Freedom tanks coming down soon; tank registration begins

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Two significant events are taking place this week in the aftermath of the Jan. 9 chemical spill on the Elk River in Charleston and the water emergency that followed in parts of nine West Virginia counties.

State Department of Environmental Protection Communications Director Kelley Gillenwater said the remaining steel storage tanks at the Freedom Industries site will be demolished.

“The work is scheduled to begin this week,” she said Tuesday. “It will only take a couple of weeks but it could stretch into July. They’ve set aside up to a month for this but they hope to finish the project much sooner.”

One of the Freedom tanks leaked thousands of gallons of Crude MCHM into the Elk River that got into West Virginia American Water Company’s Kanawha Valley Plant.

Also beginning Tuesday, companies that have above ground storage tanks in West Virginia can begin registering those tanks with the state DEP as required in a new state law.

Gillenwater said the registration period comes about a month early.

“The DEP wanted to open that up as soon as possible because there is such a short window. October 1st is the deadline to have tanks registered, so we wanted to make sure everybody has time to get that information submitted,” she said.

The law, which came from the governor and lawmakers in response to the Freedom spill, requires registration of any above ground storage tank that can hold 1,320 gallons or more of liquid, that is 90 percent or more above ground, which is not considered a process vessel. The registration is six pages long and seeks the age of the individual tanks, what they are made of and how much they hold.

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin ordered the removal of the Freedom tanks shortly after the water emergency began but the process was stalled by an ongoing investigation of the spill and Freedom’s bankruptcy filing. The contract with Independence Excavating was approved by the bankruptcy judge last Friday. The company will remove all but three steel tanks that are being kept on site to hold storm water runoff. Six fiberglass tanks at the tank farm have already been dismantled.





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