6:00: Morning News

Gupta looking forward to water commission challenges

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Since Jan. 9 the quality of drinking water in West Virginia has been on the forefront of everybody’s mind. The spill at Freedom Industries which contaminated the drinking water of 300,000 West Virginia residents was a wakeup call. State officials say they are heeding the alarm sounded when that happened.

Last week, state Senate President Jeff Kessler appointed Kanawha Charleston Health Department Director Dr. Rahul Gupta to the Public Water System Supply Study Commission. Gupta was one of those at the forefront of the emergency response in January and has since been a strong advocate of better planning.

“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to insure water safety and security across the state,” Gupta said. “But I’m glad we’re finally getting this water supply study commission together.”

The group, created in a new state law, is charged with examining the state’s drinking water supply as a whole. Their mission will be to evaluate the system and any threats it may face to potential contamination. There will also be a heavy emphasis placed on study possible backup water sources and what regulations could be enacted to help protect the public’s drinking water for years to come.

“I think the issues we discuss are going to be very important,” Gupta said. “Are the systems in place effective enough?  Do we have quality data in there?  Is there something we need to do to tweak it and make it better?”

The diversity of water operations in West Virginia makes crafting any single legislation to protect it difficult, as lawmakers found out with the sweeping Above Ground Storage Tank Act soon after the incident at Freedom Industries. Many owners of small storage tanks are now pushing back fearing the new regulations will be unnecessarily costly and would likely have minimal impact on protection.

“I think the idea is to review and assess the effectiveness and quality of information contained in updated source water protection plans,” said Gupta. “That’s going to be very important because source water protection plans are the core of moving forward.”

The commission will study all potential impacts and report by to the legislature’s Joint Committee on Government and Finances with their findings along with any recommendations.

The commission’s make up of 12 members will be built from four members appointed by the governor, one from designated by the Rural Water Association, the Municipal League, DEP, Bureau of Public Health, Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, the chairman of the PSC, and two non-voting members appointed by the Senate president and House speaker.

The report and recommendations will be due each Dec. 15.





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