Pollution Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

EPA Lists Union Carbide South Charleston Landfill As Superfund Site

An ongoing case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia will determine whether Union Carbide, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, will pay civil penalties.

This is a developing story and may be updated. The original story misstated the number of National Priorities List sites in West Virginia. It has been corrected.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has listed a closed Union Carbide landfill in South Charleston as a Superfund site, joining some of the most contaminated places in the country.

An ongoing case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia will determine whether Union Carbide, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, will pay civil penalties.

Courtland, a property owner that sued Union Carbide, is seeking a $1.4 billion civil penalty against the company over pollution resulting from the dumping of toxic material. Courtland also has sought an injunction from the court that would put the cleanup under EPA supervision.

The Courtland and Union Carbide Filmont sites are directly beside Davis Creek and close to where the creek enters the Kanawha River.

Illustration by Eric Douglas

Last year, Senior Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. found that the site, called the Filmont landfill, was an illegal open dump under federal law. He also found that Union Carbide violated the Clean Water Act by failing to seek a stormwater discharge permit for the facility.

Copenhaver dismissed two of Courtland’s four lawsuits against Union Carbide.

Last month, Union Carbide asked Copenhaver to reject the civil penalty and the injunction.

The company has said it’s pursuing a voluntary remediation with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection that would achieve the same goals as an EPA-supervised cleanup and would take less time to complete.

Pat McGinley, a law professor at West Virginia University who specializes in environmental law, said the Superfund listing could affect the outcome of the case.

“It brings EPA into the process of determining the appropriate remedial action,” he said, “obviously not what the defendant prefers.”

In a court filing dated April 30, Mike Callaghan, an attorney for Courtland, noted that the Superfund listing did not place the Filmont site on the National Priorities List. That list currently includes 1,340 of the most polluted sites across the country. Eleven are in West Virginia.

However, Callaghan noted that the EPA intends to conduct a preliminary assessment on the site, where Union Carbide had dumped various contaminants from the 1950s to the 1980s.

“Counsel is further exploring the significance of this site being listed under EPA’s Superfund Site Information and the impacts that may have on this litigation,” Callaghan wrote.

The Superfund program was created by Congress in 1980 after one of the most famous toxic sites in U.S. history, the Love Canal neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting has asked Union Carbide, the EPA’s Region 3 office and the WVDEP for comment.

WVU Researchers Aim To Convert Mine Water Pollutants Into Industrial Materials

West Virginia University researchers are extracting minerals from toxic mine water runoff and converting it into industry materials, with the help of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Coal mining can expose minerals like pyrite to oxygen from rainwater and the air. In turn, this pyrite creates sulfuric acid — a toxin to aquatic wildlife that frequently enters water runoff.

But new research at West Virginia University (WVU) aims to remove harmful minerals from acid mine drainage, and repurpose them into usable industrial materials.

Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of WVU’s Water Research Institute, began working on the project in 2016. His team has already developed technology to extract minerals like pyrite from local water supplies, effectively ridding it of mine pollutants.

“You have to treat the acid mine drainage… [in] a treatment plant or facility,” he said. “We have a process that basically is a way of treating acid mine drainage while recovering valuable minerals and cleaning up the environment at the same time.”

Ziemkiewicz said that his team helps operate a plant near Grant County that treats from 500 to 1,000 gallons of acid mine drainage per minute. According to Ziemkiewicz, facilities like these help proactively treat drainage before it enters a body of water.

Minerals extracted from this drainage can be repurposed for industrial benefits, which brings additional value to the extraction process, he said.

An additional $5 million in funding secured this week from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) will help the team embark upon part two of the project: converting extracted minerals into industrial materials.

Ziemkiewicz said his team secured the funding after responding to a DOE project solicitation sent out nationally. The group has received funding from the DOE roughly 10 times, he said.

“What we’re doing now is taking that concentrate and developing new processes that are very environmentally friendly, and that will take those mixtures of rare earth and other metals and separate those into individual, usable components,” Ziemkiewicz said.

Rare earth elements are used in a variety of goods ranging from cell phones to alternative energy technology, he said. Many of these elements are primarily imported from China, but Ziemkiewicz said projects like his own could develop methods of obtaining them domestically.

Additionally, state law grants individuals or groups who treat acid mine drainage rights to the usage of extracted materials. This means treatment plants can sell the materials they extract and use them to finance operations, Ziemkiewicz said.

Beyond sustaining environmental upsides, Ziemkiewicz said that the prospect of self-funded treatment plants would also stand to create jobs for coalfield communities devastated by the decline of the mining industry.

“Being able to bring in an industry that cleans up the previously polluted water while creating economic opportunities through the extraction of the rare earth is creating wealth for these communities,” he said. “It creates wealth where previously you had basically environmental degradation.”

An Experimental Orchard And Larry Groce Has Our Song Of The Week, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, an experimental apple orchard in the state is helping to fight pollution, improve food scarcity and some hope even heal veterans. Briana Heaney has the story.

On this West Virginia Morning, an experimental apple orchard in the state is helping to fight pollution, improve food scarcity and some hope even heal veterans. Briana Heaney has the story.

