WV Industries Promoting Loopholes To Exempt 1,000s Of Chemical Tanks From Inspection

Changes that industry groups are promoting for West Virginia’s new chemical tank safety law would allow thousands of tanks located “in close proximity” to drinking water intakes to escape requirements for periodic inspections and mandated safety standards, according to a new analysis of data gathered by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

One proposal for modifying SB 373 — the bill passed after last year’s leak at Freedom Industries — is to limit the law’s scope to above-ground storage tanks located in the “zones of critical concern” around intakes on surface waters and the “source-water protection areas” around intakes that draw from groundwater. About 3,200 tanks that were registered with the DEP by their owners are within those critical zones and “present the most immediate threat to drinking water,” stated the analysis released Wednesday by the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and the consulting firm Downstream Strategies.

However, industry disclosures filed under the new law show that nearly 2,300 tanks are located outside the zone of critical concern but still sit within five miles of a surface water intake. And nearly 18,000 tanks are within five miles of groundwater intakes but not within a source-water protection area, according to the analysis.

EDIT

Earlier this week, Corky DeMarco, of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, said SB 373 unfairly put more regulation on tanks owned by his industry. “I’d like to go on record as saying I don’t believe the oil and gas industry, where we have tanks, what’s in our tanks, and the way they are situated and protected, there’s much of a problem with them contaminating a water supply, even if it’s a local creek,” DeMarco told reporters at The Associated Press Legislative Lookahead event on Monday.

EDIT

Well, shit, Corky, if you "don't believe" then it must be so, right?

http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20150115/GZ01/150119514/1419