West Virginia’s top legislative leaders don’t think clamoring over coal this election helps Appalachia’s already-sputtering industry.
A U.S. Senate race and two competitive House contests have hammered on fear of federal regulation further stifling coal.
Republicans lump Democrats in with President Obama, an ever-unpopular figure in West Virginia. Democrats zig-zag to show they don’t support his energy policies.
State House Speaker Tim Miley and Senate President Jeff Kessler say the dialogue is oversimplified.
The Democratic leaders point out other factors: cheap natural gas, thin coal seams, lousy markets and national and global competition.
Kessler and Miley are also from northern West Virginia, where natural gas production has boomed.
Some of West Virginia’s longest-tenured Democratic politicians, the late Sen. Robert Byrd and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, similarly criticized coal rhetoric.
Our premiere episode includes a discussion with House Speaker Tim Miley and Minority Leader Tim Armstead on a possible change in power in the House of Delegates this fall and their top priorities for the upcoming legislative session.
Dr. Robert Rupp of West Virginia Wesleyan College and Dr. Mary Beth Beller discuss the impact 2012’s redistricting could have on this year’s mid-term races.
We’ll also wrap up of the week’s top political stories during our reporter roundtable.
House Speaker Tim Miley announced his appointment Tuesday to a statewide panel that will focus on the quality of public water systems in West Virginia.
Kanawha County Delegate Nancy Guthrie was appointed to the Public Water System Supply Study Committee on August 21 and will serve as a non-voting member.
The panel was created under Senate Bill 373, the bill passed by lawmakers earlier this year to regulate above ground storage tanks and protect the state’s drinking water supply. The bill was a result of the January chemical leak in Charleston that left 300,000 people without water for as many as 10 days.
The commission is charged with studying the effectiveness of that bill as well as providing suggestions on how to improve the infrastructure of current water systems across the state. The 12 commission members will then report their findings to the Joint Committee on Government and Finance on or before December 15 each year.
State House and Senate leaders are urging the governor to call a special session to delay part of an aboveground storage tank law.
House Speaker Tim Miley and Senate President Jeff Kessler asked Gov. Tomblin to call the session during next month’s interim meetings. They’re slated for Sept. 8-10.
Tomblin spokesman Chris Stadelman acknowledged a special session may be best to address the situation, but didn’t commit to one. He said Tomblin’s staff and environmental agency are working with stakeholders on a solution.
Miley and Kessler said the Jan. 1 deadline for tank inspections in the law is unattainable.
Miley has said tank requirements would overly burden small oil and gas operators.
A new law designed to keep West Virginians safe around boating docks and marinas was originally supposed to go into effect August 1, 2014, but has been delayed until January 1, 2015. The Michael Cunningham Act was passed last year, after a Bridgeport teenager was killed as a result of Electric Shock Drowning.
Amy Cunningham’s memory of May 29, 2010 is still a blur.
That morning she and her 15-year-old son Michael enjoyed goofing around while shopping for sunglasses.
Credit Courtesy of Amy Cunningham
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Michael Cunningham
He was planning a trip down to Stonewall Resort with a friend. As he got ready to leave, Cunningham nagged the redhead to be sure and wear his sunscreen. A bad sunburn was the worst thing she feared would happen to him. A couple of hours later she received an urgent call. Michael had been swimming near a houseboat at the resort’s marina and was missing.
She rushed to the marina and waited for hours before Michael was found. Then, there was the trip to the local hospital to see his body.
Four years later, she’s still grieving.
“People say you should remember the good memories. Well I do,” says Cunningham. “But I’m not going to have any new ones and then they all end with the memory of that day and seeing that vision of him. There’s not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t think about that.”
What is Electric Shock Drowning?
Michael died from a little-known phenomenon called electric shock drowning. It happens when electric current passes through fresh water and strikes a person, either electrocuting him or paralyzing him and causing him to drown. In Michael’s case, current from the dock had leaked into the water around the houseboat where he was swimming — when he grabbed the boat’s ladder to climb up, he was electrocuted. The autopsy showed no water in his lungs, meaning he died instantly.
