Aboveground Storage Tank Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

House Passes Bill To Exempt Oil, Gas Operators From Aboveground Storage Tank Act

The West Virginia House of Delegates voted Wednesday to roll back regulation of above-ground storage tanks owned by oil and gas operators.

House Bill 2598 applies to some of the only oil and gas tanks still regulated by the 2014 Aboveground Storage Tank Act, since most other oil and gas tanks have been exempted from the law in the last seven years since its passage.

The tanks are used by operators to store byproducts from drilling oil and gas — mostly brine water, but as some experts testified to the House Energy and Manufacturing Committee last month, the tanks are also known to hold pollutants like benzene, barium and radium, which can lead to anemia, high blood pressure and cancer.

While supporters of House Bill 2598 said Wednesday the bill could help small oil and gas operators, overwhelmed by regulation costs, opponents say it walks back important regulations protecting West Virginia water quality.

Those who oppose the bill include the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the implementation of the Aboveground Storage Tank Act.

The DEP estimates that the bill will free roughly 890 new tanks from its regulation, all of which are within five hours of public drinking water intakes.

“These are tanks in zones of critical concern,” said Deputy Cabinet Secretary Scott Mandirola on Wednesday. “These are the sources of potential significant contamination that water utilities have to identify.”

Others who have spoken out against the bill — including environmental advocacy groups like the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and the West Virginia Environmental Council — say that House Bill 2598 is a step backward from laws enacted seven years ago following the Freedom Industries Spill of 2014, which left more than 300,000 West Virginians without drinking water for a week after a storage tank leaked more than 10,000 gallons of toxic materials into the Elk River.

“The Freedom Industry tank of 2014 was not a brine tank, it was not a crude oil tank,” said House Energy and Manufacturing Committee Chair Bill Anderson, R-Wood. “Let’s draw that distinction right here, and right now.”

According to Anderson, the bill supports his committee’s work over the last three years to address more than 4,500 abandoned natural gas wells across the state.

“If we do not give some relief to these operators, we’re going to add several hundred more tanks, where people are going to be going bankrupt, and leaving us additional tanks to plug,” Anderson said.

Others who spoke in favor of the bill included Dels. Roger Conley, R-Wood, and Clay Riley, R-Harrison, both who said they have done work in industries tied to the inspection of these tanks.

Democrats, including those who lived in Charleston during the Freedom Industries spill of 2014, said the bill would undo an important law.

“Every parent worries about the first time they’re gonna have to protect their child against some sort of imminent danger, ” said Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha. Young was a new mother living in Kanawha County at the time of the spill.

“My danger was the faucet. One day, I’ll have to explain to him why he had bottled water baths for the first year of his life. … And one day, I’ll have to explain to him why I was part of a government that could let that happen to other people’s children.”

Before passing the House, supporters — including House Energy and Manufacturing Vice Chair John Kelly, R-Wood — pointed to a low number of leaks since the Aboveground Storage Tank Act’s enactment.

Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, told members Wednesday this isn’t a reason to exempt oil and gas tank operators, but rather a sign that the law is doing its job.

“We’ve heard that leaks have occurred from these tanks and have not impacted our drinking water,” Hansen said. “That’s a good thing. That’s because this program is working.”

The bill, which passed the House 74 to 26 with two Kanawha County Republicans voting against it, moves onto the Senate for further consideration.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.

Label Your Aboveground Storage Tanks, Says DEP

West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection is encouraging aboveground storage tank owners to comply with a new law and label their tanks.

The amended Aboveground Storage Tank Act, passed by the state Legislature on March 14, requires each aboveground storage tank be labeled with a registration number, the emergency contact telephone number for the owner or operator of the tank and the telephone number for the DEP’s Spill Reporting Hotline (1-800-642-3074).

About 51,000 aboveground tanks (ASTs) are already registered throughout the state. Some, including agriculture and water tanks, will be de-registered under the new rule, but all tanks that are in zones of critical concern, or are of certain sizes, or contain certain dangerous substances are expected to register with the DEP by July 1st. Tank owners are also required to display their registration number, as well as the other identifying information, in a way that is clearly visible from public roadways or public right-of-ways outside the tanks’ containment areas.

DEP expects about 12,000 tanks will be regulated as either Level 1 or Level 2 tanks in “zones of concern,” or upstream from public drinking water intakes. About 5,300 tanks are considered Level 1 AST’s, because of their size, location near those intakes, and/or contents. DEP is still mapping Level 2 areas, but expects 5 ,000 – 7,000 tanks exist in those areas.

