Respecting the local environment

A history of environmental leadership

At ROCKWOOL, we have an unbreakable commitment to meet and exceed the environmental protection standards set by governments and regulators wherever we operate globally. West Virginia is no exception. Our facility is in full compliance with local, state, and federal laws and regulations.

Responsible environmental stewardship has been one of our core values for more than 80 years and we continually strive to do better in terms of reducing the environmental impact of our manufacturing activities.

This is realized in practice through the robust environmental management systems that we have in place at each of our manufacturing facilities and our investments in state-of-the-art abatement technologies when building new production facilities, such as the one in Ranson, as well as when retrofitting existing facilities.

Don't have time to read the full page right now? No problem. For your convenience you can download a PDF version of our Environment Fact Sheet and get the information you need.

Preventing groundwater contamination

We have ambitious goals to reduce water usage across our operations as part of the commitment we’ve made to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and are investing in research and development to uncover even more efficient technologies.

The facility in Ranson operates using a closed-loop production process water system which means it’s designed to prevent the contamination of soil and groundwater. Once water enters the closed-loop production process, it stays in. The production process water is continually recycled and reused, and no production process water is discharged into the county’s waterways, sewer systems or the groundwater sources. In fact, the only water we discharge into the sewer system is from sinks, toilets, and showers, and residual water from the reverse osmosis treatment processes.

As part of our efforts to reduce water consumption, this new facility uses rainwater, collected in secure on-site basins (ponds), as the primary source of water in the production process. Total water consumption will not exceed 125,000 gallons per day. In cases when rainwater is not sufficient, our water supply will be supplemented by the local public water utility. For a sense of perspective, the local aquifer replenishes at a rate of approximately 91 million gallons per day.

The rainwater collection ponds have both been designed and developed with sufficient capacity to withstand a 100-year storm event. In addition, the rainwater collection pond shown to the right of our facility in the image below has been engineered by ROCKWOOL with an additional 250 percent storage capacity to provide a greater margin of environmental safety to prevent flooding or overflow from excess rainfall. The second on-site pond is connected to a controlled overflow area where it is permitted to discharge excess collected rainwater in compliance with the West Virginia Multi-Sector Permit.

Building on karst geology has been taken into consideration in the design of this manufacturing site. The specific design elements that contribute to ensuring the protection of the karst geology include:

• The production process water is in a closed-loop (some will naturally evaporate). 
• Rainwater from areas outside production and from raw material storage areas is collected and used in the production process.
• Storage tanks are in secondary containment and both the tanks, as well as the pipes connecting them, are above ground to enable close monitoring of the system. 

Several additional steps are being taken to prevent any contamination – most notably that special tank loading and unloading areas will capture and manage any incidental drips, and the binder is stored under a closed roof in above-ground storage tanks. 

Drinking water we take in from the utility water supply is purified for use in the industrial process by removing lime and other minerals, and then the residual is discharged into the sewer system. The discharged wastewater contains a similar mineral makeup to what’s in the utility water supply albeit in greater concentrations (ca. 4x). The maximum volume of residual water from the purification process that will go to the Charles Town Waste Water Treatment Plant (CTWWTP) is 14,900 gallons per day (GPD).

The visual below shows how we recycle water in our production process and utilize rainwater capture as part of a process that avoids production process wastewater discharges into any waterways, sewer systems or the ground. 

Reducing noise levels during operations

Under the local noise ordinance, the general requirement is to not exceed 65dB (equal to the average volume of conversation in a school classroom) for more than 30 minutes. The facility will not exceed these permitted levels as outlined in the Jefferson County Commission (JCC) Noise Ordinance Policy.

During operations, our experiences from other factories that we operate show that we do not anticipate levels above 50 dB at our property line, which is equivalent to a quiet suburb or a conversation at home.

At ROCKWOOL, we strive to maintain strong relationships with our neighbors through open communication and have accomplished that with our factories in North America and around the world. We take complaints seriously, investigate and take corrective actions.

Since it began operations in 2014, our sister facility in Marshall County, Mississippi has received zero noise complaints. ROCKWOOL uses much of the same technology that has achieved those results, at our Ranson, West Virginia location.

^Sources

^{1EPA Jefferson County Inventory, 2014 (data published in July of 2018)}

^{2Phenol is not included in the EPA database but does appear in our permit.}

^{3Jefferson County Development Authority - Tourism}