WV-AQB refuses to hear environmental appeal

From an Article by Ken Ward, Jr., Charleston Gazette-Mail, September 18, 2017

Photo: Air Quality Board Chairman Michael Koon (left) and board lawyer Mark Weiler announce the board’s ruling Monday on an appeal of a permit for a US Methanol plant that is under construction in Institute, WV.

Members of a state board on Monday refused to hear a permit appeal from a citizen group that is concerned that potential fires, explosions or other accidents at the US Methanol plant under construction in Institute could pose health and safety risks for area residents.

The West Virginia Air Quality Board granted the Department of Environmental Protection’s motion to dismiss an appeal that the group People Concerned About Chemical Safety filed, agreeing with the DEP that the issues raised were beyond the scope of the state agency’s job. The decision means the board won’t hold a full hearing with testimony about the citizen group concerns.

In arguing against the appeal being dismissed, Bill DePaulo, attorney for the People Concerned organization, urged the board members to make clear what ruling for the DEP’s motion would be saying to the public.

“Win or lose, I’d just like a clear ruling,” DePaulo told board members. “Do it in big, bold letters: ‘We do not consider the human health and safety in issuing this permit.’ ”

US Methanol hopes to start production in mid-2018 at the plant that would convert natural gas to methanol, a common industrial feedstock. The facility, located at the Institute property now operated by Dow Chemical, would use parts from a deconstructed plant in Brazil.

A variety of political leaders, including Gov. Jim Justice and Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper praised the project, which promises 60 permanent jobs, during a groundbreaking ceremony two weeks ago. Construction had already begun, despite the pending challenge to the project’s air pollution permit.

In the permit appeal filed in April, People Concerned argued that the DEP’s Division of Air Quality did not examine the potential consequences for the surrounding community of a spill, leak, fire or explosion at the US Methanol facility.

The citizen group had planned to present an expert to testify to the board about what could happen if one of the facility’s largest tanks — holding up to 1.2 million gallons of methanol — explodes. The expert, James Rogers of West Texas A&M University, said in an affidavit that the risks associated with the facility include “catastrophic explosions” and that “critical safety features” to prevent such incidents were not included in the DEP-approved permit for US Methanol.

The appeal also expressed concern about the potential effects on the health of nearby residents from routine emissions from the facility. It also urged the DEP to collect baseline public health data in the area before allowing US Methanol to begin operations.

DEP attorney Jason Wandling told the board that such issues are beyond the limits of what his agency regulates under the state Air Pollution Control Act. Wandling said the People Concerned group was pushing for a broad reading of the state’s air pollution law, while the DEP focuses on specific statutory duties that spell out specific actions the agency is empowered to take.

Wandling compared what the citizen group was asking the DEP to do to the agency deciding to ban smoking because it is harmful to human health.

“If we tried to incorporate any of the provisions appellants ask for, [US Methanol] would be challenging those requirements, and [the] DEP would almost certainly lose that appeal,” Wandling said.

Dave Yaussy, a lawyer for US Methanol, read a long list of local, state and federal agencies that he said are charged with dealing with the safety of plants like US Methanol.

“There is no need for DAQ to duplicate those efforts,” Yaussy said. “If the board agrees to hear this appeal, it is rewriting the state’s Air Pollution Control Act.”

DePaulo reminded the board that the Institute plant is located adjacent to a historically black university, and that other parts of the property were home for many decades to a huge stockpile of methyl isocyanate, or MIC, the chemical that killed thousands of people in a December 1984 leak at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. And the Institute plant itself, DePaulo reminded the board, has had plenty of serious leaks, fires and explosions over the years.

“It doesn’t take someone who is paranoid or delusional to imagine the circumstances under which this particular facility could cause a very significant threat to health and safety,” DePaulo said.

The board heard about 20 minutes of arguments on the DEP’s motion to dismiss, and then went behind closed doors for more than 45 minutes to deliberate on the motion.

When board members returned to the public session, Chairman Michael Koon said the board was “very sympathetic” to the citizen concerns but that the issues “are not in the purview” of the DEP.

Koon said the board had reached a “consensus,” but that the decision was not unanimous. He did not provide a vote count or specify which board members voted which way. Other board members taking part in the meeting were Grant Bishop, Stanley Mills, Tom Hansen and Jon Hunter.

Small chemical plant in Brazil . . .

Institute citizens meet to discuss methanol plant

From an Article by Alex Thomas in WV MetroNews | February 14, 2017

INSTITUTE, W.Va. – A new methanol plant in Institute drew concern from citizens at a meeting February 13th  at West Virginia State University.

The founders of U.S. Methanol, Brad Gunn and Richard Wolfli, discussed at the meeting the upcoming construction of Liberty-1, a plant to be built on state Route 25. According to a release from the company, it will move an existing methanol production facility from Brazil to an 11-acre complex.

Company CEO Brad Gunn said the compound will be produced to be used by other companies based on the Kanawha River. Gunn said putting the plant in Institute made sense because of a growing demand.

Methanol is a chemical made when methane is combined with steam and pressure, and can be found in plastics and LCD screens. “It’s all over the place,” Gunn said.