Farmers Exempt from New Tank Law, But is Water Still Protected?

It’s well-known what happened in the Kanawha Valley on January 9, 2014. A massive chemical leak into the Elk River left tap water unusable for 300,000 West Virginians for as many as ten days. The 2014 legislative session had just begun, and in response, lawmakers passed a bill that would require all aboveground storage tanks in the state be registered and regulated under the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Over the next year, tank owners began to grow frustrated with the regulations, and in the 2015 legislative session, lawmakers reevaluated the bill. Senate Bill 423 was approved on the final day of the session and made some considerable changes that take effect Friday.

Doug Stolipher and his son, Mark are cattle farmers in Jefferson County. Mark was one of many farmers who were frustrated with the original tank bill. He says it heavily regulated farmers who were already under regulations with the Department of Agriculture. He owns a 9,000 gallon diesel fuel tank on his farm.

Mark Stolipher’s 9,000 gallon diesel fuel tank.

“I generally order 2,000 gallons at a time, and we burn about 7,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year,” Mark explained, “and by buying it in the larger quantities, I get a better price on it and everything. So I like my larger tank, but with the regulations, I would’ve had, I couldn’t, you know, 1,320 gallons is as large as it could be before you fell into the regulations, and you can’t manifold’em together, so each tank, I’d had to have a couple, two to three tanks, and each tank would’ve had its own pump in it, cause you can’t hook’em together. Cause once you hook’em together, combined capacity, over went the gallon threshold for regulations.”

Mark says it would’ve been cheaper for him to purchase those smaller tanks rather than pay the regulation fee to the DEP and have his 9,000 gallon tank inspected routinely. But at the same time, he says he still would’ve lost a lot of money because he wouldn’t be buying that fuel in bulk anymore.

Senator John Unger, a Democrat from Berkeley County, oversaw the writing of the 2014 bill as the Chair of the Legislative Oversight Commission on Water Resources. This commission was created in response to the chemical spill.

“It started out they were exempt,” Unger noted, “and then that exemption was taken out through the legislative process. That was the whole push for this new legislation in order to address that and exempt farming.”

Unger says Senate Bill 423, the bill approved in 2015, amended and reworked the first bill so farmers using tanks for agricultural purposes would be exempt again. But he says other rules were placed in the new bill as well.

Rule for the 2014 tank legislation:

Held 1,320 gallons or more of liquid.
90% or more above ground.
60 days at a fixed location.

It was estimated to affect as many as 80,000 tanks used in a variety of industries and for a multitude of purposes. Under this law, all tanks were registered and all tanks were regulated.
Now, that rule has changed.

Scott Mandirola, the deputy cabinet secretary and director of the Division of Water and Waste Management with the DEP, says under the new law, there are two levels owners of tanks need to worry about. Everything else only needs to be registered on the DEP’s website.

Rule for the 2015 tank legislation:

Level one – Zone of Critical Concern
5 hours upstream from a public drinking water intake.
Holds 50,000 gallons or more of liquid.
Contains a hazardous substance.

Level two – Zone of Peripheral Concern
10 hours upstream from a public drinking water intake.

Senator Unger says he’s concerned the new legislation won’t protect everyone.
“Now we have legislation that protects major metropolitan areas, but the vast majority of West Virginia, they don’t live in major metropolitan areas, they live in small rural communities, and the question is are they protected? All we’re doing is protecting the municipalities, the cities, and the towns. These smaller communities, that’s still on well water, they’re not being protected at all, and their water supplies is not being protected,” Unger said.

Mark, the cattle farmer, says he’s happy the new bill exempts agriculture from the regulations, but he says he wishes things had been thought out better down in Charleston.

“I think the state needs to regulate the really hazardous materials, whatever they’re calling the class one and everything need to be regulated,” Mark explained, “The fuel side of things, I don’t feel the need, you know, they’re not as hazardous as some of these other chemicals, so I’m hoping, you know, I hope we get a little bit of both, you know. Things get eased up, they’re willing to work with us instead of just throw something out and get us all into compliance with everything, and make everything safer.”

Senate Bill 423 goes into effect Friday, June 12, and all tanks must be registered with the DEP by July 1.

Governor Questions Concealed Carry Bill

At the Legislature today, Senators begin to focus in on the state’s four billion dollar budget as they wait for Delegates to approve some major pieces of legislation, like charter schools and campaign finance reform. The West Virginia schools for the deaf and blind will be eligible for funding from the School Building Authority for badly needed improvements under a bill passed by the senate finance committee today.

