WV-DEP should reform itself in the public interest
FrackCheckWV
MORGANTOWN DOMINION POST editorial Monday 20 April 2015
Can the WV-DEP reform itself?
Environmental well-being is primarily a function of regulatory well-being. That at least is the idea in the state Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) realm.
The DEP is still the principal agency that West Virginia deploys to monitor its hills, rivers and streams and its air. But is that as true as we would like to think?
While some try to portray the WV-DEP as yet another regulatory bogeyman, others call it the Department of Environmental Prevarication.
In the past, we have leaned more toward the latter description. However, in recent weeks, the DEP has taken initiatives that give one reason for hope. For instance, this past week, the DEP ordered more than 90 coal prep plants to disclose potential pollutants that could be dumped into waterways. The DEP said that order will better protect state streams and that any additional costs should not be significant compared to the liability for polluting waterways.
That agency also recently hosted a public hearing on water quality standards, part of one program’s annual quarterly meetings. These meetings agendas also don’t dawdle on fluff, either.
The most recent agenda took up proposed changes to aluminum and selenium criteria and an update on algae monitoring done in 2014. The DEP has also become much more visible in the state’s annual spring highway cleanup, through the Adopt-A-Highway program.
Clearly, for those who take a dim view of the DEP’s efforts — and we often count ourselves among them — there are also reasons to think nothing has changed. For example, the state’s Environmental Quality Board recently said the DEP violated state law when it allowed a company to operate two underground injection wells with a “rule” it issued, instead of a state permit.
Or the WV-DEP’s almost cavalier approach to reports of black water flowing into a Raleigh County stream. Only after it responded in a timely manner on the fourth report was a coal company cited.
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