Tag: Lochghelly

W.Va. DEP Shuts Down Danny Webb Construction Waste Site, For Now

The W.Va. Department of Environmental Protection has Statement About Danny Webb waste site in Fayette County. DEP Communications Director, Kelly J. Gillenwater said in an email Friday:

"The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Oil and Gas has shut down operations at the Danny E. Webb Construction Inc. underground injection control facility in Fayette County until further notice. The shutdown, effective immediately, is in response to an April 8 decision by the Environmental Quality Board. The board ruled that a March 2014 order under which the facility was operating was unlawful and gave the DEP 30 days to either issue a new permit or require the operations to cease. Two permit applications from Danny Webb for the facility are currently under thorough review, and DEP is taking into consideration all comments submitted during the public comment period regarding these proposed permits. There is no deadline by which DEP must make a decision whether to approve or deny the applications and the agency has no estimated timeframe on when that decision will be made."  

A permit to operate an underground injection well had expired in October 2012 but the operator continued to collect waste.

The underground (UIC) permit was granted February 6, 2014 under the condition that the operator close an above ground pit used to collect fluids from oil and gas exploration, development drilling, and production before being injected into the underground well.  

In a letter of appeal filed in March 2014, attorney Tom Rist said the permit did not specify the closure requirements and should have been addressed before granting the permit. The operation permit was revoked in March, but the order still allowed the operator Danny Webb Construction to continue to work at the site.

The West Virginia Environmental Quality Board ruled in April that the Department of Environmental Protection violated state law when it allowed Danny Webb Construction to operate the injection wells in Fayette County without a permit. Danny Webb Construction had until May 8 to issue a new permit or cease operations.

Delegate Says DEP Hasn't Moved on Requests About Injection Well

Delegate John Pino requested two things of the state Department of Environmental Protection during a November interim meeting. The first was information about the permit status of an injection well in Fayette County, his district. The second was for the department to conduct tests of a creek near the site for possible contamination.

Three weeks later, Pino said he still hasn’t heard from the agency.

The Lochghelly injection well is located between Fayetteville and Oak Hill and has concerned citizens in the area for years.

In March, the site’s permit was revoked, but that same day the Office of Oil and Gas issued an order allowing the site owner, Danny Webb Construction, to continue to accept  waste until another permit application is submitted.

In June, a group of citizens and environmental groups asked the state Environmental Quality Review Board to review and reverse the order. Board members have yet to release a decision on the matter.

“We just don’t know the status of the permitting process as we speak,” Pino said Monday. “I’m not clear and that bothers me.”

The DEP has tested the water in Wolf Creek in the past. The creek runs adjacent to the site and feeds into the New River above a public drinking water intake.

Those tests showed increased levels of contaminants, but did not conclude the pollution came from the injection well.

Pino worries the proximity leaves the public vulnerable to another incident like January’s Freedom Industries spill.

“We surely would not want that to happen in another part of the state. We never want that to happen anywhere,” he said.

Pino said James Martin, chief of the DEP’s Office of Oil and Gas, reached out to him shortly after the interim meeting, but they could not agree to a time to meet when the delegate was still in Charleston. Pino said hasn’t heard anything from the department since.

Pino lost his bid for re-election in November and his term will expire in December.

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