South Korean pharmaceutical company UNDBIO is set to build an insulin manufacturing facility in Morgantown.
South Korean pharmaceutical company UNDBIO is set to build an insulin manufacturing facility in Morgantown.
The plant will manufacture insulin shots that those with diabetes would inject once a week to control their blood glucose levels, as opposed to multiple times a day.
UNDBIO Chairman Caleb Jun said during the announcement of the deal’s completion Wednesday morning that bringing a plant to West Virginia is part of his personal goal to make his company global.
“The products of UNDBIO will both save human life and improve the quality of life of those afflicted with diabetes,” Jun said. “And if all goes according to plan, UNDBIO will become one of the top global pharmaceutical companies while bringing price-competitive insulin to the U.S. market.”
The company estimates the facility will add 200 manufacturing jobs to the region during the project’s first three-year phase. That number is expected to grow to 600 after the company secures FDA approval for the insulin product, according to West Virginia Secretary of Commerce Mitch Carmichael.
Gov. Jim Justice contrasted it to the closure of the area’s Mylan plant in 2020.
“[After] the blow that we took with the closure of an incredibly large plant, with a lot, a lot, a lot of folks, this absolutely is tremendous news for that area and for our state,” Justice said.
West Virginia University will work with UNDBIO on research and development, clinical trials and post-market studies, with the company also sponsoring research and internships for students and faculty.
The facility is being built on land leased by WVU. Construction is expected to begin this fall.
Residents in the Eastern Panhandle continue to protest Denmark-based, stone wool manufacturing facility, Rockwool. For more than a year now, hundreds of residents still rally at commission and town council meetings in Jefferson County and at the Rockwool construction site – in an effort to stop the plant from being built.
Recently, a Shepherdstown resident traveled to Denmark to walk 70 miles from Kalundborg to Copenhagen to protest the facility.
Tracy Danzey is a mother of an 8-year-old and a registered nurse. She’s also the president of the anti-Rockwool group, Resist Rockwool. A few years ago, one of her legs had to be amputated after contracting a rare form of bone cancer, which she said was caused by pollution from heavy industry in her former home of Parkersburg, West Virginia.
Credit Emily Vaughn
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Shepherdstown resident Tracy Danzey in Denmark.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting spoke with Danzey via Skype, just before she finished her 11-day walk over the weekend.
“I am walking in the American tradition of marching for justice,” Danzey said in the interview. “My experience of being poisoned by industry is a huge motivator. As a nurse, my focus is often on health and the health of the community around me.”
West Virginia Public Broadcasting reached out to Rockwool for comment. Rockwool spokesperson Michael Zarin emailed a statement stating Rockwool invited Danzey to their headquarters in Denmark. He said the Danish factory uses the same core technology that will be used in Jefferson County.
“It is unfortunate that Tracy Danzey did not accept our invitation to visit the ROCKWOOL factory in northern Denmark or meet with us at our headquarters,” Zarin said via email. “The Danish factory uses the same core technology as will be used in Jefferson County. This would have been a prime opportunity for Ms. Danzey to see first-hand a similar facility in operation.”
Danzey did not accept that invitation, but instead invited Rockwool to visit Jefferson County to address community concerns.
“I came here to speak with the Danish people,” Danzey said via text message to West Virginia Public Broadcasting. “Rockwool has had over a year to reach out and be willing to chat, and they have consistently been unavailable and dishonest to our citizenry and representation. Additionally, though I can speak to the health concerns as a nurse, and the potential violation of the industry from a personal health standpoint, I would not feel comfortable touring a facility and representing my community in this way alone. I am not an industrial specialist and would have to depend on what I was being told. [Rockwool] has been so dishonest with our community that it would only be proper that some of our community’s own specialists attend these tours and meetings with me.”
Rockwool in Ranson, Jefferson County is expected to offer 150 new jobs and be completed by mid-2020, according to Rockwool’s North American President Trent Ogilvie.
The facility would feature two, 21-story smokestacks releasing a range of chemicals and will be located just a few miles from four public schools.
