H. B. 4108
(By Delegates Trump, Staton, Faircloth,
Ashley, Douglas, Manuel and Michael)
[Introduced January 28, 1998; referred to the Committee on
the Judiciary then Finance.]
A BILL to amend and reenact section twenty-one, article seventeen,
chapter twenty-two of the code of West Virginia, one thousand
nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, all relating generally to
expanding the purposes for which the director of the division
of enviornmental protection may disburseand expend moneys from
the petroleum tank storage fund, providing for the mandatory
use of the same for certain small county hospitals for the
clean up and remediation of oil spills on hospital grounds;
and further requiring the repayment of a portion of said
moneys so expended to the petroleum tank storage fund.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section twenty-one, article seventeen, chapter twenty-two
of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred and thirty- one, as amended,
be amended and reenacted, to read as follows:
§22-17-21. Leaking underground storage tank response fund.
(a) Each underground petroleum storage tank owner within this state shall pay an annual fee, if assessed by the director, to
establish a fund to assure adequate response to leaking underground
petroleum storage tanks. The fees assessed pursuant to this
section shall not exceed twenty-five dollars per tank per year.
The proceeds of such assessment shall be paid into the state
treasury into a special fund designated "the leaking underground
storage tank response fund", which is hereby continued.
(b) Each owner of an underground petroleum storage tank
subject to a fee assessment under subsection (a) of this section
shall pay a fee based on the number of underground petroleum
storage tanks he or she owns. The director shall vary the fees
annually to a level necessary to produce a fund of at least seven
hundred fifty thousand dollars at the beginning of each calendar
year taking into account those amounts deposited in the fund
pursuant to subsection (c), section twenty of this article. In no
event shall the fees assessed in this section be set to produce
revenues exceeding two hundred fifty thousand dollars in any year.
(c) When the unobligated balance of the leaking underground
storage tank response fund exceeds one million dollars at the end
of a calendar year, fee assessment under this section shall cease
until such time as the unobligated balance at the end of any year
is less than seven hundred fifty thousand dollars.
(d) At the end of each fiscal year, any unexpended balance
including accrued interest of such collected fees shall not be transferred to the general revenue fund but shall remain in the
fund.
(e) The director is authorized to enter into agreements and
contracts and to expend the moneys in the fund for the following
purposes:
(1) Responding to underground petroleum storage tank releases
when, based on readily available information, the director
determines that immediate action may prevent or mitigate
significant risk of harm to human health, safety or the environment
from regulated substances in situations for which no federal funds
are immediately available for such response, cleanup or
containment: Provided,
That the director shall apply for and
diligently pursue available federal funds for such releases at the
earliest possible time.
(2) Reimbursing any person for reasonable cleanup costs
incurred with the authorization of the director in responding to an
underground petroleum storage tank release.
(3) Reimbursing any person for reasonable costs incurred with
the authorization of the director responding to perceived,
potential or threatened releases from underground petroleum storage
tanks where response activities do not indicate that any release
has occurred.
(4) Financing the nonfederal share of the cleanup and site
reclamation activities pursuant to Subtitle I of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, as amended, as well as
future operation and maintenance costs for these sites: Provided,
That no portion of the moneys in the leaking underground storage
tank response fund shall be used for defraying the costs of
administering this article.
(5) Financing the nonfederal share of costs incurred in
compensating third parties, including payment of judgments, for
bodily injury and property damage, caused by release of petroleum
into the environment from an underground storage tank.
(f) The director shall enter into an agreement to provide
funds, not to exceed two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to any
county hospital licensed for less than one hundred beds to be used
by that hospital to pay the costs incurred by it in cleaning up and
remediating an oil or other petroleum spill occurring on the
grounds of the hospital: Provided, That any agreement entered into
under this subsection shall require the hospital to which money is
disbursed to repay to the fund fifty per cent of the moneys
provided from the fund under this subsection. The agreement shall
provide that this repayment will be without interest over a period
of not less than ten years.