Tell Legislators to OPPOSE Exempting Oil & Gas Tanks Within ZCCs! 

From our friends at WV Rivers Coalition

Industry lobbyists are at it again trying to exempt oil and gas tanks from the Aboveground Storage Tank Act. This year, a few bills have been proposed that are similar to last year’s rollback attempt – which you defeated! 

All of the legislation aims to exempt certain oil and gas tanks that are closest to our public drinking water intakes. 

The first stop for these pieces of legislation is the House Energy and Manufacturing Committee. Ask Committee members to protect our drinking water and reject any attempts to exempt oil & gas storage tanks near drinking water intakes from the Aboveground Storage Tank Act! We encourage you to customize your letter for a more meaningful message.

Many of you helped us succeed in convincing the legislature in 2017, 2020, and 2021 to keep these oil and gas tanks in zones of critical concern (“ZCCs”) regulated by the AST Act. But industry keeps pushing. We must hold the line and say that all tanks within ZCCs should have the standards and oversight mechanisms of the Aboveground Storage Tank Act.  

We know from the Freedom Industries tank leak that caused the WV Water Crisis what can go terribly wrong when tanks in ZCCs are overlooked. ZCCs are areas directly upstream from public drinking water intakes in which a released contaminant will reach the intake within five hours. Exempting tanks in ZCCs from regulation puts us in more danger because there is the added concern of not having enough time to respond if a tank fails.

Find a fact sheet on the bills here.