H-1603.1                  _______________________________________________

                                                      HOUSE BILL 2030

                              _______________________________________________

State of Washington                              53rd Legislature                             1993 Regular Session

By Representatives Ludwig, Silver, Bray, Jacobsen, Ogden, Mastin, R. Fisher, Eide, Heavey, Grant, Rayburn, Miller, L. Johnson, Romero and Basich

Read first time 02/24/93.  Referred to Committee on Higher Education.

Funding the consolidated information center at Washington State University's Tri-Cities branch campus.

          AN ACT Relating to the planning and design of a consolidated information center; creating a new section; and making an appropriation.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.  (1) The consolidated information center at Washington State University's Tri-Cities branch campus is a unique collaboration of state, federal, and private scientific resources to form a regional environmental information center.  The consolidated information center consists of three major components:

          (a) A consolidated library housing the merged Hanford Technical Library and Washington State University's Tri-Cities library collection and services;

          (b) An environmental resource center incorporating the United States department of energy's public reading room and offices of the Washington center for environmental and science molecular sciences; and

          (c) A continuing education conference and training center.

          (2) The consolidated library will provide public and academic use of one of the most extensive collections of scientific materials that currently has very restricted access due to its location on the Hanford site.  The consolidated information center would make this eight hundred thousand item collection, its on-line computer access to over three hundred fifty information data bases, and Washington State University's library resources available for instruction, research, and national and international conferences.

          (3) The environmental resource center will be the depository for the United States department of energy's data and collections on agricultural and Hanford-related environmental issues.  It will serve the environmental science and engineering and agriculture academic programs, support the new food and environmental quality laboratory, and provide an essential data resource for private and public technology and environmental organizations.

          (4) The construction costs of the new consolidated information center will be shared between the United States department of energy and the state of Washington.  It is anticipated that the ongoing federal operating funds of the Hanford technical library and Hanford reading room will be transferred to the new consolidated information center.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2.  The sum of one million four hundred ten thousand dollars, or as much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated for the biennium ending June 30, 1995, from the state building construction account to Washington State University for the consolidated information center.

          Of the amount appropriated in this section, one hundred eighty-six thousand dollars shall be for predesign and one million two hundred twenty-four thousand dollars shall be for design of the consolidated information center.

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