Last month, The Charleston Gazette-Mail’s Mike Tony wrote an article about Community Air Monitoring and the involvement of environmental activist groups along with the outgoing Biden Administration in the promotion and use of purchased or donated equipment by groups or individuals to monitor the air, specifically for particulate matter.
As the West Virginia Manufacturers Association has a position related to this issue, I wanted to share more information.
Let me be clear. Our association is, in no way, against any group or individual buying a monitor of any kind and collecting data. Our concern is how this do-it-yourself (or DIY) data is used. Groups such as Appalachian Voices and the West Virginia Citizens Action Group advocate against coal, natural gas and even manufacturing companies. Simply put, these groups are not objective, so information gained from their monitoring efforts should not be used in enforcement actions of any kind at the state level.
The best analogy for this kind of individual or environmental group monitoring is a person living in a neighborhood who is concerned about the speed of drivers. This person can purchase a radar gun from Amazon, have it shipped to their house, and measure the speed of vehicles in their neighborhood. What this person cannot do is turn over these measurements to law enforcement for legal action or hand out speeding tickets. The same protections need to be in place to prevent individuals or activist groups who seek to monitor air from becoming de facto government regulators.
It is important to add that representatives of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) said under the oath at a Committee hearing during the 2024 Regular Session of the West Virginia Legislature they would investigate any complaint made by an individual or group if their agency was contacted. While they would review any collected data, they added that they would need to collect their own data with proper quality control and documentation as an official government agency, not as a group whose mission is often to put people out of business and workers out of work.
So, if the WVDEP has said under oath that they would not use the data from Community Air Monitoring, why the concern from the West Virginia Manufacturers Association? People and positions change in government, and we believe that protecting permitted companies from biased groups sharing data collected through questionable means creates an unfair playing field. The WVMA’s member companies spend tens of thousands of dollars for air monitors to self-monitor their production and make certain they are in compliance. As part of the permitting process, the data these companies collect must be collected carefully and is shared with regulatory agencies. By comparison, the monitors that the environmental activist groups are promoting cost a few hundred dollars, are far less sophisticated, and, based on the websites selling these lesser monitors, are mostly use for monitoring forest fires. The same difference in quality technology goes for coal mines and natural gas sites, which are mentioned extensively in Tony’s article as targets for monitoring by these environmental groups.
Our association plans to pursue legislation again in the upcoming West Virginia legislative session to make certain that state regulators have high quality, accurate data to inform regulatory decisions impacting the state’s manufacturers, coal miners and natural gas workers. While Louisiana passed legislation of this kind in 2024, other states, such as Kentucky and Ohio, are planning to pursue similar legislation in their upcoming legislative sessions.
It is our hope that good data, collected by well-calibrated machines by an official government entity is the standard that employers in West Virginia will be held to, and not information collected by groups or individuals whose endgame is to close businesses and take away opportunities from my fellow West Virginians.
Bill Bissett, Ed.D., is president of of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association.