Residents are concerned about the potential health and environmental risks to the area. Rockwool states their technology is state of the art and that air quality is a top priority.
“Air quality is one of our top priorities & primary reason for constructing tall stacks in Ranson,” Rockwool said on their Twitter page on Aug. 3, 2018. “Tall stacks improve the dispersion of the steam plume and thus reduce particulate and other matter that might reach people on the ground.”
Since the facility broke ground in June 2018, there have been several pending lawsuits filed from opposition groups, rallies and an overall division within communities in the Eastern Panhandle.
Community members from Jefferson County, West Virginia and nearby areas came together last weekend to hear from scientific experts from around the country about air pollution and its impacts. The event’s aim was to speak “plainly” about the issue, specifically as it pertains to Rockwool – a stone wool manufacturing company setting up shop in Jefferson County.
Ten scientists and researchers who study public health, air quality, and environmental health spoke in Harpers Ferry Saturday.
“One of the purposes of the symposium was to be very welcoming to all points of view and not just anti-Rockwool point of view. They already have their position and so does everybody else, but science can sometimes transcend that,” Shenandoah Junction resident and lead organizer Patricia Stephenson said. “And maybe it is a grounds for us to open up a dialogue, so we can have a little more give and take about where the concerns are and the reality of the situation.”
The issue has sparked heated debate within the region – especially over the question of how it will affect air quality and the school children nearby.
The consensus among Saturday’s speakers was that the plant’s emissions would affect the area in a negative way, but by how much and in what way would only be known over time. Speakers noted air pollution levels fluctuate every day and are affected by all sorts of things; from our cars, pesticides, plants, hospitals even, and of course industry.
And if two people breathe in air pollution – each person will respond differently.
“The problem is, what’s on [an air quality] permit and what comes out of a [smokestack] are not always the same,” Jaime Hart said. Hart was one of the ten speakers. She’s an epidemiologist and assistant professor at the Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard University Medical School and School of Public Health.
“I think it’s often the first couple years of an industry to know what’s really coming out, and is that what was predicted? Or are there factors that mean that even though somebody has done the work to put in the scrubber that was required, or controlled technology that were required; are they working?”
Hart noted it’s important to also look at the whole picture of potential air pollutants when trying to understand effects, and not just at what might be coming out of the stacks; to note things like weather patterns, temperature, the lay of the land, or increased traffic in and out of the plant.
Another speaker, Laura Anderko, is a professor and endowed chair at Georgetown University’s School of Nursing and Health Studies and the director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment.
Anderko said there’s always give and take when industry sets up in urban or rural areas – jobs versus pollution, and decisions have to be made when considering safety of children.
“There’s ways to do workarounds; bringing the kids in during those peaks in pollution, but in the end, is that really what we want?” she said. “We want kids to play outside, we want kids to enjoy nature and the outdoors and not worry that they’re going to develop asthma or ADHD, or any range of neurological deficits just as a result of going to school.”
Anderko said that while Rockwool may have followed the letter of the law in terms of federal and state environmental regulations, she argued these regulations are not protective enough of vulnerable populations like children and the elderly.
All ten speakers encouraged residents to work together and purchase their own air quality monitors and collect their own data now and after Rockwool is built. But they also cautioned to make sure data collected is accurate, otherwise state and federal officials would not take their research seriously.
Rockwool’s air quality permit was approved by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection last April. The plant is expected to be operational by mid-2020.
A West Virginia city is asking local leaders what can be done about the humming sound that’s drifting across the Ohio River from a manufacturing plant in Washington County.
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel reports Vienna city residents complained to the Wood County Commission Thursday that a sound has been coming from the plant for months. Some residents said the humming can be heard at all hours.
The Eramet plant says the noise started in October when it tried to improve its dust collection system. But it said last month that it’s still working to determine the cause.
Sheriff Steve Stephens says the noise is a constant hum, and some residents have complained of screeching sounds. Commission President Blair Couch says they’ll talk to the Ohio county about possible action.
