CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A new interpretive rule from the state Department of Environmental Protection, issued Tuesday for the Aboveground Storage Tank Act, creates three different classifications for such tanks with varying initial inspection requirements at each level.
Randy Huffman, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said that rule does not change the law that was written as a response to the Jan. 9 Freedom Industries chemical spill on the Elk River to better protect West Virginia’s public water supplies.
“It only deals with what you must do by Dec. 3, which is the Spill Prevention Response Plan, and then what you must do in order to deal with your Dec. 31 deadline, which is the certification and inspection process,” Huffman explained on Tuesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
All aboveground storage tanks still must be registered with the state by Oct. 1.
The rule, which can be read here, establishes a “risk assessment approach” to inspecting those tanks in West Virginia with three levels — Level I, Level II and Level III — that will be assigned after registration.
According to Huffman, tanks located within zones of critical concern, wellhead protection areas or groundwater intake areas; those containing defined hazardous substances; tanks with a capacity of 50,000 gallons or more or those otherwise deemed “high risk” will be classified as Level I tanks.
That means those tanks will have to be professionally inspected and certified by the established Jan. 1 deadline.
Tanks classified as Level II, determined to pose a “lesser risk” of harm to public health, and Level III, determined to pose a “low risk” of harm to public health, will have less stringent requirements to meet. Level III tanks, for example, could be those that serve as storage for potable water, filtered surface water or water stored for fire or emergency purposes.
“We feel like these standards that we’re putting out there in the interpretive rule are simply an explanation of how we interpret SB 373 (the Aboveground Storage Tank Act). It’s not a change to anything,” Huffman said.
In a statement, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said the proposed rule “protects the health and safety of all West Virginians, and our environment, from the risks of leaks of hazardous materials from aboveground storage tanks.”
Tomblin was scheduled to be in Wheeling on Tuesday afternoon to speak to members of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association. Some smaller oil and gas operators had argued meeting a Jan. 1 deadline for certified inspections of all of their tanks, most of which pose no threat to water sources, would be too expensive.
“This solution balances regulations and compliance requirements with the long-term goal of protecting our water sources,” Tomblin said of the DEP’s interpretive rule.
A public comment period for the rule will continue for 30 days with a public hearing on it scheduled for Oct. 9 in Charleston.
With three weeks to go until the registration deadline, Huffman said Tuesday the registration process had been completed for nearly 5,000 tanks and five percent of those tanks were in zones of critical concern. More than 15,000 tank registrations were in the registration queue, according to Huffman.
In all, officials have estimated roughly 40,000 aboveground storage tanks total in West Virginia will have to be registered before the Oct. 1 deadline.