Charleston Gazette-Mail CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia State University has sued Dow Chemical and former operators of the Institute chemical plant, alleging that the facility has contaminated the groundwater under the university’s campus.
University officials insist the contamination poses no health risks — the campus does not use groundwater for its drinking water.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Kanawha Circuit Court, seeks to force the companies to clean up the contamination, prevent future migration of the chemicals and compensate the university, a historically black institution, for harm to its image in the public and potential students.
“It is my hope that Dow will come to the table and take full responsibility for the mess it created,” Jenkins told reporters.
University officials and lawyers say three contaminants have been found at “elevated levels” in the groundwater 15 to 50 feet beneath the campus.
The chemicals are 1,4-dioxane, 1,1-dichloroethane and chloroform.
It was not clear which of the various chemical units that operated over the years at the plant led to the groundwater contamination.
University officials say they learned of the contamination about four years ago, when they took ownership from the state of the former West Virginia Rehabilitation Center, located between the campus and the chemical plant.
Six years ago, then-plant owner Bayer CropScience eliminated MIC manufacturing, use and storage at the plant following a U.S. Chemical Safety Board report that was highly critical of plant operations and a major change in the company’s global marketing strategy.
Union Carbide, once a major institution in the Kanawha Valley, operated the Institute plant from 1946 until it sold the site to Rhone-Poulenc, a French firm, in 1986.

Lake in the Hills village trustees postpone asking the McHenry County Board to consider consolidating sanitary district.
LAKE IN THE HILLS – A vote to pass a resolution encouraging the McHenry County Board to dissolve and consolidate the Lake in the Hills Sanitary District with the village was postponed by Lake in the Hills trustees.
Outgoing Lake in the Hills Village President Paul Mulcahy, who initiated looking into the consolidation, called the Lake in the Hills Village Board’s decision to table the resolution “completely and utterly irresponsible.” “All the questions that I’ve heard from this Board of Trustees cannot get answered until this ordinance is passed by the county,” Mulcahy said at Thursday’s Village Board meeting.
Under the new law, county boards must cite a legitimate reason that concludes that the body proposed for elimination provides either unnecessary or duplicative services.
The law allows the McHenry County Board to eliminate a handful of bodies, such as the Lake in the Hills Sanitary District, the Crystal Lake Rural Fire District and the Greenwood and Hebron drainage districts.
The Lake in the Hills Sanitary District is a separate government than the village of Lake in the Hills and levies a separate property tax.
The district provides wastewater collection and water pollution control for about 11,000 customers in Lake in the Hills, and parts of Crystal Lake and Huntley, according to village documents and sanitary district manager Rick Forner.
Mulcahy has said the consolidation of the sanitary district would be more efficient and reduce expenses, in part by eliminating the district’s property tax levy, which sits at about $600,000, according to a Lake in the Hills staff report presented to the board in February.
Reduced services?
Or reduced upkeep on a $43 million facility?” Trustees Bogdanowski, Harlfinger, Bob Huckins, David McPhee and incoming Village President Russ Ruzanski voted to postpone voting on the resolution.

Instead of curbing pollution, state lawmakers consider funding chemical treatment for Jordan Lake.
T o clean up the pollution in Jordan Lake, North Carolina lawmakers have tried arguing.
Now state officials are examining a potential chemical treatment for the lake — yet another experiment on a vital drinking water source for more than 350,000 people.
NCPW has confirmed that the NC Department of Environmental Quality has been presented with a “demonstration project that we are continuing to review” with the US Army Corps of Engineers, said Jamie Kritzer, DEQ acting deputy secretary for public affairs.
Funding for the chemical treatment could be included in the Senate’s proposed budget, sources told NCPW.
However, one of the state’s most powerful lobbyists, Harold Brubaker, who served 35 years in the House, including two terms as Speaker, represents SePro, a “life sciences” company that sells chemicals to kill aquatic plants in lakes and reservoirs.
However, a representative for the lobbying group said she would pass along a message to SePro seeking comment from NCPW.
But many of the active ingredients are “proprietary,” according to the label, and not publicly available.
However, labels several of the products also state that there are no restrictions on fishing or swimming after the chemicals have been applied in the water.
The state spent $1 million on a failed SolarBees project, essentially gigantic eggbeaters that were supposed to stir the lake water and prevent algae from forming.

