The Charleston Gazette is suing West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey over the release of state records.The Gazette reports that it filed the…
The Charleston Gazette is suing West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey over the release of state records.
The Gazette reports that it filed the lawsuit Thursday in Kanawha County Circuit Court. The newspaper is seeking records related to the attorney general’s office’s ongoing case against a drug company that Morrisey’s wife lobbies for in Washington, D.C.
The Gazette says Morrisey has refused to release the records under the state Freedom of Information Act.
Morrisey’s office identified up to eight related documents. He has argued they are shielded by attorney-client privilege and other public records exemptions.
Morrisey inherited the case against Cardinal Health from former Attorney General Darrell McGraw. McGraw sued Cardinal over the company’s prescription pill profits in West Virginia.
Morrisey has said he recused himself from the case.
A new law that makes it easier for West Virginians to buy a handgun also makes it easier for some people who have recently committed a crime to buy a gun.
The law allows anyone who obtains a new concealed weapons permit to buy a gun without undergoing a federal background check. A check is required to get the permit, so supporters of the change say a second check is redundant.
But permits are good for five years, so anyone later convicted of a crime that should bar a gun purchase can still buy one by showing the permit to the dealer.
The permit is supposed to be revoked if someone becomes ineligible to buy a gun, but The Charleston Gazette reports there’s no effective mechanism for enforcement.
West Virginia’s Broadband Deployment Council plans to disband at the end of year.
The council is charged with expanding high-speed Internet in the state. The Legislature denied the council’s request this year for another $5 million to provide grants for broadband projects.
Without more funding, the council’s chairman, Dan O’Hanlon, tells the Charleston Gazette that there’s nothing left to do except report on past grants.
The Legislature allocated $5 million when the council was created five years ago. The council has distributed about $3.7 million in grants.
The council also hired a consulting firm to review grant applications and create an online map of broadband service in West Virginia.
O’Hanlon says the council has about $800,000 in leftover funds. The money will be spent on project audits and reports.
Proposals to fund drinking water projects in four West Virginia counties have been rejected by federal regulators. The rejected projects are funded with…
Proposals to fund drinking water projects in four West Virginia counties have been rejected by federal regulators.
The rejected projects are funded with money from the Abandoned Mine Land program. But federal officials say West Virginia hasn’t shown that the projects are really aimed at remedying water supply damage caused by coal mining before passage of a 1977 strip mining law.
The Charleston Gazette reports that the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement said Thursday it is “impossible” at present for federal officials to approve the projects. They include the construction of water lines in Logan, Nicholas, Preston and Wyoming counties.
The DEP said it’s working with local water systems, consultants and the OSM to provide additional data for the projects that were rejected.
“Turn ‘Mountain Stage’executive producer Adam Harris loose in the show’s archives and the 30-year-old turns into a total fan.
“He almost can’t stop pulling tape cases off the shelves or picking through boxes to look at things.
“It’s kind of fascinating to watch.
“In 2005, when Harris first joined “Mountain Stage” as an intern, one of his first tasks was to organize the cardboard boxes of tapes and assorted material the live stage and radio program accumulated over the years. Now, he’s trying to do that again.
“Only this time, he wants to make sure the recordings, some 2,000 hours’ worth, are organized, cataloged and protected from the elements forever.”
UPDATE: ALL ACCESS tickets have sold out. If you haven’t purchased a ticket or reserved a seat but would like to participate in cocktail hour and the silent auction, a suggested donation of $50 is requested. If you can’t attend and would like to make a donation, simply click here.
And there’s still time to get tickets to our ALL ACCESS party and fundraiser for the archive: http://wvpublic.org/post/mountain-stage-having-party-and-youre-invited
Fresh Air recently interviewed Charleston Gazette investigative reporter Ken Ward about the Freedom Industries chemical spill. Here are the highlights:
On how the chemical leak was discovered
Some people who live in that part of town called in both to the metro 911 — the county emergency operation center — and to the state Department of Environmental Protection complaints of an odor, that they smelled some sort of a strong licorice odor in the air.
