This bill amends existing law (RCW 70A.205.420) and creates a new legislative finding and intent requiring the Department of Ecology to publish and maintain a publicly accessible inventory of known unauthorized waste tire piles. It authorizes appropriations from the waste tire removal account to the Department to fund state and local governments to remove discarded vehicle tires from unauthorized dump sites and to accomplish other cleanup purposes referenced in RCW 70A.205.010. The Department must identify communities with the most severe waste tire problems and provide funds first to those communities. The bill imposes specific website and reporting content requirements for the Department of Ecology: a summary of state and local efforts funded from the waste tire removal account, a list of authorized waste tire storage sites and transporters, annual tire recycling and reuse rates for the state, and—when the information is readily available—an inventory of all known unauthorized waste tire piles. For each published unauthorized pile the Department must include location, approximate duration the pile has existed, an estimated quantity of tires (by weight or number), a summary of known public health or environmental risks, and an estimated cleanup timeline based on current appropriations and estimated funding availability. The Department is not required to gather information beyond what it already has in its possession. This is a procedural and funding allocation change rather than a new crime or a change in criminal penalties. Affected parties include the Department of Ecology, state and local governments that receive removal funding, authorized storage sites and transporters to be listed, communities identified with severe problems, and users of the published information. The extracted text does not provide formal definitions for key terms (for example, “unauthorized waste tire piles,” “waste tire removal account,” or “authorized waste tire storage sites and transporters”), does not specify deadlines, update frequency, or enforcement mechanisms for the inventory, does not include the text of RCW 70A.205.010 it references, and does not specify how the Department must determine which communities have the most severe problems. The bill was read for the first time on 01/22/26 and is identified as S-4145.1 / Senate Bill 6273, 69th Legislature, 2026 Regular Session; it also references chapter 417, Laws of 2025 (ESSB 5801) increasing the waste tire fee from $1 to $5 per tire sold.

If enacted, the bill requires the Department of Ecology to put and keep a public inventory of known, unauthorized tire piles on its website, including where each pile is, how long it’s been there, how many tires (or weight), known health or environmental risks, and an estimated cleanup timeline tied to current and expected funding. The department must also post summaries of projects paid from the waste tire removal account, a list of authorized tire storage sites and transporters, and annual tire recycling/reuse rates, and it must prioritize giving removal funds to the communities with the worst tire accumulation problems. The department is only required to publish information it already has in its files, not to go out and collect new data. The Department of Ecology will be most affected because it gains ongoing responsibilities for publishing and maintaining the inventory and website content, and for identifying and prioritizing communities for cleanup funding. Local and state governments in heavily affected communities are likely to be first in line for removal funding, which could lower their cleanup costs if appropriations are provided, but actual cleanup timing and scope will depend on available appropriations; the bill references a recent increase in the per‑tire fee (from $1 to $5) that relates to the funding source. Important details are missing from the text provided, including formal definitions of “unauthorized tire piles,” how “most severe” communities are identified, the schedule for updates, and any enforcement or reporting deadlines.