Warehouse Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

West Virginia Top Judge Sends Furniture to Warehouse

The chief justice of West Virginia’s highest court has been parting with furniture this week.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported that workers on Thursday took a desk from Justice Allen Loughry’s Charleston home to a Supreme Court warehouse.

On Monday, Loughry had court employees take a leather couch from his home to the court warehouse.

That followed a column in the newspaper questioning the couch’s whereabouts.

Loughry said it wasn’t state property but bought by the late Justice Joe Albright, whose widow and son didn’t want it and whose son told him to keep it.

He has now donated it to the state to avoid innuendo, he said.

Court spokeswoman Jennifer Bundy said it’s appropriate justices have state desks and computers at home, where they also work. “The desk was not returned because its use was inappropriate, but because issues such as this are becoming an obstacle to the court completing its important work,” she said.

The five-member court has faced recent criticism over $3.7 million spent to renovate court offices over the past several years.

Loughry has blamed former court administrator Steve Canterbury, whom he fired in January, for the expenditures.

Canterbury said he did what the justices asked him to do.

West Virginia Warehouse Fire Produced Initial Hazardous Soot

West Virginia emergency officials say federal guidance following the warehouse fire that smoldered for more than a week in South Parkersburg shows spikes in the soot initially detected in the air.

The blaze began early on Oct. 21 in the 420,000-square-foot (39,000-square-meter) property is owned by Columbia, Maryland-based Intercontinental Export Import Inc., which says it buys and sells an array of recycled plastics worldwide.

The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says spikes in particulate matter occurred from after midnight until dawn the first day and ranged up to hazardous on its air quality index, meaning people with heart and lung disease, older adults and children should remain indoors.

It reports air quality improved the weekend following the fire, with air quality ranging from moderate to good.

Warehouse Facilities Inspected After Weeklong Fire

Multiple warehouse facilities belonging to a group of companies that owned the West Virginia warehouse that burned for more than a week have been inspected.

West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety spokesman Lawrence Messina told The Parkersburg News and Sentinel that the facilities owned by the Naik group were among 12 properties inspected Thursday by two teams of representatives from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the State Fire Marshal’s Office.

Messina says some of the sites were unrelated to the Naik group’s Intercontinental Export-Import Plastics company, which owns the 420,000-square-foot (39,000-square-meter) Parkersburg property that burned last week. The inspection sites included facilities in Parkersburg and Washington.

Parkersburg Fire Chief Jason Matthews says warehouses would ideally be inspected annually, but budget constraints inhibit that possibility.

West Virginia Warehouse Fire Almost Extinguished

West Virginia emergency officials say a warehouse fire that began last week is nearly out.

Lubeck Fire Chief Mark Stewart estimates that the fire in South Parkersburg is “90 percent” extinguished from ongoing efforts by firefighters.

The goal is to finish overnight Friday and Saturday, then monitor it for up to two days for possible flare-ups.

The 420,000-foot (130,000-meter) warehouse property where the fire broke out Saturday is owned by Columbia, Maryland-based Intercontinental Export Import Inc., which says on its website that it buys and sells an array of recycled plastics worldwide.

The Department of Environmental Protection has been measuring air quality around the site and was expected to post more results later.

The DEP ordered the company to provide a detailed inventory and properly dispose of debris.

Chiefs Warned Marshal in 2008 About Site of Warehouse Fire

Two volunteer fire chiefs warned West Virginia officials nearly a decade ago about the potential for major fires at local warehouses, one of which has now been burning for days.

Washington Bottom Fire Chief K.C. Linder and Lubeck Fire Chief Mark Stewart wrote a letter dated July 22, 2008 to the State Fire Marshal after Lubeck firefighters had issues accessing a warehouse fire in Parkersburg, The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.

In the letter, the fire chiefs cited multiple dangerous conditions, including the presence of hazardous materials, a lack of adequate water service and stacks of items blocking access to exits and aisles.

Over the past week, more than 40 fire stations from Ohio and West Virginia have had to respond to a much larger blaze at the same warehouse. Crews were clearing debris and extinguishing hot spots on Wednesday after the fire was put out on Saturday.

The 420,000-foot (130,000-meter) warehouse property is owned by Intercontinental Export Import Inc., or IEI Plastics. The company buys and sells an array of recycled plastics worldwide, according to its website.

Recent air-quality testing conducted through contracts with the Little Rock, Arkansas-based Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health found that aside from visible soot particles, there were little or no detectable levels of other likely chemicals in the smoke, Wood County emergency officials said in a news release. The soot particle levels represented a moderate impact on air quality and compared to that of a wildfire, officials said.

The last Fire Marshal inspection of the warehouse was in 2008, Lawrence Messina, communications director for the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, said. The Fire Marshal office is within the Military Affairs and Public Safety department.

Investigators are still working to determine the status of the sprinkler system at the time the current fire started, Messina said. A probe into what started the fire remains ongoing and no cause has been ruled out.