The events of that day drove Amy Cunningham and her family to push for safety legislation that would eventually bear her son’s name.
“We didn’t want Michael’s death…to be in vain, I guess.”
Credit Courtesy of Amy Cunningham
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Amy and Kevin Cunningham sit on either side of Governor Earl Ray Tomblin as he signs the Michael Cunningham Act. Legislators (including House Speaker Tim Miley, back center with red tie) and supporters look on. Standing directly behind the Governor are Michael’s best friend Hallie Kittle (who was with him at the marina) and his brother Ben.
It’s unclear how many people die each year from electric shock drowning. It’s often not recognized as the cause of a drowning death.
Before it happened to Michael, Cunningham had never heard of the phenomenon.
She says she runs into people all the time who have never heard of it … including West Virginia House Speaker Tim Miley.
Miley says the information the Cunninghams shared with him, along with his own research, convinced him to spearhead the Michael Cunningham Act.
What Does the Law Require?
It applies to boat docks or marinas that are leased out or made available to the public for a fee – and are connected to electricity. Those marinas have to hire properly licensed electricians to install emergency shut-off devices for electric circuits. The legislation also mandates inspections – once before the law takes effect and again every three years after that. In addition marinas have to install signs warning of the electric shock risk and prohibiting swimming within 100 yards of the dock. Miley is proud that West Virginia is in the forefront of states that have adopted laws to address the issue.
“Many other states are resisting it because of what they perceive as the imposition of government on private commercial boat dock marinas,” says Miley. “But our position was, if you’re going to make your boat dock marina available for families and children to boat around and swim around, then you’re going to provide some safety measures to keep them safe.”
Credit Sarah Lowther Hensley
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Boats docked along the shore of Cheat Lake near Morgantown
One Morgantown area marina owner says her husband is meeting with electric contractors to get an idea of cost, which is a concern. She says only one of their docks has electric service and they’ll do a cost-benefit analysis to decide whether to continue offering it. But, she says the marina already prohibits swimming or fishing from the docks, and adding warning signs is no problem.
Originally, those signs would have to have been up by now, but there’s been a delay.
Speaker Miley and the State Fire Marshal’s office say the new law won’t kick in until January first to allow more time to clarify the requirements and train electrical inspectors.
Miley says he conferred with the Cunningham family before agreeing to support the delay.
“Which, you know, you hope nothing happens after August 1st, which could have been avoided had we kept that hard deadline,” says Miley. “But because it was in the middle of a boating season and you didn’t want to unnecessarily curtail boating season for any commercial docks that had not complied because of the lack of clarity from the Fire Marshal’s office, we decided to extend it to January one.”
Amy Cunningham says, beyond the legislation itself, her ongoing mission is to raise awareness about the dangers of Electric Shock Drowning.
“I’ll be yapping about it until I’m old,” laughs Cunningham. “Because it will always be that chance of people getting electrocuted and like I say I got a lot of boaters that boat down here in Fairmont. There’s a lot of those private marinas or those docks right through there they use. And I see they got little lights, fancy lights around them and all it takes is for one of them to get a short in it. And jump off of there. I just want them to be safe.”
West Virginia House Speaker Tim Miley wants Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin to limit regulation on small oil and gas operators in a law responding to a January chemical spill.
In a July 9 letter, Miley said small, non-Marcellus Shale wells are in “survival mode” and should be exempt from new aboveground tank inspections and registrations.
He says inspections could cost $2,000 per well annually.
Miley urged Tomblin to lessen the impact through administrative rulemaking. He suggested an executive order to delay the law’s implementation for small wells, and a special legislative session to change it.
Spokesman Chris Stadelman says Tomblin doesn’t think executive order should be used, but his environmental agency is considering options.
A January tank leak contaminated 300,000 people’s drinking water for days with a coal-cleaning chemical.
