Downstream Strategies Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Study Shows Morgantown Businesses, Homes Have Energy-Saving Options

Businesses and homeowners in Morgantown have a variety of inexpensive options to significantly reduce their energy costs while also cutting greenhouse gas emissions, according to a report released on Monday, June 29.

Morgantown-based environmental consulting company Downstream Strategies compiled the report as part of a three-phase project. Commissioned by the Morgantown City Council’s Green Team, the project is funded by the Appalachian Stewardship Foundation and aims to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The first phase looked at the volume of greenhouse gasses being generated by houses and businesses in Morgantown. The second phase focused on how to reduce those emissions and save money in the process.

The report found that by doing small things like reprogramming existing thermostats, switching to more efficient light bulbs and investing in fairly cheap technology that makes buildings more heat-efficient, home and business owners can save a lot of money on energy costs.

“I mean the take-home message is, it’s crazy not to. It befits the businesses, it benefits the homeowners, it makes a cleaner environment. It’s a no-lose proposition,” Downstream Strategies President Evan Hansen said.

Hansen said the next phase of the project is to figure out how to best implement the cost-saving measures described in phase two. He also plans to take his findings to other cities and towns across the state.

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.

Report: W.Va. Water Intakes at Risk from Thousands of Tanks

A new report says drinking water sources in West Virginia are at risk of contamination from thousands of aboveground storage tanks.

The report says the greatest risk is posed by 3,167 tanks near and upstream from surface drinking water intakes. A 2014 state law requires extra safeguards for tanks in these areas.

The report says more than 21,000 other tanks outside these areas also could contaminate water intakes. These include 19,133 tanks 1 to 5 miles from groundwater intakes and 2,143 tanks 1 to 5 miles from surface water intakes.

Environmental consulting firm Downstream Strategies and the nonprofit West Virginia Rivers Coalition released the report Thursday. The findings are based on their analysis of more than 47,000 tanks registered with the state by mid-December.

Four Ways West Virginia Can Reduce CO2 Emissions

Can West Virginia reduce CO2 emissions? The short answer, according to a new report, is yes. Will West Virginia reduce CO2 emissions? That’s another question…

The report is called Carbon Dioxide Emission Reduction Opportunities for the West Virginia Power Sector. It was spun out of an annual conference on anticipated rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, Rule 111(d). An environmental consulting firm based in Morgantown, Downstream Strategies, teamed with the WVU Law Center for Energy & Sustainable Development to come up with ideas to help West Virginia meet EPA-proposed greenhouse gas reduction goals by 2030.

One of the authors of the report and the founding director of WVU’s Center for Energy & Sustainable Development, James Van Nostrand, said state policy makers might be too focused on only one method to reduce emissions that’s referred to as the “inside the fence” approach (i.e., emission reduction measures taken to make power plants themselves more efficient). There are other measures that need as much if not more consideration, Van Nostrand said.

Energy Efficiency Resource Standard

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) publishes state rankings in energy efficiency. West Virginia ranks 46th, indicating that there’s a lot of potential to improve energy efficiency in the state. An Energy Efficiency Resource Standard would require state utilities to provide more efficiency programs.

Natural gas

West Virginia’s first natural gas power plant is scheduled to begin construction in Moundsville in 2015, and begin generating power in 2018. So far, it’s the only one…

An energy portfolio that includes binding renewable energy targets

West Virginia’s current Alternative and Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (AREPS) can be met entirely with fossil fuels (e.g. coal ben methane, natural gas, coal gasification). That means renewable sources (e.g. solar panels, solar thermal, wind, biomass) are non-binding renewable energy targets. That could be changed.

Integrated Resource Planning

West Virginia’s Legislature passed H.B. 2803 in 2014, which requires state utilities to engage in “integrated resource planning,” i.e., a process to evaluate supply and demand resource alternatives that will meet projected power demand (considering conservation and energy efficiency) so that customers receive adequate, reliable, and low-cost services. The Public Service Commission must issue an order by March 31, 2015.

Three Years Late?

“How much electricity are we going to need? How much electricity are we going to have to produce to meet that need?” Those are the questions Bill Howley hopes policy-makers begin with.

Howley has been researching and reporting about electricity issues in West Virginia since 2005. In his blog, The Power Line, he says the suggestions Downstream Strategies and the WVU Law Center on Sustainable Development could help the state … if the report came out three years ago.

Howley explained that while other states move toward renewable sources and natural gas power plants, West Virginia’s Public Service Commission made a renewed and significant investment in coal-fired power plants that may have locked West Virginians into a 30-year obligation to consume power from those sources.

The Commission approved shifts in ownership of a couple major coal-fired power plants three years ago, Howley said, and when they did, they promised companies such as American Electric Power and FirstEnergy certain rates to maintain operation costs and profits. He said any policy that impacts profits significantly will certainly draw retaliation.

Tag. You’re It.

With little wiggle room to tackle such a big issue like improving energy efficiency, how will the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection or the Legislature approach reducing CO2 emissions?

Policy analysts like Howley and Ted Boettner with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy predict they probably just won’t.

After all … during recent public hearings on proposed Clean Power Plan regulations, Senior Policy Advisor for the DEP, Tom Clarke, said “on behalf of all West Virginians … the EPA’s proposal should be withdrawn and its attempt to regulate CO2 … should be abandoned.”

Still, folks like James Van Nostrand and Jeff Simcoe remain dedicated to exploring options and making those possibilities known to policy makers. Follow-up reports are promised in the conclusions of this most recent publication.

