By Stephen Smoot
Almost 40 years ago, the United States Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community-Right-to-Know-Act, which was supplemented by State of West Virginia legislation in 1993. Both of these acts enhance the transparency to communities of hazardous materials in use, storage, or transport.
The State of West Virginia furthermore requires that the State Emergency Response Commission work with Local Emergency Planning Committees. They gather information on hazardous materials to both share with the public and to also inform emergency planning. LEPCs have the requirement that they take that information to develop comprehensive emergency response plans.
This month, the Commodity Flow Study for Pendleton County was released by the Pendleton County Office of Emergency Management. It was performed for the Pendleton County LEPC by JH Consulting.
The report shares that “this study analyses the highway transport of hazardous materials only,” then adds that “it intends to provide emergency managers and responders in Pendleton County with information to more fully advise efforts to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from hazardous material incidents.”
This study in particular focused solely on materials carried by trucks on major thoroughfares through Pendleton County. It focused on US Route 33, US Route 220, West Virginia Route 28 and West Virginia Route 55. While other highways also carry truck traffic, notably Sweedlin Valley/South Fork Road that connects Moorefield to US Route 33 at Oak Flat, funding could only cover the official federal and state roads.
The study details challenging conditions for commercial transport in Pendleton County. It noted a specific incident where “on October 23, 2023, a tractor-trailer wrecked in a work zone on US Route 33, resulting in serious injuries to the truck driver.” This incident, which took place on the dangerous eastern slope of Allegheny Mountain, serves as an example of significant danger pointed out often by Rick Gillespie from the Pendleton County Office of Emergency Management.
In more general terms, the report noted other challenges, describing “roads . . . winding with sharp turns and steep grades” that also sport “limited sight lines.” It also describes a “slosh and surge effect” when tanker trucks carry partial loads. Movement of large amounts of liquids within the tanker can destabilize the vehicle and lead to rollovers.
The study monitored four sites — the two intersections in Franklin that border gas stations, the US 33 and WV 28 junction at Seneca Rocks, and US 33 and County Road 21 in Brandywine. All sites received two monitoring sessions. The top two of those in terms of having trucks marked with warning placards received a third examination.
Brandywine saw the highest incidence of placarded trucks bearing loads at 8.2 percent. The intersection of US 33 and US 220 near the Mountain View Hotel sported the second highest percentage, 6.5 percent.
Observers witnessed 608 trucks pass by in the monitoring sessions and approximately six percent had placards indicating dangerous materials or conditions related to the load. Of those, 20 carried flammable gases, 13 flammable liquids, and one of each of oxidizers, corrosives, and explosives. One truck carried an “extremely hazardous substance,” which was anhydrous ammonia.
JH Consulting in its report emphasized the limited nature of the survey, which “represents a ‘snapshot in time,’ meaning it is only accurate for the periods during which it was collected.” It also asserts that highway studies cannot be as comprehensive or as reliable as those on pipelines or rail and states that “data from no single mode of transport would adequately depict the volume or types of hazardous materials transported within and through Pendleton County.”
As it states, however, the benefits of the study are that it serves to “document hazardous materials transported regularly within and through Pendleton County.” The survey does its task in that it gives emergency planners a sense of what comes through on any given day, allowing for more complete response planning.
The report contained several recommendations. First, it urged a regular updating of the study because “amounts and types of hazardous materials utilized, stored, and transported will . . . evolve.” Data collection should also take place at different times during the calendar year to cover seasonal transport patterns.
Recommendations also included extra training for emergency responders for incidents in which they respond to gases, flammable liquids, and other dangerous materials, especially anhydrous ammonia. These should include realistic emergency exercises using some of the materials they might encounter in the field.
JH Consulting conducted the survey starting in mid-May.