The Department of Environmental Protection sent a couple of air quality inspectors out and … when they first went there they were told by company officials, “No, we’re not having any problems. What are you talking about?” They asked to tour the site. The inspectors went out and they noticed there was a problem at one of the tanks. They described to me a 400-square-foot, 3- to 4-inch-deep pool of this chemical that had leaked out of a hole in the tank, and a 4-foot-wide stream of this stuff that was pouring across the containment area … and it was kind of disappearing … into the river. … Much of the Elk River was frozen over so you couldn’t immediately see that it was in the river.
The problem that arises from that is that Freedom Industries [the company that owns the chemical storage tanks] had a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection — a storm water permit, a permit to govern runoff from its facility. One of the requirements of that permit is that they immediately report any spills. The Department of Environmental Protection says they didn’t report this spill to the state and the fact that they didn’t report it immediately delayed some efforts at containing the spill and certainly affected the size of it and made the situation worse than it necessarily had to be.
On the ambiguity around the health risks of the chemical spill
Eastman Chemical, which makes it, puts out what’s called a Material Safety Data Sheet [MSDS]. An MSDS is something that’s required under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. It’s supposed to be kept on site for workers to look at and it’s supposed to be filed with emergency responders and local environmental authorities. It’s supposed to list the properties of the chemical, its flashpoint and what’s the toxicity of it.
And the problem with this particular substance is that if you read the MSDS for it, where it lists toxicological effects: Is it a carcinogen? No data. Does it cause developmental problems? No data. Most of the basic health effects that you’d want to know about, there’s no data available listed on the MSDS for this material.
On what citizens are doing in response
My family and I, we’re not drinking this water. I know a lot of people that aren’t. When you go to the grocery stores here you still see people buying pretty significant quantities of bottled water, filling up their carts. When you go to restaurants you hear people asking, “Are you using bottled water? Are you using tap water?” And restaurants are putting out press releases and they have signs that say, “We’re using only bottled water.”
On the U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s recommendations for stricter oversight of industrial chemicals in West Virginia
The Chemical Safety Board has been to West Virginia quite a few times and they came here in 2008 after an explosion at a Bayer CropScience chemical plant. … The Chemical Safety Board came in and investigated that and found a lot of problems at the plant and found a dearth of regulation of that sort of a plant. And one of the things the Chemical Safety Board said was that our state … should work with the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department to create a new chemical accident prevention program through which government inspectors would more frequently go into these plants, would ensure they’re being operated safely.
The Chemical Safety Board came back again after a series of accidents at a DuPont chemical plant … in West Virginia — [a series of] accidents there in January of 2010 ended up with one worker being killed. And the Chemical Safety Board repeated its recommendation after that incident.
… The state has really done absolutely nothing to implement that recommendation. The Kanawha County officials have encouraged the state to work with them … and the state has just basically ignored the recommendation.
On misconceptions about federal regulation of dangerous industrial chemicals
The industry officials didn’t like the Chemical Safety Board recommendations. They insisted there’s enough regulation already and that agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration do enough already.
And I think there seems to be this idea that … agencies like EPA and OSHA are these jack-booted thugs that are kicking down the gates of manufacturing facilities and stomping out jobs. When in fact, a lot of these facilities will go for years and years without ever seeing an OSHA inspector coming in and checking on the workplace conditions; without ever seeing an EPA inspector who is looking at their environmental conditions. The notion that these places are just terribly overregulated is wildly exaggerated.
On what authority the Obama administration has to regulate industrial chemicals
[The Obama administration] certainly ha[s] broad rule-making authority at EPA, and the Environmental Protection Agency can make rules about all sorts of things about this; the Occupational Safety and Health Administration can make rules about these things.
One example is [that] the coal industry here likes to complain about how tough the Obama administration is on them, but a few years ago we had a major spill of toxic coal ash from an impoundment in east Tennessee, and the Obama administration promised after that, “We’re going to write new rules to govern toxic coal ash and ensure that it’s handled and disposed of safely.”
Well, they still haven’t done that. OSHA knows that combustible dust is a big problem. They haven’t written rules about that.
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
9(MDA4NDQ1MjMzMDEzMjA3NzExMTA5OTU5Yw004)){kind=small}