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AN ORDINANCE relating to the sale of biomethane and related environmental attributes held by the county; authorizing the wastewater treatment division to enter into an agreement for the sale of biomethane and environmental attributes associated with purified biomethane produced at the South Wastewater Treatment Plant to Bluesource, LLC.
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STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. The wastewater treatment division of the department of natural resources and parks operates three regional wastewater treatment facilities, including the South Wastewater Treatment Plant in Renton, Washington, which treats approximately twenty-eight billion gallons of wastewater each year.
2. Anaerobic digesters at the treatment plant generate methane digester biogas as part of the water and associated solid material treatment and purification processes.
3. Since 1988, the wastewater treatment division has been scrubbing impurities from the digester biogas to create what is then called biomethane, at times using some of the resulting biomethane pipeline quality gas for internal heating purposes and injecting the surplus biomethane pipeline quality gas into the regional natural gas pipeline.
4. Between 1988 and 2016, the pipeline quality gas commodity not consumed at the treatment plant was sold to Puget Sound Energy.
5. In addition to the energy content of the pipeline quality gas, the origin of the pipeline quality gas as a byproduct of the wastewater treatment process provides significant greenhouse gas reduction benefits when compared to the consumption of fossil fuel-derived natural gas.
6. Those environmental benefits, as an extension of the energy content, are recognized as environmental attributes. Environmental attributes refer to renewable energy or other characteristics of a resource that are distinguished from a commodity and can have financial value related to both voluntary and mandatory environmental requirements.
7. Renewable Identification Numbers are environmental attribu...

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