Chemical spillsFederal, state chemical safety agencies increasingly hampered by budget cuts

The budgets of state and federal agencies tasked with responding to the Elk River chemical spill have recently been cut, and these cuts have limited these agencies’ ability to prevent or respond to disasters such as the water crisis in West Virginia.

The federal Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is conducting an investigation to determine the cause of the 9 January chemical spill at Freedom Industries in West Virginia. The agency has forty-one employees, half of whom are investigators, with a budget of about $10.5 million. That budget was recently increased by $500,000 following a request by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia).

Rafael-Moure-Eraso, the CSB’s chairman, notes that funding issues have slowed down the agency’s investigations. “Oh very much so. We have three active investigative teams, so in order for Mr. Banks to be here with his team, he has to stop the work on the particular investigation he was running,” Moure-Eraso said.

The Charleston Gazette reports that CSB’s lead investigator, Johnnie Banks, has had to leave his investigation of the 2013 explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, to attend to the West Virginia chemical spill. “We have to go back to West, and come back to this, and share time like that,” Moure-Eraso said. “We just have to come and start an investigation and do the best we can with the resources we have. And we would like to be more efficient in what we produce, but it’s a problem.”

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the agency which approved Freedom Industries’ water pollution permit, is facilitating the chemical spill cleanup process. DEP would have its annual funding reduced by 7.5 percent under Governor Earl Ray Tomblin’s proposed budget, released the day before the 9 January 2013 spill.

Recently, the West Virginia Senate has proposed a bill to require DEP annually to inspect all above-ground storage tanks in the state, but Senate president Jeff Kessler urged legislators to review the budget cuts imposed on DEP, which includes a reduction in federal funding. “At some point you can’t expect folks to do more with less,” said Kessler.

He noted that the state Division of Corrections has been exempt from recent budget cuts.

“Why? That’s because they perform such an important governmental function to keep us safe. We need to make sure the murderers aren’t roaming the streets. And it’s the same with the water,” Kessler said. “If the water has the potential to harm our families and our children and our people, we’re going to fund it appropriately so that they can do their jobs.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided information on Crude MCHM, the coal-processing chemical that contaminated the Elk River. Details on when tap water would be safe for drinking and whether pregnant women should drink the water was released by the CDC. The agency’s budget has also been reduced relative to recent years, both in nominal and inflation-adjusted terms.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), operating within the CDC, developed protocols for flushing contaminated water out of home plumbing following the chemical spill. The ATSDR is also having its annual budget cut when compared to recent years.

“We do less,” said Debra Lubar, a CDC financial official, when asked the results of cuts. “What our director has often been quoted as saying is that threats are not going down and so it is concerning to not be able to grow with the public health threats.”