New Environmental Quality Board Members Appointed

There are two new members of the Environmental Quality Board, Dr. Charles Somerville , dean of the Marshall University College of Science, and Dr. Mitch Blake, coal program manager of the WV Geological and Economic Survey. I didn't find much written about Dr. Blake, although he has been quoted in a few newspaper articles and has been the author of several papers available on the web.

Drs. Somerville and Blake replace Ted Armbrecht and Dr. James Van Gundy, both of whom had been serving expired terms.  In fact, all five board members had been serving expired terms before the  most recent appointments. Now there are three members being carried over - Drs. Simonton, Snyder (chair) and Gillespie.  There has been no word as to whether they will be reappointed, or will continue to serve expired terms.

The EQB tends to have more academics serving on it than other environmental appeals boards, due to a requirement, originating in the Clean Water Act, that Board members only receive a certain amount of their income from organizations that hold NPDES permits. That prevents many person employed in industry from qualifying to serve on the Board.

Here is Ken Ward's article on the appointments.