DEP Tank Registration Program Opens

Recently, an overflow of water from a trench at the Freedom Industries tank site in Kanawha County reached the Elk River. West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection issued two notices of violation to Freedom for the incident. But while that tank site is being monitored regularly, the DEP is also beginning to focus attention on a whole bunch of other aboveground storage tanks too, that aren’t receiving as much attention. Ben Adducchio has more.

The DEP’s new storage tank registration program is now gathering information and data from facilities across the state that meets specific guidelines. These types of facilities are expected to be in the thousands. Due to this, the DEP took an unorthodox step, asking for comments from businesses, and other interested parties, before they had even proposed regulations. Kelley Gillenwater is the DEP’s spokeswoman.

“This is a brand new program; we’ve never regulated above ground storage tanks. It involves a lot of new information and data that we’ve never dealt with before, and because we wanted to be as transparent as possible, we started seeking public comment on the rules before we even drafted the rules,” she said.

Under new legislation, the DEP has an extensive task…to first figure out what tanks are out there that hold at least 13 hundred and 20 gallons of fluid, then to determine what’s inside of them, and finally, to determine if they would need annual inspection. The DEP’s required to monitor tanks that are 90 percent or more above ground, and in one place for more than 60 days. Gillenwater says many are already willing to play ball, and have registered.

“We’ve only been registering tanks for a couple of days, but so far there are more than 60 tanks registered. We’re expecting thousands, but keep in mind there’s a lot of data that needs to be inputted,” she said.

“A lot of people, a lot of tank owners may not have access to our electronic submission system yet, so they are getting user ids and passwords. We’ve had more than 100 login requests.”

There is some industrial pushback, however. According to comments submitted to the DEP, many are concerned about meeting the October 1st registration deadline with the DEP. Gillenwater says there could be consequences if tanks aren’t in compliance.

“If a tank is out of compliance, the agency will look at the mitigating factors and talk to the tank owner and try to figure out what’s going on. There is the potential for enforcement action. That could include penalty assessments, that could include a cease and desist order, it could include the tank being locked out so that it just can’t be used until it’s back in compliance with state law,” she said.

The Water and Waste Management Division of the DEP is leading the effort. Once the registration period is over, the DEP will determine what tanks will need additional permits. Those operators will need to pay additional fees to the DEP to fund the program. Evan Hansen is the president of Downstream Strategies, an environmental consulting firm.

“What we’re seeing in the comment letters is not unexpected, that different industries are making their case for why their above ground storage tanks should be excluded. I think the bill was written in a short amount of time, and it certainly conceivable that there may be some adjustments; however, the bill is the law. I have no doubt that various interest groups will be trying to change the law during the next session,” he said.

One issue of concern to Hansen and many others, including industry businesses, is that eventually these tanks will have to be inspected time and time again. The West Virginia DEP has struggled in the past with enforcement of inspections at many of the state’s oil and gas wells; one of the main reasons was simply because it didn’t have enough inspectors to do the work. Hansen says fees will hopefully solve those issues. He also points out that some of the pushback might be coming from the perception that there’s too much bureaucracy.

“Many industries that have above ground storage tanks are already operating under a number of environmental laws. Some feel that those laws are sufficient. I don’t think anybody wants to create more red tape that’s not going to do any good. That’s not good for anybody,” said Hansen.

“The challenge is the legislature spoke clearly of the minimum requirements they need to see in the new tank permits. If the case can be made that there is an existing regulation that’s at least as stringent as Senate Bill 373, then the DEP will allow that to be used instead of a new permit. You’ve got to prove it.”

Kelley Gillenwater with the DEP says the first draft of regulations is expected to be completed within the next month. There will be an additional public comment period and the rules will go through the legislative process next year.

Transparency is Key in Aboveground Tank Rulemaking, Expert Says

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection announced last week that they are seeking public input on what should be included in the rules to regulate aboveground storage tanks. The director of a Morgantown-based environmental consulting firm is hoping to be able to see who is submitting ideas, and what those ideas are.

Evan Hansen, director of Downstream Strategies, has been at the forefront of public reaction to the January chemical spill in the Kanawha Valley that left 300 thousand state residents without access to water for days. Hansen, in cooperation with other experts, has authored reports analyzing the spill and has also testified in Washington DC on the matter.

Hansen says the DEP’s approach to the drafting new regulations for aboveground storage tanks by asking for input before a first draft isn’t typical.

New rules are required by Senate Bill 373, also known as “The Water Resources Protection Act.” Ideas can be submitted to the agency via email or written mail by May 15. Hansen says the next point of interest in the process is one of transparency:

“I think it’s important for any interested party that submits comments, for those comments to be posted online so that everybody can see what’s being suggested before the DEP puts out their first draft.”

Hansen says transparency is important because of the hotly debated issue of exemptions which will likely be folded into the new regulations. He says during the 2014 legislative session there wasn’t enough time to make decisions about which industries could get exemptions to rules and to what extent.

“But now that we have a year to write the rules,” Hansen said, “you can be sure that different groups will be vying to get their industries exempted.”

Some exemptions make sense if regulations are already in place to sufficiently monitor or control storage units, Hansen says, but making sure nothing slips through the cracks, so to speak, should remain an important priority for rulemakers.

The tank farm at Freedom Industries along the Elk River in Charleston.

Hansen also points out that determining fee structures for storage permitting will be an important factor to watch for in the rule drafting.

“That’s important,” he said, “because if DEP doesn’t have the resources that they need to effectively implement this program, then it’s not going to be successful.”

Meanwhile Hansen and his firm Downstream Strategies is working with several organizations to draft their own suggestions on aboveground storage tank regulations for the DEP’s consideration.