On this West Virginia Morning, when your power goes out, water bill comes in or your nearby fire hydrant looks ancient, there’s a state organization keeping tabs on all of that and more. Randy Yohe talks with Charlotte Lane, chair of the West Virginia Public Service Commission, on how this regulating entity balances public protection with keeping utilities viable.
On this West Virginia Morning, you don’t see caned chairs as much as you used to. Cane breaks down with age and there aren’t many people who know how to repair these old chairs. But in Wheeling, there’s a workshop called Seeing Hand, where skilled workers repair old chairs and so much more. For Inside Appalachia, Folkways Reporter Clara Haizlett brings us this story.
Also, in this show, when your power goes out, water bill comes in or your nearby fire hydrant looks ancient, there’s a state organization keeping tabs on all of that and more. Randy Yohe talks with Charlotte Lane, chair of the West Virginia Public Service Commission, on how this regulating entity balances public protection with keeping utilities viable.
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Eric Douglas produced this episode.
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Director of the Public Service Commission Charlotte Lane asked that the legislature give the PSC power to regulate fire hydrants in the state so that they comply with the National Fire Protection Association’s recommended practice.
Concern over fire hydrants in the state is on the rise as smaller water providers don’t have the ability to test them.
Director of the Public Service Commission Charlotte Lane asked the West Virginia Legislature during the Joint Standing Committee on Technology and Infrastructure for $7 million; $3 million would be used as grants to cover inspections and testing costs and $4 million would be used as low or no interest loans to water districts so they are able to finance repairs and replacements of fire hydrants.
“There are firms in West Virginia that will do flow testing, and they charge, like, $100 per fire hydrant,” Lane said. “We think that a lot of these small utilities won’t have the money to do the testing.”
Guidelines For Improvement
The Fire Protection Association recommends that hydrants be flow tested every 3-5 years, plus a yearly inspection. According to Lane, those tests are costly and would disproportionately hurt small utilities that have difficulty paying bills and providing potable water to customers.
She also asked that the legislature give the PSC power to regulate fire hydrants in the state so that they comply with the National Fire Protection Association’s recommended practice.
“We don’t promulgate rules without statutory authority. And so if we want to amend our water rules related to fire hydrants, I would request that we have statutory authority,” she said.
Tragedy Sparks Awareness
Awareness around fire hydrants in the state rose after a Charleston man’s house caught fire and multiple fire hydrants were not functioning. West Virginia has double the rate for deaths caused by fire than the rest of the country and is in the top five states for fire-related deaths.
Spouting The Numbers
The PSC asked every water district in the state to test their fire hydrants and fill out a detailed survey about their functionality. They ended up extending the survey from June 28 to Aug. 25 after many districts failed to fill out the survey in time. Currently, 90 percent of water districts have filled out reports with the PSC still waiting on 27 water districts.
The normal lifespan of a fire hydrant is around 50 years, Lane said. Nine in 10 fire hydrants are less than 50 years old. The oldest fire hydrant in the state is 138 years old.
It costs around $15,000 to completely replace a fire hydrant.
The majority of the state’s fire hydrants are utility owned, with around 5 percent being privately owned.
Questions And Caveats
Committee members questioned Lane if any of the repairs would qualify for federal funding, like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Lane said the PSC did not know.
Other members asked questions about the effect of struggling or deteriorating water systems on a new fire hydrant’s ability to function properly. Lane said that part of fixing a fire hydrant could be to remedy the water line that it connects to, which would raise the cost.
Lane said if the legislature follows the recommendations from the PSC the public will be able to be confident that they have functioning fire hydrants in case of a fire.
In June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule requiring power plants to curb their carbon dioxide emissions by 90 percent or more.
The West Virginia Public Service Commission is pushing back on proposed federal rules for power plants that burn coal and natural gas.
In June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule requiring power plants to curb their carbon dioxide emissions by 90 percent or more.
They could achieve this with carbon capture and storage or by fueling with clean hydrogen.
Neither of those things can be done right now, and they are prohibitively expensive, PSC Chairman Charlotte Lane wrote in her comments to the EPA.
Lane also wrote that the proposed rules exceed EPA’s authority and that the closure of large numbers of coal and natural gas-fueled power plants would threaten grid reliability.
Public comment on the new power plant rules ended Tuesday. Court challenges are likely should the EPA move forward with its latest plan.
Kanawha County commissioners have opposed Appalachian Power’s request to recover $297 million from ratepayers since it was first filed nearly a year ago.
The Kanawha County Commission is again gearing up to fight a potential rate increase for Appalachian Power customers.
Kanawha County commissioners have opposed Appalachian Power’s request to recover $297 million from ratepayers since it was first filed nearly a year ago.
The Kanawha County Commission has asked the PSC to reopen the case once the review is complete and hold public hearings.
“We fear in the very near future the (disputed) rate request will be quietly approved without any opportunity for the public to be heard,” the commissioners wrote the PSC. “The public deserves to be heard.”
In a statement, PSC chair Charlotte Lane said her commission will give notice and schedule a hearing when it is ready and advise the public on how to comment on the case.
The PSC received hundreds of comments from residents, local governments and industrial customers last year, almost unanimously opposing the Appalachian Power request.
