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This news story originally provided by
The
Charleston Gazette
By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer
A state Environmental Quality Board committee that is helping to
rewrite West Virginia’s water pollution limit for aluminum must
comply with the state open meetings law.
The state Ethics Commission’s Open Meetings Committee ruled
Thursday morning that the law clearly applies to the board’s
Technical Review Committee.
In a two-page opinion, the ethics panel said that the aluminum
committee “constitutes a subunit of a state board which was been
authorized to exercise some portion of the board’s executive power.
“The committee has been delegated authority to approve the
[request for proposals] for an important scientific study, as well
as to direct the vendor ultimately selected to accomplish this
study,” the opinion said.
The ruling is a setback for coal industry officials and for board
members who had hoped some of the aluminum committee’s meetings
could be held in private and without public notice.
Board members asked for the ethics ruling, despite advice from
their own lawyer that open meetings rules applied.
After a Charleston Gazette report Wednesday about the aluminum
committee, five environmental and public interest groups wrote to
the Ethics Commission to urge it to mandate public meetings.
In one letter, the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the
Environment complained that the legality of the committee itself “is
questionable” in the first place.
“The Environmental Quality Board, by relying on industry experts
to draft water quality standards, is unlawfully delegating its state
statutory and constitutional duties to outside parties,” wrote
Margaret Janes, the center’s senior policy analyst.
“Failure of the board to provide significant oversight and real
independent analysis of the standard produced by the industry
consultant would constitute an illegal abdication of its duties to
financially interested outside parties,” Janes wrote.
Janes also pointed out that the aluminum committee has already
held at least one private meeting that was not publicly noticed.
Under the state Open Governmental Proceedings Act, the committee
could now be sued in circuit court to have any actions taken at that
meeting thrown out.
If such a suit were filed, the environmental board could be
ordered to pay the legal costs for individuals or groups who file
the suit. Also under the law, board members who knowingly violate
the open meetings law could be subject to criminal penalties.
Cindy Rank, mining chairwoman for the West Virginia Highlands
Conservancy, wrote to the Ethics Commission that, “clearly, industry
has overstepped its bounds in assuming control of the RFP and
holding private meetings with their handpicked consultant.
“Their ability and willingness to meet with these consultants
without the public involved is a flagrant violation of the open
meetings law and is contrary to all that the board has attempted to
achieve since I first attended meetings in 1979 when it was the
Water Quality Board,” Rank wrote.
Board members formed the aluminum committee in January, as part
of their effort to meet a legislative mandate to rewrite the state’s
aluminum limits.
Lawmakers ordered the rewrite at the urging of coal industry
officials, who said the board’s existing rules were too stringent.
So far, though, coal industry officials have guided the board’s
study.
Industry officials wrote an initial request for proposals for a
consultant who would perform the study. Then, industry officials
whittled the list of potential consultants from six to four, and
eventually picked the final vender.
It is not clear how much, if any, public money is being spent on
the project. Unnamed industry groups and companies are said to be
raising money to pay at least part of the cost.
At its initial meeting, the board committee did approve a second
request for proposals that had been suggested by industry and was
the basis for the six bidders.
Board Vice Chairman Scott Simonton, the chairman of the aluminum
committee, said that the group would hold public meetings in the
future.
But, Simonton said, he does not believe it is necessary for the
panel to start the process over because of the initial closed
meeting.
“I hope we don’t have to stop this process,” Simonton said. “This
whole study will come to a screaming halt.”
Board Chairman Ed Snyder said that the board would have to try to
figure the situation out at its next meeting, March 10 in
Charleston.
“It does appear that we have a bit of a quagmire,” Snyder said.
“We need to clean it up.”
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call
348-1702.
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