And, on our last episode of the season, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin joins us to look back on this session on The Legislature Today. He raises questions about the need for a bill to eliminate permits on concealed weapons.

W.Va. Legislators Working to Roll Back Aboveground Tank Regulations

State senators in Charleston took action this week to roll back aboveground tank regulations put in place after last year’s chemical spill which contaminated water for hundreds of thousands of West Virginians.

The Senate Judiciary committee passed an amended bill that would make major changes to the Above Ground Storage Tank Act that was passed into law in the wake of last year’s chemical spill into the Elk River.

More than 50,000 tanks are currently registered with the state Department of Environmental Protection under the law, but a vast majority of those would be pulled from the agency’s regulatory program should the Senate’s bill pass.

Zones of Critical Concern

Instead of regulating all above ground tanks in the state, and despite the fact that the DEP has already gone through a year-long rulemaking process, Judiciary chair Charles Trump explains that the amended version of Senate Bill 423 focuses on the tanks located in “zones of critical concern.” He says much of the DEP’s work will be salvageable.

“The bill establishes two levels of tanks that would get scrutiny. Level one tanks are those which contain 50,000 gallons of anything, tanks that contain really bad or dangerous stuff in them, and all tanks which are in the zone of critical concern.”

Trump explains that zones of critical concern are identified as anything that could flow to a water intake within five hours. Level two tanks are those that would take 5 to 10 hours to flow to a water intake.

President of the environmental consulting firm Downstream Strategies, Evan Hansen explains that prior to the amendments, the bill would have deregulated all but about 100 of the 50-thousand tanks currently registered – three quarters of which are classified as oil and gas storage tanks.

“The bill is different from what was originally introduced,” Hansen said, “but I wouldn’t call this a ‘compromise’. It’s still a significant rollback from current law.”

Opting Out

The amended bill would leave approximately 12,000 tanks regulated, and of those, Hansen explained, the owners and operators would have the option of applying to the Department of Environmental Protection to be regulated under other existing programs.

So in effect, Hansen says, the end result would likely be very similar to the bill that was initially introduced, leaving perhaps a hundred tanks regulated.

Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman spoke to the Judiciary Committee in support of proposed changes as did the president of the West Virginia Oil and Gas Association, Corky Demarco. And there seems to be a general bipartisan consensus of approval among senators. Mike Romano is a Democrat from Harrison Country who speaks highly of the bill saying that it corrects overreaches

“We gotta remember,” Romano said, “that we’ve had one tank spill in the history of our state that the DEP was able to identify, and that was Freedom.”

But some remember other tank spills.

Lisby Pad Explosion

“Those who forget history have a propensity to repeat it,” said Wetzel County resident Bill Hughes. Smaller communities deserve the same protections as larger ones, Hughes said, and he worries the regulatory rollback will leave communities that are inundated by the natural gas industry exposed.

“The town of Pine Grove, in Wetzel County, and the town of Middlebourne in Tyler County have sole source surface water drinking supplies. Meaning, one stream is the only place they get their drinking water and they’re both very vulnerable.”

In January of last year the Department of Environmental Protection was called to Tyler County just six miles from Middlebourne where one of six 8-thousand-gallon steel tanks exploded and caused “a black sludge to flood an area around a well pad,” according to a local report two weeks later in the Tyler Star News. The DEP “found there was imminent danger by causing a fresh water supply to be lost or contaminated.”

Hughes says it was four days of rain washing the contamination into the stream only a few feet away before any state agency responded. No one told the town of Middlebourne about the explosion or that their water was contaminated during that time.

“The local gas operator folks, they don’t even know that this could be a water source for a downstream municipality. They’re not from around here,” Hughes added.

Weakened Regulations

Meanwhile, back in Charleston, environmental consultant Evan Hansen says discussion on Senate Bill 423 has been dominated by debate over which tanks should or should not be regulated; but Hansen is worried that the bill would also substantially reduce the stringency of regulation.

“For example, it significantly cuts down on the frequency of inspections that are required by the DEP, it significantly weakens the self-inspections that are required to be done by the owners and operators, it cuts down on the provision of information to water utilities that are trying to do planning to protect their source water and it takes several other steps that weaken the Act.”

Senate Bill 423 now moves to the floor for the full Senate’s consideration. The companion bill in the House has not been taken up by a committee.