US EPA Adopts General Storm Water NPDES Permit

US EPA has adopted a final storm water general NPDES permit for industrial facilities. This is a permit for industrial facilities like chemical or manufacturing plants that are not issued individual NPDES permits. This is not a permit for the discharge of process water that is generated during a plants' operations; this permit only addresses discharges of storm water (precipitation run off) from the parts of the plant property where the storm water could become polluted by chemicals, wastes, raw materials or other substances that are found at the plant.

The permit action was summarized by EPA as follows:

EPA Regions 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, and 10 today are finalizing EPA's NPDES general permit for stormwater discharges from industrial activity, also referred to as the Multi-Sector General Permit (MSGP).The MSGP consists of thirty four (34) separate Regional EPA permits that may vary from each other based on State or Tribal water quality- based requirements. This permit replaces the existing permits that expired on October 30, 2005. As with the earlier permits, this permit authorizes the discharge of stormwater associated with industrial activities in accordance with the terms and conditions described therein. Industrial dischargers have the choice to seek coverage under an individual permit. An individual permit may be necessary if the discharger cannot meet the terms and conditions or eligibility requirements in the permit.

West Virginia is not covered by this permit. It has been delegated the authority from EPA to issue its own permits, including storm water permits for industrial facilities and construction run off. The industrial storm water permit, referred to as the multi-sector permit because it applies to multiple industrial activities, is current until March 31, 2009. At that time it is likely to be reissued and will probably contain permit terms similar to those in the new federal permit that is being approved today.

Nordhaus and Shellenberger Garner Environmental Honors From Time Magazine

Mike Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus have been selected as heroes of the environment by Time for their essay "The Death of Environmentalism" published last year and profiled in this blog earlier this year. Mike and Ted have put forward a convincing case for the proposition that focusing on the limitations imposed by environmentalism is a dead end, and that the movement must emphasize responsible ways (i.e., renewable resources) to generate the power that society needs to function at its current level and provide for future growth.

See the article in Time magazine.

Disclaimer - Mike is my cousin. He's the guy in the black shirt.

Is Butanol the Fuel of the Future?

I was interviewing a DEP inspector about underground storage tanks the other day and he got up on what must be his favorite soapbox - butanol as a substitute for gasoline and a replacement for ethanol. He said butanol is more energy dense than ethanol, isn't as corrosive to pipelines and certain plastics, and does everything except drive the car for you. I was a little skeptical, not having heard of the stuff before, and wondered if it wasn't one of those chimeras, like the cars that run on water. (You know, the ones the car companies are holding all the patents for.) But when I looked on the web, it appears that such mainstays of industry as BP and Du Pont are working with it. Take a look at the fact sheet they've put out, and butanol.com and an interview with Phillip New, president of BP Biofuels. Follow the string of comments following the interview, and you'll see that it can be made from coal at competitive prices, which warms the heart cockles of this Mountain Stater.

WV Nature Conservancy Hosts Corporate Council Dinner

The Nature Conservancy is an environmental organization that everyone can support. Instead of asking government to use its coercive powers to acquire and set aside land for public use, it solicits contributions in order to pay fair market value for property, and then manages it, or gives or sells the land to public institutions for the benefit of all. It also is involved in innovative programs to purchase conservation easements on property, which allows the land to be constructively used as a ranch, farm or timberland, but in a way that protects the natural ecosystem.

The WV chapter of the Nature Conservancy had its annual Corporate Council diner on September 18, and it was a very nice affair. Read about it in this Gazette article.

Consider contributing.

Former Charleston Resident Becomes National Environmental Law Expert

In the "local boy makes good" we see that Michael Gerrard has become a nationally known environmental lawyer.

DEP Drops Water Quality Standard Changes

Officials at the WV DEP have confirmed that they have withdrawn changes to the water quality standards, 47 CSR 2, that were proposed in June. Those changes would have clarified that all water bodies in the state are to be treated as public water supplies, and then would have set up a system for removing that use on very small streams during the permit issuance process. Industry groups had welcomed the DEP's proposal to address use designations through the permitting process, but were opposed to designating all streams as public water supplies. Such a designation greatly increases the permitting burden on state industries, and calls into question the ability of the state to remove the uses during the permit issuance process. Industry groups had proposed that the DEP not designate all streams as public water supplies, and instead require all permit applicants to prove that there was no public water supply that would be affected by the permitted discharge. That would provide protection to public water supplies, and at the same time relieve permittees of having to remove the public water supply use, which is a long and involved process.

The DEP decided to withdraw the rule changes on the grounds that industry was so opposed to the amendments. Presumably the DEP will continue to impose Category A (public water supply) criteria in all permits, even though the water quality standards rule does not provide a basis for doing so. This sets up another battle over Category A use application in a permit appeal, where apparently the DEP believes it will have a greater chance of success.

Coal Bed Methane Industry to See Effluent Limitations Guidelines Development

Coal bed methane (CBM) development is a large - and growing - growing segment of natural gas operations in West Virginia. It captures methane that can be used as natural gas, while providing a protection for underground coal miners. Methane presents the risk of explosion underground, and removing the gas in advance of mining is a safety benefit. However, the production of CBM produces large quantities of water, which has to be discharged somewhere. One option is to truck the water to an underground injection control (UIC) well, but that can be expensive. The preferred route is to discharge it to the nearest stream, but that requires a permit, and water treatment can be costly.

For certain industries, EPA investigates wastewater treatment options and develops effluent limitations guidelines or ELGs that detail how much pollution that industry can be expected to remove from the wastewater. All dischargers are then expected to treat their wastewater to those levels, or even lower if necessary to meet water quality standards. EPA has recently announced that it will be calculating ELGs for the coal bed methane industry during the coming year, as described below. Once developed, the ELGs will be used to write permits for CBM well discharges.


3) EPA Publishes its 2008 Effluent Guidelines Program Plan EPA published its final 2008 Effluent Guidelines Program Plan in the Federal Register today. Effluent guidelines are industry specific national regulations that control the discharge of pollutants to surface waters and to publicly owned treatment works. The Plan announces that EPA will conduct focused detailed reviews in 2009 and 2010 for the steam electric power generating industry; the coalbed methane extraction portion of the oil and gas extraction industry; and unused pharmaceutical disposal in the health services industry. EPA has already initiated a study on pharmaceutical disposal practices at health care facilities, such as hospitals, hospices, long-term care facilities, and veterinary hospitals. A draft information collection request on unused pharmaceuticals management in the health service industry was published in the Federal Register in August for comment. The preliminary effluent guideline plan was published for public comment in October 2007.

To see a copy of the Federal Register notice and other related documents, visit EPA's web site at http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/guide/304m/ . Contact Carey Johnston at 202-566-1014 or email him at johnston.carey@epa.gov for more information about the 2008 Plan.

New Uses for Abandoned Mine Lands May Not be Better Uses

The Charleston Daily Mail reports that EPA has awarded the state money to study whether abandoned mine lands can be used to grow switchgrass and other substances that can be refined as biofuels. The article is set out below. One wonders whether this is the best use of abandoned mine land. West Virginia grows some of the best hardwoods in the world, and the relatively flat sites that are left after mining would be an excellent place to start stands of hardwood timber. For more in that regard, take a look at a publication from Virginia Tech, Commercial Forestry as a Post-Mining Land Use


CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A team of West Virginia University researchers was expected to announce today that they've received a $550,000 award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a project aimed at turning abandoned mine land into fields that produce switchgrass and other biofuels.
The announcement was expected during the 2008 West Virginia Brownfields Conference in Huntington.
Previously mined land qualifies as brownfields - properties that were previously used for industrial or commercial activity - under the Environmental Protection Agency's brownfields program.
A team from WVU's West Virginia Water Research Institute will produce an inventory of abandoned mine sites in the state that are suitable for redevelopment into biofuel and other alternative energy production sites. One community will be selected for the development of a comprehensive pilot program to showcase a so-called "sustainable energy park."
Curt Peterson, WVU's vice president for research and economic development, said in a prepared statement, "Creation of sustainable energy parks on mine-scarred lands is the kind of strategy that this nation and its best thinkers and leaders must pursue in the drive toward energy independence. We are excited about the EPA announcement and proud of the WVU team that captured this competitive award."
Gov. Joe Manchin said in a prepared statement, "Brownfields reclamation work has resulted in successful reuse of commercial property in our state that has benefited West Virginians. The EPA award will help WVU's researchers identify brownfields sites for growing switchgrass and other renewable biofuels that can help meet our energy needs while making good use of reclaimed mine lands."

Manchin asks for faster reporting

Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette reported on Thursday that Gov. Manchin is asking for changes to state law to require chemical companies to report serious incidents within 15 minutes. This would fall into the hands of the
West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and a trip to their website is a good idea for those interested in emergency response preparation. The statute and regulations that would have to be changed by Gov. Manchin are at W Va Code 15-5B-4 and 170 CSR Series 1.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Gov. Joe Manchin plans to seek legislation to require chemical companies to report explosions, leaks and other serious accidents within 15 minutes.
Manchin wants to apply a 15-minute reporting requirement for coal mining accidents to other industries.
The governor will within the next few days ask companies to voluntarily go along with the reporting requirement, and then seek legislation next year to write the reporting into state law.
Jimmy Gianato, Manchin's homeland security secretary, announced the plan this morning during a public debriefing on the emergency response to the Aug. 28 explosion at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute.
Local citizens and emergency responders have complained that Bayer gave them little information on the incident until nearly two hours after the explosion. And Bayer waited more than two hours to formally report the incident to the federal government's National Response Center.
"We want to make sure that information comes in and gets out to the responders and the public," Gianato said.
Manchin pushed through landmark legislation requiring coal companies report major accidents within 15 minutes after delays in the reporting of the Sago Mine disaster and the Aracoma Mine fire in January 2006.
Also during Thursday's meeting, Kanawha County officials said that they would begin issuing shelter-in-place advisories to residents if chemical companies don't provide details within 10 minutes of any future in-plant incidents.
Dale Petry, the county's emergency services director, said he does not want to take chances on waiting until it's too late to issue such an advisory.

How Much Is Your Life Worth?

The following article is taken from a Science And Environment Online publication, Down To Earth. It explains how EPA has changed the hypothetical value of an American life, as used to calculate the economic cost of environmental regulations. To oversimplify, if the cost of implementing the regulation exceeds the value of the humans that will be killed without the regulation, the regulation is not cost-effective.

This leads to a couple of interesting points that many people don't think about. One is that environmental regulations generally involve some analysis of risk assessment and economic cost. A great place to learn about that is Harvard's Center for Risk Analysis. There are no risk free activities, and the risk of any activity must be weighed against the cost of not engaging in that activity. For example, the presence of chlorine in drinking water may cause injury or death to a small number of susceptible persons, but to fail to decontaminate the water supply would kill hundreds of thousands from water-borne diseases, and chlorine is one of the most cost effective ways of purifying water. Or an acceptable level of a certain carcinogen (cancer-causing substance) such as benzene may be set at a level that will, in theory, kill one in a million people who ingest that chemical over a 70 year period. That level is chosen instead of, say, a one in a 100,000 death rate, or a 1 in ten million rate.

The other point is this - while the numbers are best efforts to determine cost and risk, they are often SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guesses). In the example below, how would one really calculate that the cost of the regulation is 8 billion dollars? How do you know how many persons will be killed if it isn't put into place? What is the value of a person's life?

US devalues life by $1 million
The decision will lead to less life protecting regulations and more pollution the us Environmental Protection Agency (epa) has lowered the value of a statistical life from us $7.8 million five years ago to us $ 6.9 million today. The alarming drop was a chance discovery by an Associated Press reporter after scavenging through a series of epa documents filed over the last 12 years.Experts are worried since the depreciation has far reaching consequences on pollution related regulations. Unlike the factors commonly used in insurance claims and lawsuits, to figure out the ‘value of a statistical life’, epa economists use payroll figures—how much employers pay their workers to take on additional risks at work, and how much people are willing to pay to avoid certain risks at work. The value is used while drawing up environmental regulations in the country.A government policy is considered cost effective only if the cost incurred for its implementation is either less than or equal to the total statistical value of the lives that it will possibly save. For instance, a certain regulation costs about us $18 billion and is expected to save 2,500-odd lives.Five years ago when the statistical value of life was still us $7.8 million, the life-saving benefits of this regulation would have outweighed its cost of implementation. The policy would therefore be proven acceptable and possibly be adopted. Today, when the value has plunged down to us $6.9 million, the implementation cost of the project will turn out to be far greater than the total value of the lives it will manage to secure. This anomaly will keep the otherwise sound policy, which would have undoubtedly been employed five years ago, from being implemented today.According to Dan Esty, former epa official who at present is the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy: “It’s hard to imagine that it (the reduction) has anything other than a political motivation.”Activists allege that the Bush government has purposefully cut down the value to relax federal pollution regulations imposed on large corporations. epa authorities say the change in value was brought about by ‘better’ economic studies.Kip Viscusi, an economist at the Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, says that no study he knew of has shown that Americans are in anyway eager to cut down their costs by spending less on risk prevention. “As people become more affluent, the value of statistical lives goes up,” he says.Meanwhile, the devaluation has alarmed Congress. The Senate environment committee in a statement has said that it would introduce legislation designed to reverse the epa move.

EPA Vetoes Yazoo Project

For those convinced that EPA is the lapdog of industrial and agricultural interests, please note that it killed the Yazoo project, which would have significantly degraded wetland habitat by pumping floodwaters out of the Yazoo/Mississippi River delta area. But don't be surprised if there is a move in Congress to override the EPA action and require construction of the pump project. Although recent hurricanes have shown that the delta area has been mismanaged, and this project would only have made the situation worse, there are strong constituencies for more river control.

More on the Mountaintop

It is nice to think that those outside Appalachia care about its citizens enough to blog on the problems associated with mountaintop mining. One thing we don't need, though, is to further the stereotype of helpless mountaineers who are being taken advantage of by the coal companies, and need to be rescued by someone, preferably the government. There is enough of a culture of government dependence in West Virginia without encouraging more of such thinking. The people of Sylvester were certainly not helpless when they took Massey to court, and obtained a favorable jury verdict. See the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition report on the decision to punish Elk Run Coal for allowing dust to escape its prep plant.

Mining and burning coal require trade offs. People can disagree on how or even whether coal should be produced at all, but the worst thing is to suggest that the people of Southern West Virginia are hostages to fortune. There are environmental effects (not as dire as the first article suggests) but there are also substantial benefits. Coal brings in tremendous amounts of money to the state and to the counties where it is mined. In many of those counties, there is precious little else generating income other than energy production of one type or another, or timbering. Mountaintop mining is one way to produce energy or the nation, and those who talk with approval of underground mining forget or ignore the many complaints of lost well water sources, subsidence, and other problems that can arise from that type of mining.

Rather than painting coal as an evil or blessing, why not simply argue the issues on their merits? Do away with mining, but do it with a full knowledge of the effect it will have, and the reductions in state and local resources that will result.

Hazardous Waste Disposal is More Than Old Paint

As the story from the Albany Times Union shows, household hazardous waste can be found in places you don't expect. While industrial facilities are tightly regulated, homeowners can sometimes be careless about the places they dispose of waste. This is a particular problem since compact fluorescent light bulbs have become popular. Fluorescents contain mercury, and should be properly disposed.



The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection does not have much on its website regarding household hazardous waste, and how to go about disposing of it. It instead sends you to the EPA site for household hazardous waste. Occasionally the DEP hold hazardous waste collection days, but I don't see where any are