Below are Two (2) Action Alerts:
- HB 2878 – Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling and
- Water Quality Standards Rule (incl. 500 ppm TDS)
HB 2878: Please contact all of
your representatives in the House of Delegates –
urge passage of HB 2878. We need to reach every member of the House today.
This bill MUST pass the House by Wednesday to remain active this session. Although this bill lacks a lot of what we’d like to see in a bill regulating the drilling of Marcellus Shale gas, the goal is to keep the discussion about Marcellus alive with hopes of improving it within the next two weeks.
Water Quality Standards Rule: Please contact members of House Judiciary, and urge this committee to RESTORE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE passed by the Rule Committee on Water Quality Standards. The bill (and the fate of) water quality in West Virginia is now in the hands of House Judiciary – after being gutted in Senate Natural Resources, and Senate Judiciary declining to restore the proposed standards.
The rule has now been “bundled” with all the rest of the DEP rules and sent to the House, where restoring DEP’s proposed revisions will be opposed by the same industry lobbyists who succeeded in gutting it in the Senate.
Senate Natural Resources Committee approved amendments to remove “excessive water withdrawals” from the rule’s list of activities not allowed in state waters; to remove a new standard for phosphorous to prevent algae blooms in the Greenbrier River; and to remove a new standard for “total dissolved solids” (TDS), which would have provided cleaner drinking water for most West Virginians.
Please contact House Judiciary members: Ask them to protect West Virginia’s water. Restore the original language passed by the Rules Committee on Water Quality Standards.