This is an aerial photo of the ROCKWOOL stone wool insulation manufacturing facility near Kearneysville, Jefferson County, shown here on Sunday, July 21, 2024.
This is an aerial photo of the ROCKWOOL stone wool insulation manufacturing facility near Kearneysville, Jefferson County, shown here on Sunday, July 21, 2024.
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has approved a controversial permit application for an industrial facility that community members say would inflict unacceptable pollution levels.
The DEP approved an air quality permit for a stone wool insulation manufacturing facility operated by an affiliate of Denmark-headquartered ROCKWOOL in Jefferson County.
The DEP set aside concerns from residents and community advocates to approve the application from the affiliate, ROXUL USA Inc., after the agency said changes made in a permit modification submitted in 2022 decreased the facility’s potential to emit less than major-source thresholds in a state legislative rule, Title 45, Series 14, meaning the facility is no longer considered a major source by the DEP.
When ROXUL first submitted a permit application in 2017, the projected potential to emit volatile organic compounds, which can contribute to ground-level ozone and cause cancer, exceeded 250 tons per year, requiring a “prevention of significant deterioration†review. But the facility was no longer defined as a major source per the rule after stack testing determined the actual potential to emit volatile organic compounds was significantly less than 250 tons per year.
Environmental health fears dominated a July 2024 DEP virtual meeting held to take public comment on the proposed air permit.
Jefferson County resident Daniel Lutz said he was awakened in his bedroom five to six air miles from ROXUL’s facility by the smell of benzene, a carcinogen for which the DEP says 2022 emissions at the ROXUL facility totaled less than a hundredth of a ton, during the company’s first year of operations there.
Mary Chatham, who said her family lived on a farm next to the ROCKWOOL plant, lamented what she said was an “ever-present cloud of emissions from the chimneys that billow over the fields.â€
DEP disagreements with permit request opposition
Responding to written and oral comments submitted on the proposal, the DEP said in a document released last week, the DEP’s Division of Air Quality disagreed with commenters that performance testing required by the permit doesn’t provide adequate monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting to determine whether the facility is complying with emissions limits and related requirements.
The DAQ also disagreed with commenters contending there’s no way for the agency or the public to determine whether the facility is complying with emission limits, citing testing result reports to the DAQ and the requirement for the permittee to submit annual compliance certifications made publicly available.
The Jefferson County Foundation Inc., a community advocacy nonprofit, the Jefferson County Chapter of the NAACP and the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club called for any final operating permit issued under Title V of the federal Clean Air Act governing “major sources†and certain other sources to include major-source requirements.
Due to the facility's potential to emit more than100 tons per year of common air pollutants called “criteria pollutants,†more than 10 tons per year of a single hazardous air pollutant and more than 25 tons annually of aggregate hazardous air pollutants, ROXUL USA must have a Title V operating permit.
But the DAQ said the draft Title V permit contained all applicable requirements from an associated “minor†permit and that the agency doesn’t have the authority to change permit requirements to incorporate requirements called for by the commenters.
Emissions allowed for wool-spinning, other activityÂ
Under the proposed permit, potential emission limits would include, in tons per year:
Formaldehyde, a human carcinogen: 16.64 (actual 2022 emissions: 1.37)
Total hazardous air pollutants — air toxics known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious health impacts: 263.61 (actual 2022 emissions: 47.01)
The DEP said processes at the facility that could cause air emissions include:
ROXUL sought the permit for its facility at 665 Northport Ave., Kearneysville, where it began operating in May 2021, according to DEP records. The facility was built under a permit issued in April 2018, per DEP records.
ROCKWOOL had appealed inclusion in the permit of a condition requiring building doors to remain closed except as necessary for people or material to enter the building.
The state Air Quality Board, a quasi-judicial review board that hears permit-related appeals, granted ROCKWOOL’s motion as to 31 doors but denied the motion as to other exterior doors.
The Jefferson County Foundation had challenged permitting for the facility, requesting that Rockwell be required to reapply for a modified permit under Title 45, Series 14 in an appeal denied by the state Air Quality Board in February 2024.
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