The West Virginia legislative Judiciary Subcommittee "A" met on Sunday, July 11; waste tires was on the agenda. The Division of Highways (DOH) had been contacted as a potential agency to administer a tire program, as a result of reports that last year’s tire bill died because the finance committee chairman did not want to give more money to the West Virginia Department of Enviromental Protection (DEP).

 Tires not for burning? Mr. Bonasso from the DOH addressed the committee, citing the division’s confidence that it could find creative ways to use tires. He mentioned using tires in civil engineering applications such as base material in highway construction, and encapsulating them in large concrete blocks.

I found it very refreshing to hear serious discussion of tire uses other than burning, but I was puzzled at his failure to mention using tires in asphalt. Mr. Bonasso spoke of these uses as though they were new and in need of study and research. Handouts available at the meeting indicated that civil engineering applications are the second largest end-use of tires nationwide and has increased by 80 percent over the last two years. I sensed that some legislators felt that the DOH’s "can-do" presentation was compromised by the "can-study" aspect.

Dick Cooke, with the DEP Office of Waste Management said the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is concerned over West Virginia’s failure to deal with waste tires, and is threatening to come in and clean up the tire piles for us -- and hand us the bill. EPA has requested a meeting with the DEP and other stakeholders.

 Health threats from tire piles. Health threats posed by tire piles were discussed. Tires are an ideal breeding place for the Asian Tiger and Tree Hole mosquitos, both of which carry LaCrosse encephalitis, a central nervous system disease that children are especially vulnerable to. More confirmed cases occur in West Virginia than in any other state. The dangers of burning tires (open tire piles, that is) were enumerated as well.

Dick Cooke was asked to give a thumbnail estimate of the cost of an on-site tire monofill at the Buffalo Creek (Putnam Co.) tire pile next month.

Tire burning at Capitol Cement is not going well due to trouble with its tire injector, and Allegheny Power reported that a third test burn was conducted at the Willow Island power plant. Allegheny still maintains that it could burn 3-4 million tires annually if the price was competitive with coal. Presently, grinding and transportation drives the price up too high.

 Now the quarries want to move in. Following the Judiciary Subcommittee A meeting, an informal meeting of stakeholders in the quarry issue was held in the Senate Judiciary committee room.

Senators Snyder and Hunter, and Delegate Mahan attended, along with John Ailes and Rocky Parsons from the DEP’s Office of Mining and Reclamation; two quarry operators; two quarry industry lobbyists; Laura Rose, representing an eastern panhandle citizens group; Rick Eades and myself.

The purpose of the meeting was to identify the issues and see if there were any areas of agreement. Senator Snyder told the group that as co-chair of the committee that is studying quarries, it was his intention that the two quarry rules that are now out for public comment would not be used as a starting point for legislation, nor would the Douglas or Manuel bills.

The fact that there was some agreement on which issues should be addressed in legislation masked the enormous disagreements that exist on how those issues should be treated. For example, there was agreement that bonding and reclamation should be addressed, but the group did not try to resolve the huge differences that exist on how much bonding is necessary, or how to grandfather in existing operations.

I found it interesting that one of the quarry people said that quarries can’t afford to pay bonding that would adequately cover reclamation costs. Yet, it was announced that the industry had formed a new group, the West Virginia Crushed Aggregate Association, which had hired its own lobbyist (Mike McThomas), just to deal with this legislation. Would that we could all be so broke!

Once again we see the industry tactic of multinational corporations using the small mom and pop operations that they are trying to run out of business as examples of why they need breaks, exemptions, variances, and grandfathering for their operations. This tactic is completely transparent to those of us who have been working environmental issues for any length of time; hopefully we can get the legislators to see through this worn ruse.

Some things that I found disturbing were an indication that quarries may not be made to comply with zoning ordinances, and the idea that water replacement, damages, and blasting be handled by the new provisions in SB 681. There seems to be a feeling in the legislature that the office of blasting and the other provisions of SB 681 actually improved things for property owners. It appears that we will have to educate the legislature about the contents of their own bill before we can talk about getting any real protection for neighbors of quarries.

There will be a tour of a model quarry in November, when the interims are held in the eastern panhandle. I suggested that to get a balanced view of the industry, a "bad" quarry operation be toured as well. It remains to be seen if that will occur.

Public comments needed. Many rules were out for public comment this month. I submitted comments on the "33CSR2" sludge management rule, the "45CSR4" odor rule, and the "38CSR-2A" and "-2B" quarry rules. If you would like copies of the comments I filed, or if you have any questions or comments, please contact me -- phone 655-8651, e-mail tdegen@wvwise.org .