>>ANNOUNCER: Promoting a healthy environment
It's the air we breathe. Clean,
safe water...
responsible management of our natural resources
to protect and restore
for a sustainable future...
environment matters.
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: Our surface mining activities need to be, and our oil and gas extraction
activities need to be considerate of
of uh...
how it impacts the people that that live in those communities
but at the same time
the people that live in those communities need to have those jobs for
or those impacts are not important to them.
>>KATHY COSCO: A conversation with the DEP cabinet secretary Randy Huffman
Plus...
>>GEN> HOYER: This is a great example of how pushing things back down to
to the lower state level, to the National Guard
level --
you can save money and create jobs for men and women who serve
the nation or their family members. >>COSCO: A recycling program here in WV
is saving taxpayers millions of dollars
and helping the environment, too.
Hello everyone and welcome to Environment Matters. I'm Kathy Cosco
with the west virginia department of environmental protection.
Promoting a healthy environment...
it's the mission statement here at the DEP.
Putting those words into action is the job of cabinet secretary Randy Huffman.
He sat down recently with the DEP's Tom Aluise for an extended conversation
about the environmental challenges facing the state now
and in the coming years.
>>NARRATION: Appointed cabinet secretary by governor Joe Manchin in
May of 2008,
Randy Huffman overseas the eight hundred plus employees of the west
virginia department of environmental protection.
He says he's seen a lot of changes... >>RANDY HUFFMAN: I came to work in
this, the
predecessor agency to the DEP
in 1988,
I believe it was,
and the surface mining act was young. The clean water act
had been around for a while but still it was in the
pretty early stages,
but but what I've seen
evolve over the past twenty five years is
us go from from,
as a state,
from a rough, crude
interpretation and application of the law
to a much more refined and sophisticated
application of the law and
I think the citizenry has really been
one of the main drivers behind that, if not the main driver
behind it. People are
smarter.
They're more educated.
As our ability to analyze things changes and as technology changes
and as the flow of information and access to information is
is much easier than it was in those days the expectations greater.
>>NARRATION: These days, a lot of those expectations revolve
around the state's energy policy.
West Virginia has an energy producer since the eighteen hundreds
but changes in the resource extraction industry
have raised concerns about the environment impacts some of these
practices.
>>HUFFMAN: A lot of people...
a lot of folks on both sides of the energy debate
will use, or abuse the agency
in order to promote their beliefs or their agendaor their
ideology.
It is
absolutely true to say that the
the DEP
shapes public policy on energy --
maybe not as much as people
might think
because we're really more of a reactive type organization them we are
proactive.
How we regulate is really driven by technology
and as the technology changes for
water treatment, for
coal mining or natural gas extraction or chemical processes --
manufacturing processes --
as is that technology changes
we have to change the way we regulate
and often change the rules because the tail doesn't wag the
dog on these issues so
a lot of times we're playing catch up and sometimes that
catch up...
that lag time is years
>>NARRATION: Huffman says one notable exception is the state's recent regulations
concerning horizontal drilling for natural gas
in the Marcellus shale formation
and the extraction practice known as fracking.
>>HUFFMAN: Within just...
within about three or
four years of that industry taking off,
we had a very solid regulatory framework in place and you can't say that about
coal mining. That took decades. You can't say it about
manufacturing or any other water quality issues. Those all took...
that took decades
to get regulatory controls in place for those processes.
>>NARRATION: Huffman says that shows the agency is responsive to the changing
economic landscape and finding a balance that encourages development
while at the same time protecting the state's land, water and air.
>>HUFFMAN: It's very difficult for me to separate
what's good for west virginia from what's good for west virginia's
environment but because
there is overlap there and...
you know a lot of people --
and I've been told this by some of my critics is that
economic development and public policy on energy and things like that are not
my concerns -- should not be the concern of the DEP
and I just disagree with that. I work for a boss who has to balance a
budget.
He has to shape energy policy. He has to do these things and
I cannot separate myself from something
that is so important to the individual that I work for so
there is a balance there...
>>NARRATION: Defining that balance point is not always easy...
>>HUFFMAN: Things are rarely black and white
uh... most of what we deal with there is some shade of grey
and so we have to make good, logical common sense decisions about where the
line is between
environment and is environmental protection...
You know, there are issues in coal mining that concern me...
there are issues in the oil and gas extraction
industry that concern me and i think rather then...
unfortunately, the debate is always about
for it or support for it
or an attitude that's against it and
I'm not in that place. I'm in a place in the middle and
I really wish that people could come to the center on those
on those issues and let's do what's right
for the economy, for jobs... When you think about what's important to
people...
clean water and clean air,
as important as they are,
are only going to be important to people if they're working.
If they don't have a job and have no hope
then they are not going to be concerned about protecting those things.
So that that's really important. That's why that debate needs to take place in
the middle somewhere, you know. Our surface mining activities need to be and
our oil and gas extraction activities need to be considerate of
how it impacts the people that live in those communities,
but at the same time
the people that live in those communities need to have those jobs for
or those impacts are not important to them.
>>KATHY COSCO: In the second half of our conversation,
secretary Huffman talks about balancing the environment and the economy that's
coming up a little later in the program.
But first, did you know that warming your car up by letting it idle in the driveway is just a
waste of gas?
Most cars on the road today have electronic fuel injection
and a computer that adjusts the engine to run cold.
Letting your car idle is actually the slowest way to bring it up to operating
temperature and repeated cold idling, over time, can actually harm your
catalytic converter. >>GREG ADOLFSON: I'm Greg Adolfson in Kanawha City...
A recycling program is saving more than two million pounds of material from
going into landfills,
and that's just this year...
Why organizers say the project is a big win for taxpayers and the environment.
Those stories and more when Environment Matters continues...