The European-based insulation manufacturing company Rockwool held a handful of community open houses last week at the Jefferson County Community Center. The aim was to better-connect with residents, many of whom don’t want the company to locate in the Eastern Panhandle. Rockwool’s final open house drew a crowd of hundreds who rallied outside to protest the plant.
Dozens of “Stop Rockwool” or “No Toxic Rockwool” banners and signs lined car windows, trucks, or were held by protesters. They chanted and cheered, and even sang “Almost Heaven” by John Denver.
These residents say they’re angry and scared. They’ve voiced concerns about the plant’s impact on air quality and health, which is slated to be built just a few miles from four public schools and neighborhoods, and it will have two smokestacks.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“Children will be affected by the toxins that are put [out by] this. I don’t care what Rockwool says,” said Harpers Ferry resident Linda Bishop. “This is not what we want here.”
The issue has also attracted nearby out-of-state folks like David Pratt of Winchester, Virginia. Pratt said the company will affect the entire tri-state region, not just West Virginia.
“The pollution from this plant will travel,” Pratt said. “It’ll travel 30, 35 miles, and no matter what promises they make, the bottom line is, it is pumping pollution in our air, and we don’t want it in our area.”
Pratt said he thinks the region, including the Eastern Panhandle, would benefit better from jobs in agribusiness and tourism rather than the manufacturing industry.
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“What we didn’t do enough of obviously is engage with everybody,” said Rockwool’s North American President Trent Ogilvie at one of the open houses. “We missed a part of this community in our communication and didn’t answer their questions well enough. So, we’re doing that. We want to get everybody’s questions, get the facts, and try to earn people’s trust.”
The company touts itself as ‘green’, using state-of-the art technology to clean and melt down basalt rock and recycled slag, and ‘spin’ the fibers in a fashion, kind of like how cotton candy is made. The company plans to recycle water it uses and employ a storm water management system.
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The facility in Ranson is slated to offer 150 jobs, ranging from entry level operators, electricians and welders, to management positions.
Entry level positions will make $17 per hour. Managers will have an annual salary of around $85,000.
Rockwool said all employees will receive full, family health benefits, a 401k, and two-weeks paid vacation.
Rockwool’s Community Open Houses
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Rockwool held four community open houses last week.
Tables lined the Jefferson County Community Center’s gymnasium, and it was structured similarly to a job fair. Videos of testimonials looped on monitors. Product demonstrations and air quality charts were displayed. And several Rockwool employees from Canada and Denmark were available to chat.
But not many protesters went inside.
Some people did though, like Shepherdstown resident Lynn Wagner. She found it disturbing.
“It’s very pretty, and it sounds really good, but you have to look behind that and see what the reality is in terms of the toxic release into our small, lovely community that’s located in a valley,” Wagner said. “Jefferson County is an area that’s agriculture, it’s tourism, and [Rockwool] doesn’t fit into this landscape. Period.”
Other residents had a different reaction. Kearneysville resident Barbara Fuller was not a protestor, but shared concerns about emissions.
“The hard questions of, ‘are you going to poison us?’ were met with compassion. No snark. I was genuinely just…I was impressed,” she said.
Fuller said she’s not 100 percent on-board yet and wants to do her own research.
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Rockwool’s North American President Trent Ogilvie said his company will be installing air monitoring stations near the Ranson plant that the public will be able to access.
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
One of the stations at a Rockwool Community Open House. Rockwool’s insulation product is fire and water resistant.
“We’re going to hire and make sure the public knows that there’s an independent somebody, I don’t know who, to tell us where the most sensitive place [is] to put [the air monitoring stations],” Ogilvie explained. “We’ll make sure the information’s public. We’ll make sure there’s a third party attesting to the information and do everything we can to make sure people don’t think we’re just making up data or monitoring [ourselves], because it won’t be.”
He also hopes to foster better communication between Rockwool and Jefferson County residents, beyond the open houses and after construction is complete.
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“We’re forming a stakeholder group of eighteen, a cross-section of the community,” he said. “Eighteen people that will meet every month, advise us, [and] tell us concerns they’re hearing. It won’t end after the factory starts either. We’ll always have a really enhanced community relations program.”