The warrants include a request for a Proposition 2 1⁄2 debt exclusion to pay for $10.5 million in renovations at Quashnet Elementary School; creation of a capital stabilization account initially to be funded with $500,000; and a $1.5 million bond for future infrastructure costs, including a new gym floor at Mashpee High School and parking lot improvements at the Mashpee police station.
The warrants also include requests for spending to enhance the visitor experience at Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge, adding phosphorous to an existing water-pollution control bylaw, and progressing two affordable housing projects in Mashpee.
Participants at Annual Meeting also will be asked to approve Town Manager Rodney C. Collins’s proposed $54.1 million operating budget for Fiscal Year 2018, a $840,695 decrease from the current year’s budget and an approximately $1.3 million decrease from what departments had requested.
Mashpee Chief of Police Scott Carline said he was disappointed in the proposed budget considering the current opioid epidemic; Mr. Collins’s proposal would not fill two empty positions in the police department.
In the budget, the Mashpee School District would receive a slight increase from last year’s $20.84 million budget; Mr. Collins has proposed a $20.87 million school budget.
The budget does not include the recent finalization of contract negotiations with unions across town, including department of public works, police and town hall employees.
Quashnet Renovations Article 15 on the Annual Town Meeting warrant requests that the town be able to raise more money through taxes than the state law known as Proposition 2 1⁄2 normally would allow.
Financing would come from available funds.
The article is the only one on the warrant to receive a nay vote from a member of either the board of selectmen or the finance committee: Christopher J. Avis, chairman of the finance committee, voted against the article.
The article would consolidate the functions of the offices of the town accountant, town treasurer and tax collector, along with the assessing department, under the supervision and control of the director of municipal finance/town accountant, a position currently filled by Dawn Thayer.

Top soil removal reduces water pollution from phosphorus and dissolved organic matter and lowers methane emissions from rewetted peatlands.
However, long-term drainage and intensive agricultural use make it unlikely that the original sink functions for nutrients and carbon (C) as well as low-nutrient conditions can be re-established within a human time perspective.
2.We hypothesised that the removal of the upper degraded peat layer can be a suitable measure to avoid the negative implications of excess mobilisation of P and C after rewetting.
To evaluate the effect of top soil removal (TSR) we performed lab and field experiments in six inundated peatlands in northern Germany without TSR compared to six inundated sites with TSR.
Although highly decomposed peat released more or less no methane, dissolved organic matter (DOM) mobilisation was highest in this substrate while less decomposed peat was characterized in general by lowest rates of mobilisation.
In conclusion, top soil removal (TSR) prior to rewetting can be a suitable method to avoid the negative consequences of the excess release of phosphorus (P) and carbon post-rewetting.
We developed a simple decision–support schematic to assist the peatland restoration process and to understand better the implications of TSR.
Despite the potential benefits TSR should not be declared as a universal method, as it requires detailed consideration prior to application.
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13 Gorgeous Pictures Remind Us Why Frogs Need Our Help.
The species may have developed its vivid scarlet peepers to shock predators into at least briefly questioning their meal choice.
For instance, the wood frog, which lives north of the Arctic Circle, can survive being frozen alive.
Their hearts and lungs stop functioning for up to weeks at a time, until they eventually thaw out and return to normal.
Hardy as they are, frogs are also vulnerable to changes in their environment.
That’s because, when submerged, the aquatic creatures breathe through their thin, permeable skin, which makes them susceptible to shifts in water temperature and pollution.
(See "Striking Yellow-Black Rain Frog Found, Is Already Endangered.")
About 200 frog species have gone extinct since the 1970s, including the Rabb’s fringe-limbed tree frog just last year.
This rapid die-off is due to habitat loss, water pollution, and the deadly chytrid fungus, among other causes.
(Read about vanishing amphibians in National Geographic magazine.)

New City conservationist Martus Granirer dies at 84.
Martus Granirer, who devoted much of his life to protecting the land, waterways, wildlife and culture of New City’s South​ Mountain Road area, died Thursday.
In April of 2016, Granirer was presented with the 19th annual County Executive’s Outstanding Volunteer Environmental Award for preserving more than 1,000 acres of parkland throughout Rockland County.
“Protecting land and water doesn’t mean opposing change,” he said.
Everything I’ve done in Rockland has involved change.” Granirer was an attorney and member of the nonprofit environmental group West Branch Conservation Association.
"Thanks to him, the headwaters of the Hackensack River were protected because he was able to get land set aside as open space, both through municipal and state land designations and by convincing his neighbors to donate property or set up conservation easements.
"He truly has been an outstanding citizen of our county, fighting to conserve precious land and preserve a way of life."
Granirer attended Harvard and Columbia universities and later became a pho​tographer, according to Terri Thal, with whom he spent his last 19 years.
His photographs are in museums, including the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
Thal said that two days before he died, Granirer spoke at a hearing protesting the construction of an electrical substation on South Mountain Road.

