CHARLESTON, W.Va. — While a new law governing above-ground storage tanks won’t require specific inspections for an estimated 7,000 tanks situated away from water sources, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection secretary says it would have prevented the Freedom Industries chemical leak last year.
“Had (the law) been in place for a number of years, and we would have gone through this process of inspections and certifications for a number of years, these tanks would have never been in service,” Randy Huffman said Monday.
Huffman discussed the new law Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed last week on Monday’s MetroNews Talkline.
The law requires tanks closer to water sources, Level 1 tanks in the zones of critical concern, to be inspected once every three years. Huffman said that’s not a requirement for tanks in the zones of peripheral concern.
“We’ll probably do a random sampling of inspections on those,” Huffman said.
State lawmakers passed the tank bill last year following the spill of the chemical crude MCHM from the Freedom Industries tank farm on the Elk River in Charleston. The water emergency impacted drinking water for residents in parts of nine counties .That law required the annual inspections of all aboveground storage tanks, which would be more than 50,000. Huffman said the new law gets that to a workable number and to the tanks that could cause a problem to drinking water. The law requires the tank owners in both zones to have an annual inspection-certification of their tanks.
The DEP estimates about 12,000 tanks combined in the two zones.