Current conditions unavailable
The few bills in the Washington state Legislature this year inspired by events in Lewis County are officially dead and will not become law by the end of the 2026 short legislative session.
Another legislative deadline came and went Monday evening, leaving another batch of bills dead in the water.
Two bills inspired by Lewis County, one, House Bill 2343, to increase water quality standards for state-run game farms, and another, House Bill 2574, to allow for the removal of deceased candidates from a ballot, failed to advance out of their Senate committees.
The Monday deadline means any bills that did not advance out of a committee in the chamber opposite where they started will make no more progress this year. The next and final deadline for bill passage by both houses comes Friday.
Bills must be passed by both the House and the Senate by the end of the day Friday to go to Gov. Bob Ferguson’s desk and have a chance at becoming law, assuming the governor doesn’t veto them first. Any bills necessary to implement the state's budget or initiatives to the Legislature are the exception and must simply be approved by the end of the last day of session on Thursday, March 12.
HB 2343
This House bill, sponsored by state Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Chehalis, was one of two bills heard in session this year inspired by nitrate contamination to groundwater in the Fords Prairie neighborhood near Centralia near the Bob Oke Game Farm operated by the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The bill, supported by a 2025 study that identified manure from the pheasant rearing game farm as a significant contributor to nitrate levels in the nearby groundwater, increases the water quality standards for state-operated game farms. Abbarno frequently pitched the bill as asking the state to hold state game farms to the same standards as privately-owned game farms.
The proposed requirements called for additional permits, a manure management plan and more thorough and regular monitoring and record-keeping of water quality near such a facility.
While the bill did not pass, it is not the end of the world for locals, as according to legislative briefings, the Bob Oke Game Farm is currently the only one in the state that would be subject to the regulations. The local game farm, without the new policy, has already met most, if not all, of the requirements included in the bill amid negotiations with local governments since a study from spring of 2025 linked the farm to the nitrate contamination in the area.
Another bill, House Bill 2668, also inspired by the Bob Oke Game Farm nitrate issue, would have mandated that WDFW begin the process of relocating the game farm. That could have possibly expedited negotiations as many local elected officials have called for the farm's relocation. That bill, however, died after not escaping an earlier legislative deadline.
For previous reporting by The Chronicle on the bills inspired by the Bob Oke Game Farm, visit https://tinyurl.com/nd5nch6d.
House Bill 2574
House Bill 2574, also sponsored by Abbarno, was inspired by the untimely death of Tom Crowson during his bid to become a fire commissioner for Lewis County Fire District 5 based in Napavine. The bill, if passed, would have added a new procedure for removing deceased candidates from local ballots.
The bill came as a response to Crowson’s near posthumous victory in the general election in 2025, which forced Lewis County to pony up the money for a hand recount of the election that Crowson lost by just a single vote.
Crowson died months before the general election, but just about a week before the primary election, after it was too late to remove his name from the ballot. From there, the county had no path to remove his name other than legal disqualification, which itself comes at a financial cost and at times a legal proceeding.
For the sake of simplicity, the procedure for removal is essentially the same as that for disqualifying candidates, but without a legal proceeding or grounds for disqualification and instead based on the presentation of a death certificate.
If presented with a certified death certificate, county auditors could have removed the name of a deceased candidate from a ballot or, if it is too late to do so, not count the votes cast for the deceased candidate.
Abbarno during committee hearings presented the bill as a simple way to avoid the same situation that occurred late last year in Lewis County. Had Crowson won the seat, it would have been left empty until a replacement was appointed by the board of commissioners for the Napavine fire district, robbing voters of the chance to elect their own leaders.
For previous reporting by The Chronicle, visit https://tinyurl.com/32b3wzmv.