Appalachian Power is an underwriter of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
“We were very lucky it was Christmas and not in the middle of the week,” Charlotte Lane told the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday. “If we had been in the middle of the week and everybody was at work, and all of the manufacturing was up, it could have been very difficult.”
Lane said she got a call from PJM Interconnection, the regional electricity grid that includes West Virginia. PJM requested that she tell the electric utilities that serve West Virginia customers to ask them to conserve power.
Ultimately, no rolling blackouts happened in West Virginia. They did happen in the Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Energy in North Carolina.
Lane said about 40 percent of the natural gas fired power plants in PJM failed that weekend.
The House of Delegates has passed a Senate bill that would legalize medical marijuana in the state. But the bill has seen a number of changes since the 28 to 6 vote last week in the upper chamber.
During a late night floor session Monday, delegates voted on a handful of amendments to Senate Bill 386, including a committee substitute that completely replaces the Senate’s version of the bill with one sponsored by House Judiciary Chairman John Shott of Mercer County.
Senate Bill 386 would now put the West Virginia Medical Cannabis Act under the control of the West Virginia Department of Public Health. It would create a 6 percent excise tax on marijuana and pushes the rollout date back one year to July 2019 instead of the Senate’s July 2018 implementation date.
The latest version of the bill does not allow distributors to sell forms of the drug that can be smoked or eaten, but does include prescription oils, pills, or patch versions and a form that can be vaped. Judiciary Chair Shott says the bill would allow patients to make their own baked goods using the oils. Medical marijuana would also not be covered by Medicare or Medicaid.
Delegate Shott has called this version of the bill a cautious approach to a controversial issue.
Delegate Tom Fast, a Republican from Fayette County, spoke in opposition to the bill as it was put to a final vote Tuesday. He argued since it is still classified as an illegal drug by the federal government, states shouldn’t make their own rules about using medical marijuana without the Federal Drug Administration’s approval and guidance.
Credit Perry Bennett / West Virginia Legislative Photography
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West Virginia Legislative Photography
Del. Tom Fast, R-Fayette.
“We’re declaring that we are no longer a state under the law,” Fast said, “We’re just going to join 28 other states and say we’re not going to obey the law. That makes no sense to me. If 28 people are gonna jump off a bridge, are you gonna jump off the bridge with them? Are we a nation of laws or are we not? That is the decision that you are faced with today.”
Republican Charlotte Lane of Kanawha County, who introduced her own bill this session to legalize medical marijuana that was never taken up in a committee, says this bill is a step in the right direction.
“People might not be 100 percent happy with it, but folks, this is a lot further than we ever thought we would get this session,” Lane noted, “and we all know people who are sick that can benefit from this or might benefit from it. Now, yes you can talk about maybe we should wait for the Federal Drug Administration, well folks, if you’re dying, it doesn’t matter. So, if something can make you feel better and ease those last days, last weeks for the patient, and for the members, then we ought to pass it.”
Many supporters of the bill have said legalizing medicinal use of the drug could help veterans suffering from PTSD. But Delegate Roy Cooper, a Republican from Summers County argued the legislation will just add another substance to the list of drugs that are abused in the state.
“The veteran’s suicide issue can be answered by the paper in my hand. We’ve now prescribed to veterans ever how many’s on this page; Prozac, Zoloft, sinequan, Wellbutrin, Valium, Ambien, Xanax, morphine, fentanyl, codeine, Ultram, Percocet, Vicodin – veterans are getting these pills shoved in their hands at veterans hospitals all over the country in combination with each other. That’s where our suicide issue’s coming from with veterans,” Cooper explained, “Now, so we put another drug out there and say, okay, you can take that on top of all this other stuff and then go ahead and drink a little alcohol with that. It’s a deadly cocktail folks; a deadly cocktail.”
Credit Perry Bennett / West Virginia Legislative Photography
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West Virginia Legislative Photography
Del. Roy Cooper, R-Summers.
Delegate Gary Howell, a Republican from Mineral County, supported the bill.
“I’m not a doctor, and I don’t know all of the medical benefits; I don’t know all the medical downsides, but I do know that people in the end of life; it gives them hope;” Howell said, “they’ve tried many other things, it hasn’t worked. They know this won’t cure their problem, but it will make ‘em a little bit more comfortable, and if you’ve been with someone at the end of their life, you want them comfortable, and that’s why I support this bill.”
Judiciary Chair Shott pointed to a study from the American Medical Association, that argued there was “high quality evidence” medical marijuana has done a lot of good for sick and dying patients.
“So shouldn’t we give, based on studies like this, shouldn’t we give our physicians the authority to use that type of tool to help their patients? And that’s really what we’ve done, and we’ve instilled in this structure protections to be sure this is not abused and is used properly,” Shott explained, “and for that, ladies and gentlemen, I strongly urge that we give our physicians this tool, that we pass this bill and provide some relief for those who can benefit from it.”
After an hour of debate, Senate Bill 386 passed 76 to 24 and now heads back to the Senate for consideration. If the Senate approves the bill, the West Virginia Medical Cannabis Act will head to the governor for a signature, but if the Senate refuses the House changes, the bill will go to a conference committee.
Governor Jim Justice has said he could support medical marijuana in the state.
