could be considered a tort of nuisance or like trespass. And it has been recognized in other states without legislation. All the
bill does is clarify that it is indeed now a tort here in the state of Arkansas. Okay. So this
Representative Justin T. Harris
Unverified
1:55:05
would affect private business owners is what you're... That is correct. Okay. Thank you for taking my question. I apologize for standing
James Fisher
Unverified
1:55:11
up a moment. That happens. I thought y'all were done with me. No, thank you for doing that. And I'll hang around after this session if anyone has any questions about my organization, the IDA. I appreciate it. Thank you. Are there any other questions before you
Speaker 102
1:55:25
leave? Are there any other questions? Okay. Seeing none, we have someone else to speak for the bill.
Thank you, sir. Again, excuse me. I'm sorry. Chris Velines. Chris Velines, if you're in the room. the lines it's not here okay let's go back to four William Engberg Engel Engberg Engberg okay straighten us out when you get to the table by introducing yourself and you you
Speaker 209
1:56:02
can present mr. chairman thank you for recognizing me I'm lieutenant colonel William Engberg. I'm a combat instructor pilot and also about to become the second in command of an airlift squadron here on base. However, today I'm speaking to you as a private citizen in support of this bill from the standpoint of the aviation industry, which I heard on the radio. I can't say aviation industry. On behalf of pilots, as a private pilot, I heard on the radio last
night or the night before that Arkansas industry, the aviation has become apparently the second biggest industry here in the state and so from that standpoint and one other standpoint I'd like to address you all. Biggest picture when a pilot's flying at night they need visual acuity and when we fly over a bright lit up city where the light is blasting up not doing anyone any good we lose visibility on the aircraft that we're in formation with or for an
airliner coming in for a landing. I'm sorry
Chair
Unverified
1:57:10
to interrupt you but I do need to remind you I should have told you before you started your testimony you have about two
Speaker 209
1:57:18
and a half minutes left on the foreside. Two minutes. Yes sir. Okay so basically if it's all this glares coming up we have a safety consideration of not being able to see the other aircraft that we're flying with from military standpoint and training. When I'm doing a formation mission with five or six other aircraft we're doing a low-level in formation at night on night vision
goggles if we come over a city while we're on where I'm trying to fly in formation with someone and there's a city that's backlit our night vision goggles basically gain down what that means is the little computer chip goes oh you want to look at streetlights I'm gonna go dim so that you can see those streetlights perfectly but the aircraft disappears that's bad and so what this bill would do was to keep all the lighting that's there the goal is
slowly over time have those glare producing lights turn into shielded lights so that we have better military training better training or better flying for the airlines that are coming in to do landing but I think my most poignant and compelling argument isn't from me it's from a Japanese high school student a female that came because we host them and sponsor them when they come to Arkansas and we brought them out set up telescope and and let this be
students see the galaxies nebulas at the end of the night that student she said to us that was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and we said are you referring to the galaxy the nebula and she goes no I've never seen the stars she's from Osaka Japan and in Japan stars don't exist and so from that standpoint I would like for all of us and every Arkansan in the future to be
able to light up and grow and prosper in business but just to shield the light downward and not upward. Thank you. You
Chair
Unverified
1:59:21
have about 30 seconds left. Representative Meeks, if you want to close for your bill in that 30 seconds. All right.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:59:30
I'll try my best. I've talked with the city of Little Rock and some of the issues that they have concerning the signage and the highway and who has jurisdiction over what. I have agreed to amend the bill to try to correct those issues. The cost of Little Rock, they're saying $300,000 a year. Please Keep in mind that that number will grow over time, but as volume comes in, it will also reduce.
So I don't believe it will eventually cost them anywhere near $300,000. It should be revenue neutral over time. Finally, the issue that Justin brought up with the court, basically what we're doing is we're giving the court guidelines. Right now I can go and sue you for light trespass. The court has no legal definitions or guidance on that, and basically what the bill says is that consider the legal purpose, make sure it's excess, and basically use common sense to determine whether it is a trespass or not.
So just because someone sues you for a trespass doesn't mean they're going to get that. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate everyone's patience and indulgence, and I am closed for the bill. So thank
Chair
Unverified
2:00:39
you so much, Representative Meeks, for presenting your bill. What is the pleasure of the committee? Representative Meeks, you
recognize. We have a motion to do pass. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? No. Motion fails.
Speaker 102
2:01:00
Thank you for your time. Okay. Real quick. House Resolution 1043, Representative Letting, those that are excusing themselves, would
Chair
Unverified
2:01:10
you please do so quietly so that we may maintain order in the committee room. And if we can keep at least 11
Speaker 102
2:01:22
in the room, that will help us have a meeting. This will be very, very
Representative Greg Leding
Unverified
2:01:28
quick. This is only a resolution.
