>>KATHY COSCO: We continue now with our conversation with Cabinet Secretary Randy Huffman.
He spoke to the DEP's Tom Aluise about some of the agency's success stories.
>>TOM ALUISE: Balancing the needs of a growing energy economy with the environmental
concerns of the extraction process is the tightrope walked by Randy Huffman
but he says the terms environmentally responsible an economic development are
not mutually exclusive.
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: I don't think it's a trade-off. I don't think it's a sum zero game. I think we
can
we can do both
uh... one of my favorite examples to point to is we're sitting here in my
office and
I wish i could see the Kanawha River but it's close enough that I could see
if it weren't for the buildings. The Kanawha River
drains the heart of the appalachian coal fields
and it is one of the most diverse -- biologically diverse bodies of water
that you'll find anywhere in the country.
It's clean
I spend hundreds of hours a year on the river. I know what's there.
I'm intimately familiar with it from from one end of the other and I think
and it's not always been that way. In my lifetime it hasn't always been
that way,
and I think that's a testament to
uh... testimony to
what all has been done bound by many groups over many people over the years
to to make the environment clean.
Those that were, like myself, that were born and raised in Charleston - just
looking from one side of the Kanawha Valley to the other
thirty years ago verses today,
there's a difference.
>>TOM ALUISE: And that's just some of the success stories Secretary Huffman pointed to.
We asked what he was most proud of. >>RANDY HUFFMAN: What I'm most proud of is as a state,
I've watched us
come from a very
politically charged state
in the eighties and in even before that before i was involved
to a state
whose political system
is
truly out to do the right thing. When I look at our legislature and I look at
our
current governor and the previous governor that I worked for,
I see honorable people
trying to do the right thing for the right reasons
and and uh...
I'm really proud of that. I think that
that's something that unfortunately West Virginia years
ago developed a negative reputation for.
I don't think that reputation is founded any longer and I
in my
tenure here in the state I've seen that change and go from one end of the spectrum
to the other
and for that reason, I think working
in this system has been a tremendous honor for me.
>>TOM ALUISE: Huffman says it's the efforts of the people here at the Department of
Environment Protection that make all the difference.
>>RANDY HUFFMAN: They come to
work every day
wanting to make a difference
and is just tremendous. I can't say enough about the talent and
the skill
of the people that work in this agency and the experience
and they
make me look good...
they make this agency look good. I think we have a lot of credibility
and it's because of of the work of those people - from the folks that
run our administrative processes
to the inspectors that are out there in the mud everyday
I could go on and on about them because...
and I know it sounds maybe it's a little bit of a cliche to
to to go overboard about about your staffing when you look at
the range of
duties that we have in this agency
and you think about how does all of that get done,
I obviously have to trust a lot of people
and some people would look at that as a big risk
but I don't because...
they've never let me down and it's not because they're working for
me it's because they're working for
the state and they believe in what they're doing.
A lot of these folks could be out in the private sector making a lot more money
and they choose to be here and I think that's
a testament to to what they believe in
and...
I'm just tickled to death... That's what I'll miss most
whenever I ultimately leave this place someday, is the the people have
just --
for the entire twenty
six years that i've been a part of this agency - it's just been tremendous.
>>KATHY COSCO: Coming up, they're the cleanest county in West Virginia... west virginia
We'll tell you who and why
when Environment Matters continues.