>>Announcer: Promoting a healthy environment...
It's the air we breathe...
Clean, safe water...
Responsible management of our natural resources...
We protect and restore for a sustainable future.
Environment Matters >>GARY: It was built to coexist with the forest.
It's a building that, in the end, actually produces more energy than it uses.
>>NARRATION: It's called a living building -- one of just a few in the country and it
was built right here in West Virginia.
We'll take a tour of the Sustainability treehouse at the Summit-Bechtel National Scout Reserve
and see how it combines high performance building design with environmental stewardship.
Plus: >>RANDY HUFFMAN: Protecting the environment
is not something that the DEP does alone.
It takes a collective effort.
It takes all of us working together...
>>NARRATION: Honoring those who go above and beyond to make West Virginia a cleaner and
healthier place to live and work.
We'll profile some of the winners of this year's DEP Environmental Awards.
>>GREG ADOLFSON: Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of Environment Matters.
I'm Greg Adolfson.
>>KELLEY GILLENWATER: And I'm Kelley Gillenwater.
Freedom Industries and its parent company Chemstream Holdings have agreed to set aside
$2.5 million dollars to cover cleanup costs at its Etowah River terminal.
>>GREG: That's the site of a January 2014 chemical spill that contaminated the drinking
water supply for hundreds of thousands of area residents.
The DEP's Jake Glance joins us mow with the details.
>>JAKE GLANCE: Greg, Kelley -- the agreement, filed earlier this month in U.S. Bankruptcy
Court in Charleston holds back that money so that it can only be used for cleanup at
the site and not for other costs associated with Freedom's bankruptcy proceedings.
>>NARRATION: It's a much different scene here today than this time last year -- gone are
the above ground storage tanks and their associated pipelines and concrete pads -- ordered removed
by Governor Tomblin in the weeks following the spill.
Now comes the removal of contaminated soil and the process of remediating the site to
make sure none of the residual chemical makes its way into the Elk River.
Making sure there was money available from Freedom to cover the costs was a top priority.
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: Whenever you're dealing with a bankruptcy situation like this you just
never know -- we don't have control.
There are other creditors out there.
There are other claimants.
So you have the civil case going on.
You have the bankruptcy judge in the bankruptcy court in charge of the money.
>>NARRATION: Freedom had initially offered $150-thousand dollars towards the cleanup,
which the judge in the case rejected at too low.
Although the final cost of the cleanup hasn't been calculated, Secretary Huffman is confident
that the $2.5 million will be enough.
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: This is not our first brownfield site.
It's not the first time we've done reclamation work.
I mean, that's something that this agency has been engaged with for a long time.
We know how much it costs to move dirt.
We know.
So we can look at this site, make a few judgements and get a range for what it's going to be.
We really took more of the advantage to get two and a half million than to set the two
and a half million dollar as a threshold.
It wasn't like that.
It was -- we saw the opportunity to get that much money, knew it would be more than enough
and decided to secure it.
>>NARRATION: The agreement also requires the hiring of a consultant to handle the remediation
process.
A plan for the project should be in place by this fall.
>>JAKE GLANCE: As for the future, there are still a few things that need to be done before
the remediation work can actually start.
Soil from the site will be removed and a cap put in.
Freedom will be allowed to dispose of up to 15-hundred tons of soil at the Charleston
landfill.
For Environment Matters, I'm Jake Glance.
>>GREG ADOLFSON: Thanks, Jake.
The contaminated soil is classified as non-hazardous waste by the DEP and, properly handled, poses
no danger to the public or the environment.
>>KELLEY GILLENWATER: The DEP plans a public meeting to discuss the details of the remediation
plan, once those are finalized later this year.
The meeting will also be streamed live on the DEP's Environment Matters YouTube channel.
>>GREG: A study by the DEP into the impact from the disposal of drill cuttings and drilling
waste from natural gas well sites in landfill found little reason for concern.
The study, mandated by the West Virginia legislature, focused on the leachate collected from landfills
and any potential negative impacts on surface or groundwater associated with the collection,
treatment and disposal of the leachate.
Leachate is the liquid that drains or "leaches" from a landfill.
The study also looked into the feasibility and benefits of establishing additional and/or
separate disposal locations that are constructed, owned and operated by the oil and gas industry
and any viable alternatives for handling the disposal of drill cuttings and drill waste.
The research "found little concern" regarding leachate associated with "drill cuttings that
were placed in approved and permitted landfills, once that leachate was processed through a
correctly operated treatment facility."
Marshall University, Glenville State College and the West Virginia Department of Transportation's
Division of Highways also contributed to the report.
A copy of the report, as well as additional statistical and analytical data is available
on our website: dep.wv.gov Turning architecture into adventure -- and
teaching lessons of sustainability and environmental stewardship in the process...
>>KELLEY: That's the mission of the Sustainability Treehouse at the Summit Bechtel National Scout
reserve in Fayette County.
The DEP's Mike Huff takes us on a tour.
