By: Lucia Valentine, West Virginia field organizer, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: November 30, 2021
About: Proposed Regional Haze State Implementation Plan
To: West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Lucia Valentine, and I am the West Virginia organizer for Moms Clean Air Force, working to protect children from air pollution and climate change. I am from Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Growing up in West Virginia, I have long lived with the negative environmental impacts of heavy industry here in my state. I support the goal of the haze program—to make continuous reasonable progress toward cleaner air—yet the state of West Virginia has proposed a regional haze plan that fails to adequately reduce pollution, falling short on the state’s obligation to improve air quality for our communities. This poses a threat to public health and environmental health.
Despite the thousands of tons of controllable pollution from West Virginia sources, mainly coal-fired powered plants, and the many opportunities for cost-effective controls, West Virginia improperly concludes that no new reductions in pollution are warranted. WV failed to consider additional large emitting sources identified by the National Park Service and/or NPCA, such as:
- Dominion Resources Mount Storm Power Station (Bismarck, WV)
- Longview Power (Maidsville, WV)
- Appalachian Power Co. Mountaineer Plant (Letart, WV)
- Dupont Washington Works (Washington, WV)
- Morgantown Energy Associates (Morgantown, WV)
- West Virginia Alloys, Inc. (Alloy, WV)
- Argos USA, Martinsburg Plant (Martinsburg, WV)
If left unchanged, the state’s plan will not comply with the Federal Clean Air Act and the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Regional Haze Rule as it does nothing to limit haze-causing air pollution and fails to help restore naturally clean air.