The event was hosted by People Concerned About Chemical Safety, a local nonprofit that was founded in 1985 following the Union Carbide chemical plant disaster in Bhopal, India, a year earlier. Chemicals leaking from the plant killed an estimate 4,000 people.

Pam Nixon, president of the organization’s board of directors, said the meeting was held to inform people about the plant. “We wanted to give the community a chance to be able to get information, so that if they wanted to submit any comment, they would have informed comments that they could submit,” Nixon said.

Construction of the plant is scheduled to begin in March. Gunn said the facility would be operational by the end of 2017, and would create more than 60 permanent jobs and 300 temporary construction jobs.

Some of the more than dozen people who attended the meeting said they were worried about the possible environmental impact of the plant, making note of how previous companies have polluted the community. One moment mentioned was the 2008 explosion at the Bayer CropScience facility that killed two people and injured eight others.

Kathy Ferguson from Institute, said she cannot help but be doubtful because of the past. “There has to be some kind of cumulative effect, and that’s concerning to me,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson said pollution related to industrial growth has driven graduates away from the area. “It takes away from the state in the sense that young people don’t want to stay here,” Ferguson said.

Gunn said he and Wolfli want to create a different type of chemical company, adding they themselves are moving to the Charleston area to supervise the plant. “You can view this as a clean slate,” Gunn said. “A way to make a new start. We come without any of those preconceived ideas. We have to be mindful and respectful of the past and what other companies have done.”

Neither Gunn nor Wolfli have direct experience dealing with methane production. They both, however, have a combined 45 years in the energy and technology industries.

Gunn said U.S. Methanol is still waiting on an emission permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection, which he expects will be approved within the next 30 days.

A second facility, Liberty-2, is scheduled to be built in Belle, WV (just east of Charleston off US Route 60.)

See also: Methanol Tech

Salt production in West Virginia

WVGES: History of West Virginia Mineral Industries – Salt

From WV Geological & Economic Survey (WVGES)

Salt was the first West Virginia mineral industry to be developed. The State’s salt was being utilized long before the arrival of man. Deer and buffalo would travel to a salt spring along the Kanawha River where they could lick the salt they needed. This spot, near the town of Malden, became known as the Great Buffalo Lick, of the Kanawha Licks. Native Americans later followed the animal trails to the springs where they too could obtain their salt supply.

In 1755, a Shawnee Indian raiding party stopped at the springs with some captive pioneers from Virginia. The Shawnees boiled brines in a kettle in order to obtain salt to carry back to Ohio with them. A captive later escaped to tell the story, and in 1774, members of Andrew Lewis’ army stopped here on their way to fight Indians in Ohio at the Battle of Point Pleasant. The pioneers’ victory at the Battle of Point Pleasant began the settlement of the Kanawha Valley and an increase in the importance of the Kanawha salt springs.

In 1797, Elisha Brooks erected the first salt furnace in the Kanawha Valley at the mouth of Campbell’s Creek. He produced as much as 150 bushels of salt a day and sold it to settlers to be used for curing butter and meats. By 1808, David and Joseph Ruffner succeeded in drilling to 59 feet, where they secured a good flow of strong brine. Also in that year, the first salt was shipped west, by river, on a log raft.

 A younger Ruffner brother, Tobias, suspected that a vast saline reservoir existed under the Kanawha Valley and, drilling to a depth of 410 feet, tapped an even richer brine. This discovery set off a veritable frenzy of drilling and by 1815 there were 52 furnaces in operation in the “Kanawha Salines.” In 1817, David Ruffner experimented with the use of coal in his furnaces, and soon all saltmakers had switched from wood to coal. The saltmakers formed a “trust,” the Kanawha Salt Company, in order to regulate the quality and price of salt and to discourage foreign competition. This was the first “trust” in the United States.

 This cooperative helped the salt industry grow until it reached its peak in 1846, producing 3,224,786 bushels that year. At that time, the Kanawha Valley was one of the largest salt manufacturing centers in the United States. In 1861, the Kanawha Valley was flooded. By the late 1800s, because of the 1861 flood and because of Civil War destruction, the Dickinson furnace at Malden was the only survivor of the Great Kanawha River salt industry.

Although the Kanawha salt industry declined in importance after 1861, the advent of World War I brought a demand for chemical products such as chlorine and caustic acid, which could be obtained from salt brine. In 1914, the Warner-Klipstein Chemical Company opened a plant in South Charleston to produce these products. The plant is now the Westvaco Chlorine Products Corporation, and is the largest chlorine producer in the world. Other chemical industries, also based on this salt brine, have grown up in the Kanawha Valley since then.

Until World War II, only salt brine (entrapped sea water) was used for salt production. However in 1942, the Defense Plant Corporation built an electrolytic caustic soda plant at Natrium in Marshall County to extract rock salt. Water is sent down the wells to the rock salt, at depths of about 7,000 feet, where the water dissolves the salt. The salt-saturated water is then forced back to the surface where it is evaporated and the salt removed.

Today there are three principal salt-producing companies in the State, two in Marshall County and one in Tyler County. All three companies extract rock salt, most of which is sent to chemical companies along the Kanawha River. West Virginia has large reserves of rock salt at depth, providing great potentials for future use.

(Adapted from an article by Jane R. Eggleston, updated September 1996)