Trending
CHARLESTON -- Those still waiting on legislation to prevent another warehouse fire like what happened in Wood County in 2017 will have to wait a little longer.
Del. John Kelly, R-Wood, said that he will not be introducing legislation this year to require warehouses to keep up-to-date inventory lists that would help first responders when putting out fires.
After a massive fire tore through the Intercontinental Export-Import Plastics warehouse in October 2017 -- the former site of the Ames shovel plant on Camden Avenue just outside of Parkersburg -- lawmakers started talking about legislation requiring updated inventory lists for warehouses and storage facilities.
The IEI warehouse was used to store bulk post-industrial recycled plastic. On Oct. 21, the warehouse caught on fire, burning for nearly a week and sending noxious, toxic smoke into the surrounding community.
It wasn't until the state Department of Environmental Protection ordered IEI to release all available information on what was stored at the Camden Avenue warehouse a month later that first responders understood that the warehouse was a powder keg.
The IEI's parent company, Naik, has 15 similar facilities in Wood County. According to the State Fire Marshal's office, the additional facilities all had violations, including stacking pallets too high, open containers, no aisle space, non-functional sprinkler systems and no fire alarms.
Last year, both Kelly and Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, talked about introducing legislation requiring updated inventory lists for warehouses and storage facilities. Kelly said during the 2018 legislative session he wanted to wait until a final report on the IEI fire was released before introducing a bill.
This is already done for chemicals and hazardous materials through material safety data sheets, which give emergency planners and fire departments the ability to plan in case of major fires and disasters. Businesses make their safety data sheets available to fire departments, which tell first responders the kinds of chemical they're dealing with and how to extinguish the fire in the event of an emergency.
No legislation was introduced last year, but Kelly said in Oct. 21 -- a year after the IEI fire -- that he was planning to introduce legislation this session "requiring employers to compile and maintain a chemical information list for any chemical on that employer's premises," according to draft bill language.
"Because of the history of the (IEI warehouse fire), I think it is a bill that probably will be pushed pretty quickly," Kelly said at the time.
But as of Tuesday, no warehouse inventory bill has been introduced in either chamber. The deadline for bills to be introduced in the House of Delegates is Tuesday -- less than a week away. The Senate bill deadline is less than a week after that -- Feb. 18. Kelly said that a new law would be redundant.
"What we've found is that everything we had been working on is already covered in other areas," Kelly said Tuesday. "At the present time we're not doing anything else with it."
Kelly said the State Fire Marshal, which answers to the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, already has rule-making authority to address the issues that led to the IEI fire. The State Fire Marshal can promulgate rules through the State Fire Code, which does not address requirements for inventory lists at warehouses.
"I think basically what it's going to take is just to sit down and establish a policy up in DMAPS (Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety) that establishes some kind of roadmap and maybe a path forward that gives us a certain sequence of procedures we need to follow in some systematic way," Kelly said. "Take it to the top. Take it to DMAPS and let them work it out."
Lawrence Messina, director of communications for the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, also said that the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management has Tier II authority to offer additional rules similar to what the federal government offers.
"(The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act) has a state law counterpart, and requires the reporting of chemical inventories," Messina said in a statement."(Homeland security) has overseen this reporting requirement in West Virginia as the supporting agency for the State Emergency Response Commission."