PUYALLUP, Wash. — Electron Hydro and its chief operating officer pleaded guilty to charges filed by the state attorney general after the company was fined in 2021 for polluting the Puyallup River with plastic sports turf.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson's office is recommending a sentence of $1 million, including $745,000 in restitution to protect the health of the Puyallup River and restore salmon habitat, as well as two years probation for COO Thom Fischer.
Fischer has agreed to accept this sentence, according to a release from the AG's office, but a Pierce County Superior Court judge must still agree to the terms.
In January 2022, Ferguson filed 36 gross misdemeanor charges in Pierce County Superior Court against the hydropower company and its COO. The charges include violations of the state’s Water Pollution Control Act, Shoreline Management Act and Pierce County code.
In October 2020, the Puyallup Tribe claimed that Electron Hydro, the hydropower company behind the Electron Dam, polluted the Puyallup River with crumb rubber from artificial turf, a claim they later sued the company over in federal court.
Roughly eight months later, the Washington Department of Ecology announced it would fine the company more than $500,000 for the violation.
The pollution was caused by an Electron Hydro construction site that was doing work in-stream and using artificial turf to create a bypass channel to divert the river away from the site beginning on July 28, 2020, according to the department.
The goal of the construction was to replace the company’s diversion dam and water intake structure, which dates back to 1903.
Pieces of sports turf were found up to 21 miles downstream, according to the Department of Ecology, and deposits of ground-up tire rubber used as padding for the turf were believed to go roughly 41 miles downstream all the way to the river’s mouth and possibly into Commencement Bay in Tacoma.
If approved, Ferguson's office "believes the $1 million would be the largest fine and restitution paid for an environmental crime in Washington state law history."
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Sorensen set a hearing date for May 5.