Small Business: Don't Gut Storage Tank/Water Safety Rules
Monday, March 9, 2015
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – A bill at the Legislature to roll back much of a year-old storage tank safety law could hurt West Virginia's economy, according to many of the state's small businesses.
Emily Bennington is the kind of person development experts say West Virginia should work to attract.
A young entrepreneur who writes about education and career issues, she chose to raise her two sons here. But she says last year's Freedom Industries chemical spill almost made her leave West Virginia.
At a public hearing last week, she told lawmakers she was deeply upset that the Legislature might gut the water safety law passed after the spill.
"Do I not give my children a bath, or do I risk their safety by putting them into this water?” she stated. “And I've always loved living here. But I can't live in a place where there is not safe water."
With support from oil and gas producers and coal operators, lawmakers look likely to pass Senate Bill 423.
Supporters say the bill would remove overlapping regulations put in place as what they call an immediate overreaction to the Elk River chemical spill.
Big manufacturers and some state energy corporations say complying with the surface tank water safety law will cost too much.
But Joy Gunnoe, president of Gunnoe Farms food company, says she has no patience with what she calls the whiners who complain about the clean water rules.
She says the water contamination cost her company $400,000 and put her 20 employees at risk.
And Gunnoe says her company wasn’t the alone.
"It brought a 68-year-old company to its knees,” she states. “You can't even keep a hotel open because people can't take a shower. Without the clean, potable water, nobody's in business."
Gunnoe says the tap water contamination and the attempt to gut the clean water law make her furious.
And Bennington says that describes her as well.
"One of things that I was asking myself after this happened is, 'Are you mad enough to leave? Or are you mad enough to stay?'" she relates.
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