West Virginia
Solid Waste Program
West Virginia Solid Waste Program
The Solid Waste Program of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) is responsible for ensuring that solid waste facilities in the state hold a valid permit to install, establish, construct, modify, operate or close. It sits in the Division of Water and Waste Management, and the Water and Waste section of the division's Environmental Enforcement inspects the facilities the division permits.
In a Phase I ESA
WVDEP's solid waste permits are the West Virginia form of the state landfill and solid waste disposal site records that ASTM E1527-21 lists as a standard source. The general reading of a landfill listing is on the landfills and solid waste page. Four West Virginia details shape the search.
- A permit is not always a landfill. WVDEP lists the facility types it permits: landfills, transfer stations, waste tire monofills, construction and demolition landfills, yard waste or sewage sludge composting facilities, and solid waste storage and support facilities for incinerators and recycling facilities. Read the facility type before reading a listing as a disposal site.
- Landfills closed with state help are a separate record. They are on the Landfill Closure Assistance Program page. Illegal dumps are on the Pollution Prevention and Open Dump Program page.
- A landfill can hold waste that is not household waste. The program reviews analytical results to approve or deny special waste requests, handled as minor permit modifications, for wastes such as discarded chemicals and pesticides, foundry sand, oil spill cleanups, petroleum contaminated soils and other wastes not regulated as hazardous.
- Other bodies are in the permit. WVDEP says it works with the Public Service Commission, the Solid Waste Management Board, and county and regional solid waste authorities, among others. Its permitting steps include a certificate of need from the Public Service Commission and a certificate of site approval, so those bodies are places to ask as well.
What a facility file can hold
WVDEP's description of its work shows the paper a permitted facility generates:
- a Part I site evaluation application and a Part II design application;
- a background investigation of the applicant, with a disclosure statement;
- the draft permit and its public notice;
- performance bond and financial assurance reviews;
- quality assurance inspections of construction and of closure;
- monthly tonnage reports and groundwater monitoring reports from the permittee;
- special waste requests, and major and minor permit modifications.
The rule is the Solid Waste Management Rule, 33CSR1, under the Solid Waste Management Act, W. Va. Code Chapter 22, Article 15.
Where to look a site up
- WVDEP's Solid Waste Facilities Permitting page links a List of Active Municipal Solid Waste Disposal Facilities and Transfer Stations, which is on another state site, swmb.wv.gov. As its name says, it is a list of active facilities.
- WVDEP says permits for the Division of Water and Waste Management are searchable through the e-Permitting Applications Search, the public query of its Electronic Submission System, with no account needed.
Getting the file
The solid waste pages name no records route of their own. The Division of Water and Waste Management's main page links the agency's Request Information page for a Freedom of Information Act request, which can also be emailed to depfoia@wv.gov. WVDEP's document database is Application Enhancer. See the Application Enhancer page.
Sources
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection pages, read October 7, 2026, no modified date shown: