DEP Responds to Allegations of Misleading Testimony

Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette wrote that a biologist at the WV Department of Environmental Protection, Doug Wood, drafted an internal memorandum stating that Randy Huffman, Secretary of the WV DEP, may have misled Congress in some testimony about mountaintop mining. That struck me as a bit odd - Huffman is a pretty straight shooter, and while he defends the mountaintop mining permits his agency issues, I would be shocked to learn that he intentionally misled anyone about the effects of those permits.

I was on the DEP website the other day and saw the response from the DEP. I think it pretty well explains the situation. I don't know Doug Wood, but Mandirola and Campbell are fair and independent guys who tend to state their minds. I doubt they'd be willing to just spout the party line, so I assume what they're saying is true.

“It is important to state that Cabinet Secretary Randy Huffman’s testimony to the members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works was not misleading as stated in the Gazette article,” Mandirola said. “The sentence in his testimony that is the subject of the issue should not have been construed to mean that the only impact of valley fills was a diminished number of a certain genus of mayflies.“In fact, when read in its full context, the reference to mayflies was only made to reiterate West Virginia’s use of its multi-metric West Virginia Stream Condition Index for impairment determinations. This index, which has been used since 2002 with EPA’s approval, does not use mayflies as a stand-alone determinant of stream condition. Taken out of context, one could interpret this particular part of the testimony to mean mayflies are the only impacts from valley fills. This was clearly not the intent.”

Campbell said: “It’s easy to take this statement out of context, I’ve worked with this type of information for 10 years and I, too, misinterpreted the statement when speaking with the Gazette.”

Doug Wood, the DEP biologist who wrote the memo, stated: “I did not say, nor do I believe, the Cabinet Secretary was misleading Congress. My memo’s intent was to help him be better informed on the effects of large valley fill discharges.”