No water contamination for BBP.
A boil advisory issued mid-week for BBP Water customers west of Spencer should be lifted Saturday.
The first set of lab results from Friday morning came back negative.
The precaution was taken by the local non-profit water company in the event customers did encounter contamination at the tap, but BBP Water General Manager Dan Dalton said the precaution was just that, a precaution and not due to any known contaminants.
"As soon as we get the second lab results we will ask 97.7 radio to do an all clear as well as on our web page, social media, and automated calls," he said.
A 3 a.m. water break last Wednesday came at the most inopportune time for BBP, as the water company had just drained a water tower in the impacted service area for routine maintenance the day prior.
Dalton said the main break caused a heavier strain on a portion of the system and led to the precaution taken to advise customers residing in the areas of Patricksburg and Bowling Green they may want to let their water run and boil it if they notice anything out of normal.
Michael Stanley can be reached at michael@spencereveningworld.com.

GM Employees to Plant 25,000 Hardwood Trees in the U.S..
The national nonprofit Living Lands & Waters began its MillionTrees Project in 2007 by collecting and planting acorns.
This year, 27 GM facilities in seven states are taking part, providing more than 25,000 oak trees to employees and their families for Earth Day and Arbor Day plantings.
The Milford Proving Ground will be the largest GM distributer of this year’s MillionTrees Project and is one of the most uniquely situated GM facilities.
It spans nearly 4,000 acres, including acres of trees, lakes, native plants and wildlife.
The Milford Proving Ground team will pass out 3,500 trees to its employees and contractors, with the goal of not only educating today’s GM team, but showing a commitment to the next generation, as well.
“It is not just about planting a single tree, it is about building momentum to change the way they think about environmental efforts, both at work and in their personal lives.” GM’s Marion Metal Center in Indiana is participating in a citywide Earth Day event with the local Parks and Recreation Department and Marion Utilities, which will involve passing out the trees to residents who commit to planting them.
“Working for a company that embraces environmental sustainability and community involvement is a source of pride for GM employees,” said Collins.
Planting red, swamp white, and bur oak trees also will increase diversity along the nation’s shorelines, helping further protect against viruses and bores.
Alex Bokatzian, associate environmental engineer at Parma Metal Center in Ohio, summarizes the benefits he sees from the efforts: “Trees provide oxygen, take in carbon dioxide and improve air quality.

Pilgrim’s Pride Rejects Groups’ call to curb pollution.
Today, Pilgrim’s Pride – second-largest chicken producer in the world – rejected a shareholder resolution (Proposal 6) calling on the company to curb water pollution from its operations and supply chain.
The company’s refusal to clean up comes even as it faces a citizens’ suit from Environment America and the local Sierra Club chapter for dumping toxic wastewater into Florida’s Suwannee River.
In response, Environment America’s clean water program director John Rumpler issued the following statement: Instead of cleaning its coop, today Pilgrim’s has decided to chicken out on its responsibility to stop fouling America’s waterways.
Pilgrim’s Pride operations and supply chain, which processes roughly 37 million birds per week, is responsible for significant water pollution in several states, including Texas, Florida, and Virginia.
In addition to millions of pounds of manure and runoff from feed production, the company’s own processing plants dump pollution directly into our rivers and streams.
In Florida alone, the company has been dumping pollution into the Suwannee River from its poultry processing plant in Live Oak, Florida.
As alleged in our citizens’ suit under the Clean Water Act, this one facility has committed 1,377 days of Clean Water Act violations since 2012, all from discharging wastewater into the river that exceeds pollution standards by as much as triple the legal limits.
It’s hard to see how can Pilgrim’s take pride in that.
The water pollution footprint of Pilgrims Pride and JBS combined included more than 45 million tons of manure (in 2015) and 37 million pounds of toxic discharges to waterways (from 2010-2014).