Also, in this show, our Mountain Stage Song of the Week comes to us from co-founder, artistic director and former host of Mountain Stage, Larry Groce. Groce is joined by the Mountain Stage House Band in this 1991 performance of “Turn! Turn! Turn!”

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Our Appalachia Health News project is made possible with support from Marshall Health.

West Virginia Morning is produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Jack Walker, Liz McCormick, and Randy Yohe.

Eric Douglas is our news director. Chris Schulz produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

New Report Finds W.Va. Among Cleanest States For Air Pollution

The Charleston Metro Area ranked among the nation’s cleanest cities for ozone pollution in a report released Wednesday.

The American Lung Association released its annual “State of the Air” report, which grades exposure to unhealthy levels in the air quality.

“It grades exposure to unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone, air pollution, which you and I might think of a smog, annual particle pollution, which we might think of as soot, and short-term spikes in particle pollution over a three-year period,” said Aimee Van Cleave, the advocacy director for the American Lung Association in West Virginia.

While the Charleston Metro Area earned an A grade, the Wheeling Metro Area earned a B grade, its best result for year-round particle pollution.

“It’s doing really well,” Van Cleave said. “So we’re finding really positively that folks in West Virginia are breathing some of the cleanest air in the country.”

The report looked at levels of ozone, or smog, the air pollutant affecting the largest number of people. Cities are ranked based on the area’s worst county’s average number of unhealthy days.

The Charleston metro area had zero unhealthy days per year. The Wheeling metro area had an average of 0.3 unhealthy days per year.

While West Virginia scored well, the rest of the nation did not. The report found that nearly four in 10 people live in places with unhealthy levels of air pollution.

Van Cleave said exposure to particle pollution can lead to lung cancer, asthma episodes, heart attacks, strokes, preterm births and impaired cognitive functioning later in life.

“We can encourage folks to go to airnow.gov, where you can see if you are having a poor-quality day, and then you can take precautions such as rolling up your car windows, not exercising outside, putting your air conditioner on recirculate,” Van Cleave said. “And then of course, taking extra precautions for children and people with lung disease.”

Van Cleave said climate change is making air pollution more likely to form and more difficult to clean up. She said people should check the air quality in their area before exercising outside and take action by signing a petition.

“What we’re asking folks to do to improve air quality, there are a number of things including calling on the EPA to set long overdue, stronger national limits on ozone pollution,” Van Cleave said. “Folks can also just look at the air quality in their area and make personal choices like biking or walking rather than using the car, those kinds of things.”

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.

EPA Proposes Settlement In Guyandotte Watershed Pollution Lawsuit

The EPA’s proposed consent decree would settle a lawsuit filed this month by environmental groups in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.

The U.S Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a settlement to a federal lawsuit over water pollution from coal mining.

The EPA’s proposed consent decree would settle a lawsuit filed this month by environmental groups in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.

It establishes total daily maximum loads for ionic toxicity in the lower Guyandotte watershed.

Ionic toxicity, dissolved mineral salts that result from surface mining, can impair aquatic life.

The West Virginia Rivers Coalition, the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the Sierra club filed the lawsuit on March 18. It named Adam Ortiz, the EPA Region 3 Administrator, as a defendant.

The proposed settlement was published in the Federal Register on Friday. The public has until April 29 to submit comments.

Lawsuit Over New Air Quality Regulations Filed

Attorneys general from West Virginia and Kentucky filed a lawsuit against the EPA over new air quality standards. They allege the standards burden manufacturing and infrastructure projects.

Attorneys general from West Virginia and Kentucky have sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over a recent policy that raised air quality standards nationally.

Filed Wednesday, the lawsuit claims that adjusting to the new standard would financially burden manufacturing and infrastructure projects. EPA officials have said the new policy reduces major public health risks.

Controversy grew in February after the EPA lowered the maximum concentration for particulate matter in the air by 25 percent, requiring companies to reduce their levels of air pollution.

Particulate matter refers to particles invisible to the naked eye, like some forms of soot and smoke. When inhaled, these particles can cause eye, nose and throat irritation, blood abnormalities and even lung damage.

The EPA has stated that raising air quality standards will reduce these health risks and the costs associated with them.

EPA officials have already stated that all 55 counties in West Virginia already meet the new air quality standards. Some regions with major industrial activity, like parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio, might not.

But in a press release Wednesday, Morrisey said the new measure marks an EPA attempt “to advance [President Joe] Biden’s radical climate agenda.”

The new rule is being enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a federal agency tasked with monitoring financial markets and watching for financial fraud. Companies are now being asked to estimate their potential greenhouse gasses to the SEC.

“How is the company supposed to know if greenhouse gas emission will affect its finances?” he said. “How many trucks are going to be too many? How much coal to use versus natural gas or other forms of energy?”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 24 states in the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Wednesday’s lawsuit also listed EPA Administrator Michael Regan as a defendant. Beyond the lawsuit, EPA intervention in state air pollution standards stands on shaky ground.

Last month, members of the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments against another EPA policy from representatives of several different states, including West Virginia.

Some have said that the justices are poised to overturn that policy, which cracks down on the emission of air pollution across state lines. This could mark the third Supreme Court case lost by the EPA recently.