WV environmental secretary upset with federal regulations

Randy Huffman vented his frustrations before the Senate committee on Energy, Industry and Mining on Wednesday.

Huffman says the EPA has taken the state out of the loop on mountaintop removal mining permits, choosing instead to negotiate directly with coal companies.

Twenty-three water quality permits for these mines are on hold because of a new federal coordination process. 

Huffman told the committee he thought things had turned around last year when the EPA approved the permit for the Hobet 45 mine.

“We felt like that was a model in which future permits could be structured,” said Huffman.

But Huffman was told by EPA officials that the negotiations that eventually led to the Hobet mine permit being approved should not be looked as a model that other permits could follow.

Huffman says a lack of consistency is frustrating.

He explained the DEP will respond to the EPA’s objections that the state does not have standards to enforce narrative water quality standards, which are descriptions or statements of unacceptable conditions in and on the water.

“It’s the hook that EPA has in our back here is that as a state we do not have a protocol for enforcing the narrative water quality standard,” said Huffman.

Huffman argued that other states and even the EPA do not have protocols for enforcing these water quality standards.

Huffman also complained that the federal government’s proposals for water quality standards are too strict.

“The kind of standards that EPA is talking about will significantly limit mineral extraction in the state,” said Huffman. “It could eliminate it in many areas.”

Members of the senate mining company were sympathetic to Huffman’s arguments. They agreed with him that the EPA is insensitive to West Virginia’s mining industry.