The interims really heat up towards the end, just like the regular session. I have had a really busy month trying to keep abreast of things. This past week has been exceptionally busy.

On January 5, there was a quarry stakeholder's meeting. There were more industry representatives in attendance than ever. Although only 17 signed the sign-up sheet, it seemed more like 30 were there. Rick Eades was unable to attend, so I was the lone voice for quarry neighbors and the environment. Ugly is how I would sum it up.

Anyway, I started right in blasting the horrible job on draft 4, the version that was presented at the December interims. They gave me verbal assurances that the water monitoring program would be restored, and citizen suits. I brought up hearings, buffers, presumption on water well replacement, inadequate funding, etc., as I do every time we meet, but the industry people were so busy agreeing with themselves that they didn't really hear me.

Mike McThomas, lobbyist for the new quarry trade group that was formed just for this bill, had a complete re-write of the bill, but only gave a verbal abstract of it. They all hung on his every word. Since he didn’t release a written copy of it, there's no telling what is really in it and what will happen to the assurances I got that the water monitoring program and citizen suits will be restored.

The industry folks have lost a good number of their "mom and pop" constituents -- they would have us believe it is because the bill is too stringent, but I believe it is because the big operators aren’t looking out for the mom and pops. Why not? Because they are looking to get rid of, or buy out, the competition anyway. On one hand, they run up the mom and pop flag when something really does threaten the big operators, but on the other hand, the big operators can stand the expense of more regulation than the mom and pops, so they haven’t been pushing for different requirements for different levels of operations. Towards the end of the meeting, the subject of different types of permits for small operations came up, and the industry folks were quick to shoot that idea down. I found that I was the one speaking in defense of small operators. Sorry mom and pop, but they didn’t listen to me any better than they did to you!

The agency is happy with any crumbs that industry will throw it. For example, when we were discussing the amount of money that the bond pool would raise for reclaiming abandoned quarries if they rolled it back to last year’s industry bill’s level (which is what they plan on doing) and the rough estimate was that $33,000 would be generated in the first year, Rocky Parsons of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) exclaimed that that was more than they get now. When I remarked that my neighbor spent that much to build a two acre farm pond, and asked Rocky if $33,000 was enough to do the job, he just sort of shrugged.

When I quoted the Interstate Mining Compact Commission’s "Noncoal Mineral Resources Report" figure that 90 percent of West Virginia quarries were non-regulated or exempt (page 55), industry lobbyist Mike Clowser blasted me, all but calling me a liar.

There is a desire among everybody but me, and probably Rick, to report to the subcommittee that this is a consensus bill. The industry could then accuse us of welshing when we don’t go along with it, and the staff would look as though they have accomplished more than if there wasn’t consensus. Since it was obvious the industry people weren’t listening to me, I made a point to inform the staff that draft 4 as it was presented in December was unacceptable. It will be interesting to see how it gets presented to the committee this Monday, January 10, at noon.

On the solid waste front, the city of Charleston has asked for an exemption from land application permits for their "exceptional quality compost" made from sewage sludge. Their sludge is not really exceptional, it is simply the US Environmental Protection Agency’s "clean" sludge re-named. They had nothing to say during the public comment period, instead they waited until this week to put the high pressure tactics on the DEP to accept this idea.

Their proposed amendment would get them out of soil testing and many reporting requirements, including where the sludge would be spread, but never fear, it is only for two acre plots, and they inserted language that if they caused environmental harm, the DEP could take steps to stop it. How one cleans up land contaminated with heavy metals from sewage sludge is a mystery, but since they don’t have to tell the agency where they’re spreading it, the agency isn’t likely to find environmental harm anyway.

This whole idea is contrary to the basic premise of the law and rule that soils be protected from damage by testing. The agency is going along with this, to a certain extent (the negotiations are not over yet), because they feel that there should be incentives for producing "clean" sludge.

The Office of Air Quality (OAQ) is still refusing to consider an amendment to their odor rule that would require commercial sewage sludge composting facilities to perform air modeling so that they can prevent odors from causing off-site nuisance conditions. The situation at the Brooke County sewage sludge facility, which has been stinking up neighbors’ homes for seven years with no action by the OAQ, is what prompted this amendment.

The OAQ prefers to keep its odor rule as it is. The funny thing about this is that there has never been an enforcement action taken under this rule during its entire existence -- over 30 years! Not because everybody is a good actor, but because the rule has no teeth. That’s the way the OAQ and the industry lobbyists like it.

Both of these rules will be before rule making review committee this Sunday, January 9, at 5:00 pm. [this issue went to press after this date. Ed.]

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me.

Tom Degen, PO Box 83, Chloe, WV 25235, 304-655-8651