A draft quarry bill was presented to Judiciary Subcommittee A on Monday, September 13. The explanation of the bill took up the entire meeting--no other business was taken up.

The major provisions of the bill are:

u Several previously unregulated minerals are covered, including sandstone, limestone, chert, flint, dolomite, and borrow material;

u Most of the provisions authorizing the DEP director to deny permits in sensitive areas or where other existing uses would be impinged upon have been retained. However, replacing the existing word "hazard" with "substantial harm," may make it more difficult to deny permits in those instances;

u The right of citizens to sue the agency if the director fails to discharge his/her duty has not been carried over from the existing act;

u There are mandatory public hearings on new permits; major modifications are treated like new permits, including provisions for public hearings; and there is public notice, but no hearing, on minor modifications. No public notice or hearing on transfers;

u Insurance required has been raised to $1 million for personal injury, and $500,000 for property damage;

u Bonding requirements were raised to at least $1,000/acre, with a minimum of $10,000;

u Permit fees are increased;

u All blasting is rolled up into the office of blasting created last year;

u An abandoned quarry fund is created and funded by the interest from a bonding pool, as opposed to a per ton severance tax;

u Water replacement requirements are there, but there are no requirements for baseline testing, which will make it hard to show that there has been damage done. The rebuttable presumption is the same bogus one that is in S.B. 681;

u The exemption from the groundwater act that was in last year’s industry bill is there;

u There is no requirement for highwall reduction;

u Grandfathering is extended to permit renewals, which means existing quarries will never have to comply.

Senate Co-Chair Snyder offered the stakeholders the opportunity to meet with the staff attorneys and discuss the bill. The meeting was the next day, and was attended by seven industry people, three WV Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) people, Rick Eades, and myself -- a pretty typical breakdown of the attendance at these types of meetings. Two committee members attended, Senator Snyder and Delegate Mahan.

It is pretty clear that there is major disagreement between us and industry over anything to do with groundwater monitoring/ protection/ replacement. Rick and I were pleasantly surprised that DEP beat us to asking for pre-quarrying water sampling for quantity and quality of surface and groundwater;

Industry doesn’t want to be required to reduce highwalls. They repeatedly mentioned as an example of reclamation just letting the hole fill up with water and fencing it off;

The Industry wants their own board, not the surface mining review board, for admini-strative appeals.

We didn’t get to grandfathering, but it will be an area of huge disagreement.

The reclamation fund mechanism needs a lot of work; and of course, the industry is complaining about fees already, and keeping the funding low will be one of their mechanisms to sabotage the agency’s effectiveness.

There will be another stakeholders meeting on October 6. In the meantime, people who have been or are threatened to be impacted by quarries, and people concerned about the issue in general, should contact the Judiciary Sub- committee A members and thank them for the improvements that are in the bill so far, but request that the bill have real protections for water supplies, such as baseline water monitoring, a real rebuttable presumption, and no exemption from the groundwater protection act.

The agency needs enough funding to run the program, the reclamation fund needs to be adequate to actually reclaim abandoned quarries, the director’s ability to deny permits should be at least as strong as in current law, and reclamation standards should provide for highwall reduction whenever possible and be protective of the public in general. Grandfathering should be limited to currently disturbed areas, so that all quarries will eventually have to comply with the act.

Asking the legislators for help during interims is important -- if we get a good bill out of interims, it puts us in a much better position when the session comes. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me. I can supply copies of the 43-page draft bill upon request.