A Rockwool spokesperson said 200 people from the area attended the open houses. Meanwhile, one online protest group has grown to include nearly 8,000 people.
In a statement handed out by members of that group, members said Rockwool is “completely wrong for Jefferson County. There is nothing Rockwool can say that will change that. We will never agree that’s a good idea no matter how many open houses Rockwool holds.”
The Ranson plant broke ground in June and is expected to have completed construction by 2020.
Updated Friday, Aug. 10, 2018 at 8:10 a.m. with additional interviews, plus reactions from local residents and the Jefferson County Commission, and FAQs from the W.Va. DEP.
A new manufacturing plant is being built in Jefferson County and promises to bring 150 jobs to the region. But there’s major pushback from the community.
A couple hundred people from the Jefferson County area recently gathered outside the local Charles Town Library holding signs with phrases like, “No Toxic Rockwool” or “Citizens Against Rockwool.”
Rockwool is a Denmark-based company that manufactures stone wool insulation. This type of product is used in buildings, industrial applications and acoustic ceilings. It’s a fiber-based insulation produced from natural stone and recycled content.
A year ago, the company announced it would build a second U.S. facility in Jefferson County, West Virginia. Their first U.S. plant was built in Marshall County, Mississippi.
But several Jefferson County residents are concerned, because the plant is being built just a few miles from four public schools and will have a smokestack that will release a range of chemicals like formaldehyde and benzene.
“How can we stay here and raise our kids here? We can’t. We will move,” said Charles Town resident Nathan Decker. “If this happens, we’re gone.”
Decker’s sentiments were echoed by other locals as well – pointing to health concerns and environmental regulations.
“The issue is that our regulations are weak,” noted 22-year-old Aaron Hackett. “We have to stop selling out West Virginia, take the ‘for sale’ sign off our state and create jobs and preserve clean air, clean water. They’re not mutually exclusive. We can absolutely do both.”
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
A boy protests the Rockwool company with his family on Aug. 2, 2018 in Charles Town.
About two weeks ago, a Facebook group called, “Citizens Concerned about Rockwool-Ranson, WV” was created by local woman Leigh Smith. Within days, the group grew to more than 4,500 members.
“We don’t want smokestacks, we don’t want industrialization; that’s not what we moved here for, and that’s not what most people want,” Smith said.
Jefferson County Commission President Josh Compton said at a recent meeting that he’s also concerned and wants the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to visit his community, explain the air quality permit they issued back in April and describe how the facility will be monitored.
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“Over the next course of days, weeks, we’re going to see what powers we actually have and what we can do to resolve this situation,” Compton said.
No commissioners at the time of the meeting spoke for or against the plant, but, the following day, one of five Jefferson County Commissioners, Jane Tabb, stated in a post on Facebook that she no longer supported the Rockwool project due to air quality concerns and would work to “turn [the project] around.”
The DEP reports there will be continuous emissions monitors on key components of the facility. They also said the facility would be regularly inspected.
Air quality specialist Michael McCawley is a clinical associate professor at West Virginia University’s School of Public Health, Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences.
He said it’s difficult to say how much impact the chemical emissions might have over the long term, but that ultimately, it is a gamble. If weather conditions remained fair year-round, he said the chemical impact would be insignificant.
“There’s a concern about what might happen and how quickly people might react,” McCawley said. “Can we do the health surveillance that’s necessary to make sure that we’re not going to get an effect? And the answer is, we really don’t know.”
Rockwool stated on Twitter that air quality is one of its top priorities and that the plume from the stacks will mostly be steam.
Air quality is one of our top priorities & primary reason for constructing tall stacks in Ranson. Tall stacks improve the dispersion of the steam plume and thus reduce particulate and other matter that might reach people on the ground.
Hello, our production line will have state-of-the-art emissions control technologies. The plume from the stacks is mostly steam with some particulate matter and other constituents in very low concentrations
Rockwool has not yet responded to requests for comment from West Virginia Public Broadcasting about air quality concerns or economic development. They did say, however, there would be a community open house at the end of August.
In June, the company broke ground and is expected to complete construction by 2020.
