>>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
>>NARRATION: Cutting the ribbon at West Virginia's
newest green school -- we check out how students at a middle school in Huntington are benefiting
from the state's sustainable schools building program, plus...
>>MAN: "Well, I put four new ones on my truck.
My kids put tires on their car and you got to get rid of them."
>>NARRATION: The DEP kicks off its annual tire recycling program with a stop in Wayne
County -- giving residents there a chance to remove these eyesores from the local landscape...
>>GREG ADOLFSON: Hello everyone and welcome to a new season of Environment Matters.
I'm Greg Adolfson with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
Cleanup work has begun at the site of a January chemical spill that contaminated the water
supply of three hundred thousand West Virginia residents.
The DEP's Mike Huff has the latest on the efforts.
>>NARRATION: Work has started on the process of decommissioning and cleaning the tanks
at Freedom Industries in Charleston in preparation for demolition and removal.
Governor Earl Ray Tomblin ordered the company to dismantle and properly dispose of all of
its above ground storage tanks and associated piping and machinery back on January 24th
-- two weeks after a faulty tank leaked an estimated ten thousand gallons of the chemical
MCHM and another chemical, PPH.
The chemicals spilled into the Elk River and reached the intakes of the West Virginia American
Water Company's plant about a mile and a half downstream -- causing a do not use order to
be issued in parts of nine surrounding counties supplied by the plant.
The work decommissioning the Freedom Industries facility is expected to take months.
DEP Cabinet Secretary, Randy Huffman: >>RANDY HUFFMAN: You have a couple of issues
in play.
One is the soil underneath of those tanks is likely contaminated with MCHM and we have
to make sure we know the extent of that contamination and we have to be able to remediate it so
that it doesn't get into the river and part of that is going to consist of taking some
of those tanks down.
They have to remove some of the tanks on the northern end of the property first -- that's
the upriver part of the property.
They have to remove those tanks -- five or six of them and open up the ground so they
can get an idea of what they're up against so they will do that first and they'll get
an understanding of the groundwater contamination before they proceed on with the -- to take
down the rest of the tanks.
>>NARRATION: Freedom Industries has also conducted an asbestos survey of the tanks and related
infrastructure and will also do a lead paint assessment before removing the tanks.
The leak originated in Tank 396 -- the middle tank in the row of the three smaller tanks.
Workers have already cut a hole in the tank to remove what's called the tank heel.
Tank heel is the material that remains at the bottom of a storage tank that can't be
removed through the normal pumping process.
The tank will then be cleaned and sandblasted by the Chemical Safety Board.
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: The Chemical Safety Board is going to take ownership of the bottom half
of the tank that leaked so hopefully they will be able to provide some insight.
Hopefully they'll be able to provide something that will be a benefit to us in the rule making
process.
We'll learn a little bit about what happened.
Was it simply rust?
Was there a contact issue?
We don't know.
So maybe if we learn something, it will help us when we put together the tank standards
for the new tank legislation.
>>NARRATION: The bill passed by the state legislature establishes a regulatory framework
to help safeguard water supplies and above ground storage tank facilities.
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: It's the most important thing that we need and that is the ability to set
standards for how tanks should be tested, certified and operated -- tanks and their
secondary containment structures -- and then for the authority to require them to do an
annual certification so that we have these standards and then an engineer certifies every
year that the tanks are meeting those standards or if they're not, put together a remediation
plan for how they can bring the tanks back into compliance.
If we had something that simple and that straightforward, we could have prevented this situation from
ever happening and by having it in the future; we can minimize the risk of anything like
that ever happening again.
>>NARRATION: But the problem of unregulated above ground storage tanks is not strictly
a West Virginia problem and the hope is that lessons learned in the Freedom Industries
spill can make a difference in the rest of the country.
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: I think across the country these same vulnerabilities exist because knowing
what I know about Federal environmental law -- you're not going to find anything in the
federal law that requires the kinds of things that we are requiring in this legislation
which would prevent these types of incidents so yes, I think across the country people
are going to learn from this incident and different states are going to take different
actions to minimize their risks as well.
>>NARRATION: During the tank removal, Freedom Industries is required to take steps to control
dust and airborne emissions from the facility along with controlling stormwater infiltration
and contact with potentially contaminated water.
Workers must install impervious liner materials to cover areas exposed during the removal
of the tanks and take all necessary steps to prevent spills or releases to the ground
or the Elk River.
No on-site burning is permitted.
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: I think the most pronounced lingering impact is going to be public confidence.
You know, people talk about a lack of trust in their government and that's unfortunate
but we'll work to restore that trust.
We never lied to anyone.
We never withheld any information.
We never deceived anyone.
We tried to get as much information out as quickly as we could and that's from the DEP
all the way up through the Governor's office and all the agencies that are under his control.
So hopefully people will know that we did have their best interests in mind and still
do.
>>GREG ADOLFSON: The decommissioning plan was prepared by Civil and Environmental Consults,
Incorporated of Export, Pennsylvania and has been approved by the DEP.
Residents living near the facility may notice an increase in the odor of MCHM near the Freedom
Industries site as deconstruction activity increases.
The DEP has issued Notices of Violation to Patriot Coal's Kanawha Eagle Prep Plant following
a coal slurry spill there in February.
The spill blackened roughly six miles of Fields Creek near Winifrede after a valve failed
in a slurry pipe line, spilling roughly 108-thousand gallons of slurry.
Fields Creek empties into the Kanawha River at Chesapeake and evidence of slurry was observed
about half a mile downstream from the mouth of the creek but dissipated shortly thereafter.
No public water supplies were impacted.
The company installed check dams -- barriers made out of rock, silt fencing and hay bales
to slow the flow of water and cause solids to drop out so they can be collected by vacuum
trucks.
Kanawha Eagle officials say the prep plant was not using MCHM in its coal cleaning process,
having phased out the use of the chemical in mid-January and replaced it with polypropylene
glycol.
Samples taken from Fields Creek following the spill tested below the reporting limit
of five parts per billion for MCHM.
Following the spill, the DEP ordered the Kanawha Eagle plant to install external flow meters
on its slurry line that are tied into the operators' control room.
The meters record flow rates along different parts of the line and can alert operators
of a problem.
The equipment has an alarm and automatic shutoff if a malfunction is detected.
The company must also install remote video cameras along the line to provide a live feed
back to the control room.
The company has also been instructed to come up with a plan for secondary containment for
its slurry lines.
The spill remains under investigation.
Coming up -- we'll check out DEP Day at the State Legislature, plus ---
>>MAN: "We want children to know that we can make a difference and the things in this school
that we have they can use in their learning experiences and then carry out through the
rest of their life" >>NARRATION: How the state's newest middle
school is teaching students about the environment -- those stories and more when Environment
Matters continues.