Wv Senate Passes Tank Safety Roll Back, Preps For Water, Drilling Bills

By Ken Ward Jr. State senators on Saturday gave final approval to a bill that again rolls back West Virginia's landmark chemical tank safety law, and prepared for action Monday on separate legislation that could weaken the state's water pollution protections and give natural gas companies help in forcing unwilling co-owners of minerals into allowing drilling. The Senate voted 31-3 in favor of House Bill 2811, which exempts an estimated 2,300 tanks owned by the natural gas industry from the inspection and safety standards contained in the Aboveground Storage Tank Act, passed in response to the January 2014 spill at Freedom Industries that contaminated the Elk River drinking water supply that serves hundreds of thousands of people in Charleston and surrounding communities. Final passage of the bill could mark the start of a rush in the final weeks of the session to push through several measures that various business and industry groups have been lobbying for that would weaken protections for drinking water, workers, land and mineral owners in the Marcellus Shale region of the state, and streams near mountaintop removal coal-mining operations. Last week, one such bill was greatly curbed, when the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee - headed by Sen.