Tag: January chemical spill

Two Years After Chemical Spill, Water Utilities Submit Protection Plans

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.

Trial Delayed Involving Lawsuit in West Virginia Chem Spill

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.

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.

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.

One Year After the Chemical Leak, Mother and Daughter Still Don't Drink Tap Water

It was some ten days before all of the families affected by the tap water ban following Charleston’s chemical spill were able to return to life as usual within their homes. And many did just that, once again drinking, cooking and bathing with water straight from the tap. The same, however, can’t be said for every family in the valley including Lida Shepherd, who says she still won’t drink the water.

Lida Shepherd and her two-year-old daughter, Lucia live in a small apartment on the East End of Charleston. Lucia loves tea.

This time last year, tea wasn’t so easy to make. Lida and her daughter were one of many families directly affected by the January 9th chemical leak.

“When I first got the word of the chemical leak, and the chemical spill, it was very frightening,” Lida remembered, “It was very frightening to turn on the water, and that smell was, I mean it gave me headaches, I mean I had a, definitely like a physical reaction to it.”

Her reaction was similar to hundreds of Kanawha Valley residents’ reports to their doctors.

Lida and her daughter now use city water to bathe and wash dishes and laundry in, but they still refuse to drink from the tap. Instead, Lida drives 20 miles to her parent’s farm in Sissonville to collect 4 to 6 gallons of water each week from their well. It’s a practice she began a year ago when the water use ban was still in place.

“It certainly has had lasting effects on me,” she said, “It’s now, even when I travel anywhere, whereas before I absolutely, I would just drink water from tap where I go, that’s not the case anymore. I always just sort of think about where I am, and like what’s going on with the water here? There’s definitely some sort of lasting fears, and like I said, I still don’t drink the water.”

Lida is an advocate for West Virginia Free, an organization that focuses on rights for women, and she also works with the American Friends Service Committee where she directs a youth leadership program in Boone County, an area also affected by the spill.

Credit Nikthestoned / wikimedia Commons
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wikimedia Commons

“They grew up in communities where not being able to drink the water comes up a lot,” Lida noted, “This was not a new experience for them to get word that the water wasn’t safe. And so when the chemical spill happened, some of them very much reacted just like, I’m not dead yet, literally that’s one of the girls said, she’s like, oh I’m showering in it.”

Lida says some of her students, however, felt angry at their lawmakers, blaming them for letting this happen or in some cases continue to happen.

After the spill and hearing from her students, Lida says it empowered her to want to make a difference in her state. She’s often advocated for stricter regulations and held a fundraiser at the time to provide bottled water to those who needed it.

“Reflecting on the year after the chemical spill, what we’ve been able to achieve and organize around, I’m pretty impressed by. I think because Charleston, you know, sort of a population center was largely impacted; it shed light on an issue that was an issue before this chemical spill,” she said.

As for Lucia, Lida says her daughter will continue to have tea parties with drinks made from her parents’ well water. At least, for now.

Action Groups, Experts, Mom Look Back and Forward After Chemical Spill

Leaders of citizen groups, a water scientist and an impacted mother held a phone-based news conference this week to look back on the crisis and outline the progress, pitfalls and next steps in their work to ensure safe drinking water for all West Virginians.

On the call:

RECAP:

Executive Director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Janet Keating started the call off with a recap of events that lead to state legislation, SB 373, and Freedom Industry’s bankruptcy and subsequent indictments.

Executive Director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Angie Rosser reflected that there was plenty of blame to go around when it came to a chemical spill that could taint drinking water of 300,000 people.

“I don’t think it’s any one person,” Rosser said, “it’s the whole system and the politics in West Virginia that have for decades set us up, in my opinion, for this kind of catastrophe.”

TODAY:

According to a survey conducted over the summer by the social justice organization WV FREE, 80 percent of voters said they are concerned about toxins in public water sources. Many West Virginians are now heavily embracing a cultural standard of living off of plastic-bottled water. (Bottled water which, in addition to not being free, doesn’t happen to be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act.)

The lack of public confidence is understandable, according to aquatic biologist Dr. Ben Stout from Wheeling Jesuit University. Stout pointed out some of the concerns he was left with after the spill, including how alarming it was that, “if it hadn’t been for the smell, for our human ability to detect small quantities of 4-MCHM, we would have never known that this whole community was exposed to a potentially toxic material.”

It’s a troubling realization, Rosser–from the Rivers Coalition–said, especially in light of the findings of recently implemented above-ground storage tank inspections.

Rosser: “The first round of inspections were completed by January 1, just a few days ago. And what was revealed this week to the public is that of those inspections that have been submitted,1,100 of those did not pass inspection. They’re deemed ‘not fit for service.’ That shows us that there are still tanks out there that may be leaking today.”

The discussion also encompassed some happy lessons learned in light of the spill.

  • Ben Stout talked about the abundant scientific resources in the region who sprang to respond;
  • Rosser said she saw progress from state officials who, for the first time, started to consult with citizen action groups in the wake of the crisis.

TOMORROW:

Rosser posed the question: “Will the public remain active?”

Looking forward, groups discussed anticipated legislative hurdles like funding Source Water Protection Plans and safeguarding other protective water laws and regulations.  

“The legislation and the progress that we saw over the last year could not have happened without citizen involvement,” she said.

Tank Inspections Due Thursday Under W.Va. Spill Law

The deadline is approaching to submit aboveground storage tank inspections required by a new state law to protect public water supplies.

Thursday is the deadline for new tank inspection certifications in West Virginia. Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Kelley Gillenwater says the state received about 22,000 inspection certifications as of mid-day Wednesday, or fewer than half of the tanks that require them.

The annual inspections are included in a law reacting to a January chemical spill, which spurred a tap-water ban for 300,000 people for days. The law includes a new regulatory system for many tanks and addresses emergency planning for public water systems.

A rule within the law groups tanks into three inspection categories. Tanks holding hazardous materials or ones near public water supplies face the most stringent requirements.

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