By David Beard, The Dominion Post
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The House of Delegates overwhelmingly approved on Wednesday a bill to exempt 800-plus oil and gas industry tanks from the 2014 Aboveground Storage Tank Act and a bill to create liability protections for employers and others in COVID-19 related lawsuits.
HB 2598 is the above-ground tank bill. Debate on the bill lasted more than an hour, with most of the discussion coming from opponents concerned about potential drinking water contamination.
It would exclude from the AST Act’s inspection requirements tanks having a capacity of 210 barrels (8,820 gallons) or less, containing brine water or other fluids produced in connection with oil and gas production activities within a zone of critical concern.
A zone of critical concern (ZCC) is defined as five hours or less upstream of a drinking water intake.
Energy Committee vice chair John Kelly, R-Wood, said the waste tanks in question belong to small, barely profitable conventional well operators who will be forced into expensive upgrades after the ZCCS were revised to include new territory. This may cause them to either plug those wells or go out of business…