Below:

• Candle Light Vigil Tuesday, January 21 at 6pm

• Above Group Storage Tank Regulation Introduced

• WV Citizen Action Statement on WV Water Crisis

 Candle Light Vigil Tuesday, January 21 at 6PM

There will be a Candle Light Vigil, in honor of the waters, held on Tuesday January 21 at 6PM. Join concerned citizens on the river side of the State Capitol wearing warm clothes. This event will take place regardless of whether the ban has been lifted.

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 Above Ground Storage Tank Regulation Introduced

Senate President Jeff Kessler and Majority leader John Unger introduced SB 373 on Thursday.  The bill deals with water usage and adopts the recommendations of the State Water Resources Management Plan. More importantly, the bill requires that the WV Department of Environmental Protection inspect all above ground storage tanks containing any fluid other than water. These tanks must be registered and obtain a permit stating content, develop emergency leak response plans and, tank construction specifications. The DEP is also required to develop emergency rules and regulations for legislative approval.DEP is authorized to impose civil penalties on non compliance and spills.

This bill is not intended to solve all of the problems that have resulted from the Freedom chemical fiasco on the Elk River last Thursday. It is intended to be the foundation on which additional laws are passed to expand water protection in the State. The Bill is likely to be considered on Wednesday in the Senate Natural Resources Committee and then on to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Contact your Senators and ask them to support SB 373 when it comes up for a vote. See www.legis.state.wv.us for links to your state senators.

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 WV Citizen Action Statement on WV Water Crisis

More than a week after tanks at Freedom Industries leaked 7500 gallons of a toxic chemical 4 Methylcyclohexane Methanol (4 MCHM) into the Elk River, citizens across the region remain at risk of exposure.  Many citizens are questioning why this disaster was allowed to happen and how will we prevent a disaster like this from happening ever again.         

The chemical spill which contaminated the drinking water of 300,000 West Virginia citizens in nine counties was totally preventable. Why would a facility built in 1930, and no one seems to know when last inspected, be allowed to store tens of thousands of gallons of a toxic chemical 1.5 miles upstream  from a public water supply? As the sole water source for so many, why didn’t West Virginia American Water, like many other public and privately owned water companies, have an alternate water intake or a plan in place to respond to a crisis of this magnitude?

This crisis is a result of the combined failure of local, state, and federal agencies to adequately monitor and regulate chemical storage sites, including the Freedom Industries Facility on the Elk River in Charleston, emphasizing the need to correct the state’s culture of lax or non-enforcement of laws and regulations designed to protect the public and our most valuable resource, clean drinking water.

Regulated industries are treated as “customers” by our Dept. of Environmental Protection. Leadership there seems to consider their job to be the issuance of permits to their customers. West Virginia is “Open for Business,” but where is the enforcement? Is this disaster a result of the state’s mindset as expressed by our governor in his state of the state address when he directly referred to the necessity of “…doing what we can to help the [coal] industry reduce costs,”?

We call on elected officials at all levels of government to move quickly to support and enact the common sense recommendations of the National Chemical Safety Board offered over five years ago as a result of the explosion, deaths and chemical exposures at the Bayer Crop Science plant. These recommendations should be enacted with community input to cover both manufacturing and storage facilities dealing with toxic chemicals.

Further, we need comprehensive industrial siting regulations in our state to prevent the precarious siting of a water plant and chemical storage facility in close proximity to each other without proper risk assessment.

As the recovery of our water supply continues and water is restored to population centers, we should not forget about our neighbors that have yet to be allowed access to the water supply.  We also understand and sympathize with those who remain concerned with the safety of the water.  As an organization we emphasize the importance of a safe water supply for all West Virginians, including those in the southern coalfields and in the northern fracking fields.

In the short term, our government must be held accountable in further determining safe exposure levels to harmful water-borne pollutants and provide for medical monitoring of exposed citizens  who request it to detect both short and long term effects of exposure.

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