For Suzanne King, a lifelong resident of Kanawha County, living near industrial sites was what she knew. She grew up in Belle, near the former DuPont chemical plant, now owned by Chemours. Her father worked at the Union Carbide power plant in South Charleston.
“I thought little about air quality,” King said during a public hearing Friday in the House of Delegates chamber. “Until both my parents were diagnosed with liver cancer in the very same year. Then I learned about many others in that very same community who were diagnosed with and died from cancer.”
King was speaking against HB 5018, an industry-backed bill that would prevent the state Department of Environmental Protection from using data collected by community air monitoring programs to support regulation or enforcement.
“All West Virginians should be able to access air quality data that represents their local communities,” she added, noting that the state’s air quality monitor in Charleston can’t accurately represent all of Kanawha County. There are a total of two monitoring stations in the county, according to the DEP’s latest annual ambient air monitoring plan and report.
King urged lawmakers to reject the bill.
“If you oppose government overreach and support community autonomy, HB 5018 must fail,” she said.
Of the people who spoke at the hearing, 16 of the 18 opposed the bill. The two people who spoke in favor of the bill both represented industries, including West Virginia Manufacturers Association President Bill Bissett.
“We are in no way against community monitoring but also do not believe that environmental activist groups should become regulatory agencies,” Bissett said, stressing that the bill “does not stop community air monitoring.”
While the measure wouldn’t prevent community air monitoring, it does limit how and if the data collected could be used.
The bill would prevent community monitoring data from being admitted as evidence in a court proceeding, including a third-party lawsuit. It also would only allow the DEP to only consider community air data when the monitor is used in line with all of the manufacturer’s standards, as well as standards set by the federal and state guidelines.
The DEP would also be prohibited from using data collected by community air monitoring programs in regulatory or enforcement. That’s even though, under the state agency’s current procedures, regulators would typically collect their own data if they were told by community members there was a problem, the agency’s General Counsel Jason Wandling told lawmakers earlier this week.
Right after the public hearing, the bill was up for amendments in the House of Delegates. During the floor session, Del. Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha tried to amend the bill to address the concerns of the public and environmental groups, which included removing the language making community air monitoring data inadmissible in court. But the amendment was tabled without a vote, which also tabled the bill.
Update: On Friday, the House mistakenly advanced the bill forward, according to House Speaker Roger Hanshaw.
“The chair acted in haste on Friday and when the motion to table the pending amendment was adopted, the chair announced at that time that the bill would be advanced when in reality the effect of that motion was to table the underlining bill and the pending amendment,” he said. On Monday, leaders rectified the mistake, moving the amendment and with it, the bill, off the table and back on the agenda. Delegates considered Rowe’s amendment and, after debate, voted overwhelmingly to reject it. Now, the bill will be up for passage on Tuesday.
Correction: The previous version of this story incorrectly stated the bill would be up for passage on Monday.
