A piece of legislation which would shift funding from the Landfill Closure Assistance Fund to local solid waste authorities passed out of the Senate Finance Committee, Wednesday.
A committee substitute for Senate Bill 147 came before members after being laid over from a previous meeting. The revised version offered minor changes to the language of the bill and corrected code mistakes. Following review of the substitute, lengthy discussions over landfill closures sparked debate between Senators.
Director of the Division of Land Restoration at the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, Rob Rice, addressed committee members to explain how the fund aids in closing the state’s landfills. Rice stated that the fund can only be used in situations where a funding need is present, yet currently, the state has five sites which unable to be filled due to a lack of overall funding.
Closures of these areas must follow multiple requirements, the main being a hypersensitive synthetic cap being placed on top of the landfill and monitored for the next 30 years. The director said that a portion of the landfill funding goes toward repairs of the caps and raised concerns over how the department would be able to complete various tasks if faced with a reduction of fees.
The Landfill Closure Assistance Fund currently stands at $19.5 million and an additional $33 million would be required to close the remaining landfills. If passed, the proposed legislation would reduce the amount attributed to the fund to a total of $5 million annually.
Following discussion between the DEP and the committee, Sen. Robert Plymale, D-Wayne, cited the 30 year monitorship of the areas as a negative impact on funding and asked if a potential reduction of monitorship could possibly go towards strengthening funding.
Rice explained under current DEP law, once a site is deemed stable it is returned to its original entity.
“Our goal is to get all these landfills stable and then returned to their owners,” Rice said. “Our goal isn’t to sit on these things forever.”
Following adoption of a conceptual amendment by Sen. Chandler Swope, R-Mercer, the committee motioned to agree to the committee substitute for Senate Bill 147 and report the bill to the full Senate.
Members also reviewed an originating bill relating to property tax adjustments resulting from regular levies. Committee chair, Sen. Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, explained that the bill is being originated by the committee due to time management issues which prevented the legislation to be introduced at the beginning of the session. The bill was reported to the full Senate with the recommendation to pass.
Senate Bill 29, which would create a five-year tax credit for businesses on post-coal mine sites, and Senate Bill 333, which would exempt automobiles 25 years or older from personal property taxes, were also reported to the full body.
