SEATTLE — A business that runs a century-old hydroelectric dam near Mount Rainier National Park and its chief operating officer each pleaded guilty to a single criminal count Monday in connection with a spill of artificial field grass and the small rubber particles utilized to make it into the Puyallup River in 2020.
The business, Electron Hydro LLC, likewise will pay $1 million that primarily will go to jobs to bringback salmon environment.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson atfirst brought 3 lots misdemeanor charges versus Electron and Chief Operating Officer Thom Fischer, stating they released contaminants and purposefully breached a license when they utilized old field grass as a liner throughout a building task. The dam, developed southeast of Tacoma in 1904, supplies electricalenergy to 20,000 consumers.
The artificial field grass was positioned in a short-lived bypass channel throughout the summerseason of 2020 and then topped with a plastic liner so the river might be diverted, enabling for the building work on the dam. But one night the liner tore, sendingout big quantities of the field grass downstream.
One of the grass’s secret activeingredients, black rubber particles made from recycled tires to assistance offer cushioning for the playing surfacearea, lined the coast for miles (kilometers). It includes a chemical that is particularly poisonous to coho salmon.
Fischer and Electron Hydro each pleaded guilty in Pierce County Superior Court to one count of accidentally breaking a license provided by the state Department of Fish a