Bruceton May Get Landfill
Would take solid waste from oil, gas industries
Morgantown Dominion Post
20 May 2011
By Michelle Wolford
.
KINGWOOD — A Houston company has purchased 250 acres of land in Preston
County, where it hopes to put a landfill serving the oil and gas
industries.
Scott Herbst, manager of engineering projects for CCS Midstream
Services LLC, said the intended home for the facility is about one mile
from Interstate 68 in Bruceton Mills, but the company is still in the
research stages of its proposal.
The company must first file a certificate of need with the West
Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC). Herbst told The Dominion Post
on Thursday that the company is nine months away from that first step,
and there is a long series of steps to follow before the facility could
be built.
PSC spokeswoman Susan Small said the agency will do nothing on that
certificate unless the Preston County Solid Waste Authority approves
the siting of the facility.
“If they submit a certificate, their application, a certificate of
approval from the Solid Waste Authority would have to be part of that
filing or we would kick it back,” she said.
The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) also has to
approve the facility.
“The public will have many, many opportunities to be educated on the
process” of the facility, Herbst said.
The DEP process requires a public notice of a draft permit and a public
comment period. A public hearing may also be held.
CCS Midstream has 24 such facilities in North America, Herbst said. All
of them are in Canada, according to the company’s website.
The Bruceton Mills site was chosen for its proximity to I-68 — “and a
labor force looking for work.” He said the landfill — which would have
a footprint of about 120 acres on the 250-acre parcel — would need
“between 15 and 20 full-time employees” including heavyequipment
operators, office administration, accounts payable and receivable,
managers and some with skills specific to the industry.
“We will offer training” for some jobs, Herbst said.
Herbst also met with Friends of the Cheat (FOC) and Friends of Deckers
Creek, local watershed protection nonprofits that are already hearing
from citizens concerned about the proposed facility.
Herbst said the facility will handle oil and gas waste only. It will
not handle fracking water, only solid nonhazardous wastes.
“We will accept no reactive waste, no municipal solids, no flammable,
corrosive or radioactive materials,” he said.
Though the company is progressing with its research on the site and the
approval process, Herbst said it won’t happen overnight.
“It took us well over a year to get this far; it will take us well over
another year to get to the next level.”
FOC Director Amanda Pitzer said her concerns about the landfill are
primarily related to its location — at the confluence of Big Sandy and
Little Sandy creeks, southwest of Bruceton Mills.
“FOC has spent millions of dollars and thousands of manhours restoring
Big Sandy from acid mine drainage and it is very close to being removed
from the DEP’s list of impaired streams,” she said. “We want to protect
the work that we’ve done and the surrounding community from unnecessary
risks.”
Both the Little Sandy and Big Sandy are stocked trout streams, she
said. Big Sandy also is a popular destination for whitewater
enthusiasts and its mouth is only eight miles from Cheat Lake, a
drinking water source.
Herbst said his company has a vested interest in containing the waste
in the landfill, which he said contains “chlorides and hydrocarbons —
salty dirt.” The landfill will be monitored for at least 25 years after
it is closed.
Speaking about the nearby creeks, Herbst said, “We’re not going to
contaminate it. We’re not going to do something that would jeopardize
us as a company and our integrity.”
Preston County Commission President Craig Jennings said the commission
has not met formally with the company, though commissioners have been
contacted individually “to let us know what they want to do in the
county.”
He said the commission has no authority over such a facility — that’s
up to the PSC and DEP.
Commissioners do appoint the members of the Solid Waste Authority,
however, which has first say in the approval process.