Executive Director of the WV Rivers Coalition, Angie Rosser, addresses the crowd at Environmental Day at the Capitol.

From our partners at the West Virginia Rivers Coalition

We need your help stopping HB 5018. This bill has passed through the House of Delegates and is now under consideration by the State Senate.

This Unclean Air Act prohibits the use of community-collected data in courts — for both the public and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Statewide, WV DEP has 18 air monitoring sites, only covering 13 of our counties, which leaves 42 of our counties without air quality monitoring stations.

In the background, WV residents have the 4th highest asthma rates in the whole country.

Like Angie Rosser told the crowd on Tuesday at the rally during Environmental Day at the Capitol: HB 5018 is an industry attempt to relieve polluters from being accountable for the harms of pollution on communities. What do you think polluters are afraid of? What do you think they’re trying to hide?

Today, we’re asking you to contact your State Senator to tell them you want them to Vote No on HB 5018.

If you believe we should have more monitoring where we live, if you believe we should have more access to science, data, and information about the quality of our environment, and if you believe harmed citizens should be able to have a judge consider any and all data before the courts, then contact your Senator now.

West Virginians deserve clean air and water. Thank you for taking a few minutes today to advocate for our right to breathe clean air and access clean water.

More soon,
WV Rivers Coalition