>>NARRATION: In the middle of summer -- without the signs -- it's actually easy to miss tucked
into a hillside inside a stand of mature trees.
But from its steel footings firmly anchored to the forest floor to its 10-thousand watt
solar and wind power array peeking out from the canopy 125 feet in the air, you can tell
this is no ordinary treehouse.
>>Gary Hartley: It was built to coexist with the forest.
It produces its own electricity.
It collects its own rainwater.
It has composting toilets - even things like using Core 10 steel for the structure so that
it never has to be painted...
The Core 10 rust gives it a strong patena that protects the steel.
We use native wood from that site that was either taken here locally or from sustainable
forests nearby.
It's one of the few buildings in the country that actually meets the living building challenge
and that means that it's a building that is red list compliant when it was constructed.
>>NARRATION: The living building challenge is a building standard from the group Living
Future.org.
It calls for the creation of building projects at all scales that, according to the group's
website, operate as cleanly, beautifully and efficiently as nature's architecture.
The red list is a list of prohibited construction materials like added formaldehyde, polyvinyl
chloride, and phthalates but what wasn't used in the construction is only half the story.
>> Bryan Heller: We have wood that we harvested here on site.
As part of our campsite creation, we had to obviously take down some trees.
We took all of that to a local sawmill and we're building out of that, those same trees.
We have black locust made out of the local trees.
The siding on the side is all white oak made here from trees.
It's all treated with this treatment called eco-wood that doesn't require any treatment
in the future so I won't have to deal with peeling paint or varnishes that are coming
off or anything like that, which saves us money so that's kind of one of the important
things about sustainability is that it's not just about the environment.
If you can't afford it, it's not sustainable.
>>NARRATION: The treehouse represents a renewed commitment by the Boy Scouts to the ideas
of conservation and environmental stewardship.
>>GARY: When we selected the site in West Virginia, there were several core principles
that we were looking at for this and one of them was sustainability.
So there were several things we did on the site to actually make it a more sustainable
site.
A lot of the materials were used in the construction of the site were natural materials from this
area.
We wanted to show all that off and the way to show that off was through an exhibit and
the best way to do that was through a sustainability treehouse.
>>Avery Frierson: It's pretty cool.
If I had a house, it would probably look like this -- for my dream house.
>>Bryan: We want a well-rounded experience for the kids and everything here is meant
to be fun, interactive -- teach them things that their parents could afford to do and
a lot of it is easy stuff that most of us have been trying to get our kids to do anyway
like turning off lights and turning the water off while they're brushing their teeth.
That's basic stuff that saves you money and also saves the environment.
>>NARRATION: And it seems to be working...
>> Benjamin Hirsch: It's a really cool place.
I've learned that there's a lot of ways to sustain in life and go green and recycle and
do good for the earth and give back to it.
>>GARY: This is a great opportunity for us in West Virginia to show off what we really
can do.
You know, this building was built by local contractors, done here on a site that was
previously mined site and it is cutting edge.
It has won several awards for its design and its sustainability and we can tell that story
here in West Virginia.
>>NARRATION: And there will be plenty of opportunities to tell that story to a worldwide audience.
The Summit will host the national jamboree in 2017 and the world jamboree in 2019 giving
scouts and their families from around the country and around the world a chance to experience
the sustainability treehouse.
At the Summit Bechtel National Scout Reserve in Glen Jean, I'm Mike Huff for Environment
Matters.
>>KELLEY: And it's not just at jamborees -- besides the Boy Scouts, the Summit hosts other groups
throughout the year including the Girl Scouts and 4H groups.
There's even an international student ambassador program planning to bring some students over
from China to visit West Virginia and doing a sustainability workshop there at the treehouse.
What do you get when you bring 150 kids from across the state to Cedar Lakes for a week?
It's the DEP's annual Junior Conservation Camp.
>>GREG: This was the 36th year for the camp which is for kids 11 to 14 and hosted by the
DEP's Youth Environmental Program.
After getting settled in and relinquishing their cell phones, campers were in for a full
week of activities like fishing, canoeing, archery and crafts.
They also attended classes that included everything from first aid to hunter safety to how to
conduct a water study.
>>Brad Blaine: Probably the best feedback is we have a high percentage of return campers.
They enjoy the activities; they enjoy the classes, the friends that they make.
First time campers -- we have a fair portion this year.
What they look forward to is a lot of the social things -- meeting new friends and going
and trying new activities that they may not have been able to do in their home town.
We combine that with all the things that they can do in the outdoors that relate to conservation
education and just being a good steward of our natural resources.
>>GREG: Planning is already underway for next year's camp.
If you'd like more information about the Youth Environmental Program, visit our website.
You can also check out the program's Facebook page.
Coming up: honoring those groups and individuals that are helping the DEP promote a healthy
environment.
>>KELLEY: Plus: going green -- Kelly green that is.
Marshall Coach Doc Holliday and two of his players pay a pre-season visit to DEP headquarters.