West Virginia Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito say the state is receiving $1.2 million in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency to battle surface water pollution.
A release from the two U.S. senators says the grant will also help West Virginia implement an “effective underground storage tank state regulatory program.”
Manchin says the grant will ensure the state has the proper infrastructure to keep water away from the pollutants that can too easily contaminate it.
The drinking water of about 300,000 people in the greater Charleston area was contaminated in 2014 when a chemical used to clean coal spilled from a storage tank, polluting the Elk River upstream from the system’s water intake.
Federal government scientists have released a final update of their study of the January 2014 chemical spill that temporarily fouled the drinking water supplies of 300,000 Charleston-area residents, reporting no significant new findings.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail cited the report Friday as finding “most of the spilled chemicals had no effects in the studies that were performed” after the spill of a coal-cleaning agent at a Freedom Industries site near the Elk River that year.
The work was conducted by the National Toxicology Program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The newspaper said scientists found any potential for negative health effects would only occur at significantly higher doses than residents would have had in their water under a health advisory set up after the spill.
Source water protection plans are mandates water utilities are required to follow to keep drinking water safe. However, before 2014, following these plans in West Virginia was voluntary. Since the January 2014 Elk River chemical spill, though, legislation was put in place requiring about 125 water systems in the state to have these plans. The law also made what was already on the books much stronger.
Friday, July 1 is the deadline for water and sewer utilities to submit their new plans to the state Bureau for Public Health. Liz McCormick has been following this story and brings us a look into how two utilities – large and small – have been dealing with the new regulatory landscape.
Source water protection plans in West Virginia aren’t anything new, water utilities across the state have been asked to have them for years. But after a coal cleaning chemical leaked into the Kanawha Valley water supply in 2014 leaving, 300,000 people without drinking water, state lawmakers decided to make a change. Senator John Unger headed up that process.
“And then when the chemical spill happened, and the water became a top issue again. Then this was a time that we needed to address protecting our water resources here from chemical contaminations,” Unger said.
The 2014 bill did two things – it changed the way aboveground storage tanks are regulated, and it required 125 water systems in West Virginia to create and implement source water protection plans.
The Harpers Ferry Water Works. It’s a small utility that serves drinking water to about 800 customers in Harpers Ferry, Bolivar, and the National Park Service. The utility doesn’t provide sewer service.
“This facility was built in 1985, so it’s pretty old, but it’s worked pretty well,” said Josh Carter, the Water System Manager for the Harpers Ferry Water Works, “It’s a small operation, but it actually serves a whole lot of people.”
In fact, it’s the smallest water utility in Jefferson County falling under the new source water protection plan requirements. Those plans contain six things: a management plan, a contingency plan, engineering details, an inventory of potential sources of significant contamination, a communication plan, and an early warning monitoring system.
For larger water utilities – like the Morgantown Utility Board which serves 25,000 customers – those requirements were easy to meet.
“You know the honest answer is, it’s as tough as the utility chooses to make it,” explained Tim Ball, MUB’s general manager, “We made it tough on ourselves. We imposed a high standard. We tried to include multiple scenarios, and we’ve committed to a level of preparedness that I’m pretty confident that most of the state has not committed to.”
MUB was the first water utility in the state to provide its new source water protection plan to the public for comment. But Ball’s feelings weren’t shared by every water system.
As lawmakers crafted those requirements in 2014, many small utilities cried out for help, saying the plans would be too expensive to draft and implement. So, the state is providing about two and a half million dollars for these smaller systems.
“The funding has been provided through a series of grants during 2015 and 2016 to assist in the development of various sections of the source water protection plans for about 116 of the 125 public water utilities,” said Rahul Gupta, the Commissioner for the state Bureau for Public Health.
Harpers Ferry Water Works was one of those 116 water utilities in the state that qualified for the aid. Still, Barbara Humes, Harpers Ferry’s water commissioner, says her town already had a source water protection plan in place dating back to 2011. She says updating for the 2014 requirements wasn’t as difficult as it could have been.
“It didn’t really scare us at all, it didn’t… All we had to do was dig through our data and develop a team,” Humes said.
Harper’s Ferry, the Morgantown Utility Board and 123 other water utilities are required to turn in their source water protection plans Friday. From there, the state Bureau for Public Health will review the plans and give them a final approval. But Rahul Gutpa says these documents won’t just be put away.
“It’s important to highlight that this is not a stale document that gets put on the shelf,” he noted, “It’s a dynamic, living and breathing document.”
Utilities will be required to renew their source water protection plans in three years.
A federal judge is delaying the trial involving a lawsuit filed against a water company and a manufacturer that sold a chemical to a company involved in a massive spill in Charleston.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports U.S. District Judge John Copenhaver told attorneys during a monthly status hearing last week he would need more time to review and rule on several motions. The trial had been scheduled to start July 12.
No new trial date was set. Copenhaver set another status hearing for June 10.
The class-action lawsuit was filed by residents and businesses against Eastman Chemical, West Virginia American Water and its parent company, American Water Works, over their roles in the January 2014 spill.
Eastman produced the coal-cleaning agent that leaked from a Freedom Industries tank.
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.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Marcus Fioravante
A protest featuring giant puppets was held in front of the Kanawha County Public Library yesterday, commemorating the January 9th chemical spill one year ago.
A local art group called the Vandalia Collective performed the ten minute puppet show in front of the Kanawha County Public Library in Charleston. The protest featured giant handmade puppets re-telling the story of the chemical leak just one year ago.
The various puppets played the characters of Mother Earth, the elements; water, fire, earth, and air, as well as puppets representing Freedom Industries, the coal company, and the chemical, MCHM.
“Puppetry is a very long-standing tradition in America and in Europe,” said Marcus Fioravante, the organizer of the event and puppeteer, “You know, you think about like Punch and Judy shows, and stuff like that. You know, it’s street art, it’s street performance, and that has existed, you know long before there was TV, and long before there was anything else, there was street art. And to me, it is a wonderful breath of life into activism, and I feel like you know, you can’t ignore a big puppet as much as you can ignore a person with a sign.”
Fioravante says the Vandalia Collective will perform the puppet show again next weekend, January 17th at 2:00pm in front of the Capitol complex in Charleston.