Okay. You're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Committee. I'd like to invite two
Representative Greg Leding
Unverified
2:01:42
the end of the table real quick. What we're doing with House Resolution 1043, communities all across Arkansas have community recycling programs, often funded by taxpayer dollars, which is a great thing, but unfortunately, oftentimes a certain percentage, sometimes a significant percentage of those materials that are collected to be recycled aren't actually recycled.
Chair
Unverified
2:02:01
Let me stop you there. You aren't starting such a great presentation. I hate to cut you off, but we don't
have a quorum at this time, so I don't want your testimony to be in vain. Seeing back, we just
Speaker 102
2:02:16
have 10 in the room. Oh, you're presenting. We have 11. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. My counter missed one. That's okay. Okay. I just
Speaker 215
2:02:25
tried to do what my chairman told me to
Speaker 195
2:02:29
do. All right, love. You may continue.
Representative Greg Leding
Unverified
2:02:31
Sorry. MR. That's okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. What I was saying is a certain percentage of those materials that are collected to be recycled often aren't recycled. And there are a number of reasons for that. Perhaps they've become contaminated and they're no longer able to be recycled. Perhaps there's no viable market for those materials, and so they end up in a landfill. And so all we're doing with this resolution, we are commending those municipalities that provide some transparency to the percentage of those materials that are recycled. And we are encouraging all municipalities that currently don't provide that information
to their citizens to do so. And at the pleasure of the chair, I'd like to allow these women to
Chair
Unverified
2:03:09
make some brief comments. Okay. Please introduce
Speaker 216
2:03:15
yourself for the record. I'm Louise Mann. I'm a Fayetteville resident and a recycling educator. I'm a former schoolteacher who left the classroom to teach trash in 1989. Over the past 25 years I have been in the recycling business, I have seen firsthand that Harry Truman's statement is true.
Give Americans the facts and they will do the right thing. As an independent contractor who designs ongoing education programs for all ages, I found that by continually sharing small bits of information about your local program, citizens are more likely to participate and provide materials that reprocessors can actually use. I support this resolution because I know some collection methods provide reprocessors with materials they can use, while others' collection methods result in contaminated materials that
are a headache for reprocessors. This resolution encourages clean materials regardless of the collection method. As a taxpayer, I want to pay for and encourage recycling programs that provide reprocessors with the most usable materials they can get and I want workers to be safe. When a temporary worker with no insurance ends up in the emergency room because they've been stuck by a needle or they've been exposed to a hazardous material, taxpayers pick up
the expense. I gave Mr. Price a handout that we use to educate children. So we do teach children about what stuff gets made into, but I would like to see more adults knowledgeable about what percentage of the materials collected are actually recycled and what percentage end up being landfilled. Thank you for supporting transparency and accountability in recycling. Thank you. Representative Letty, you
Speaker 141
2:05:04
had another guest. Okay. Well, good. Are there
Chair
Unverified
2:05:11
any questions? Any questions? Okay. No one has signed up
Speaker 102
2:05:17
have to speak for against your resolution. What's the pleasure of the committee? Motion
Chair
Unverified
2:05:23
to do that. Does the motion do pass? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Your resolution passes. Thank
you so much. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Okay, committee. It looks like to me that's all. Excuse me. We've got a question. Representative Harris. That's proper. Which bill? Okay, the motion is to move House Bill 1691 from deferred to the active list.
All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? It's now back active. Thank you. And I think with no other business before, it's the committee.
Agenda
HB1687
HB1929
SB410
SB482
SB736
HB1772
SB1132
HB2280
HB1568
HR1043
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Representative John Burris Chair
Unverified
Representative David L. Branscum
Unverified
Speaker 9
Speaker 13
Teresa Marks
Unverified
Speaker 17
Representative Jeff Wardlaw
Unverified
Representative Andy Davis Chair
Unverified
Speaker 35
Theresa Marks
Unverified
Speaker 45
Speaker 16
Representative Butch Wilkins
Unverified
Representative Andy Mayberry
Unverified
Speaker 58
Speaker 57
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
Robert Blandz
Unverified
Ross Nolan
Unverified
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
Speaker 83
Speaker 88
Speaker 98
Representative Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
Speaker 102
Speaker 103
Speaker 104
Speaker 37
Chair
Unverified
Speaker 97
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
Speaker 125
Speaker 115
Speaker 129
Speaker 130
Speaker 127
Speaker 59
Speaker 141
Representative Justin T. Harris
Unverified
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
Representative Deborah Ferguson
Unverified
Representative James L. Word
Unverified
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
Robert Breck
Unverified
Speaker 159
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 164
Speaker 174
David Mitchell
Unverified
Speaker 135
Speaker 180
Speaker 183
Speaker 116
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
Speaker 192
Speaker 196
James Fisher
Unverified
Speaker 209
Representative Greg Leding
Unverified
Speaker 182
Speaker 215
Speaker 195
Speaker 216