300,000 people have their drinking water poisoned by
a coal chemical in a disaster declared by a state and the federal government.
Do we know what’s in that coal ash
coal ash
in the Lowndes County landfill?
Do we trust a pipeline company
with
a long list of safety violations
to dig into our aquifer?
David Jackson wrote for USA Today yesterday,
Obama sends disaster aid to West Virginia,
President Obama is sending federal assistance to West Virginia,
where schools and businesses are closed after a chemical spill
Thursday into a Charleston river.“The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of
West Virginia and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local
response efforts,” said an administration statement on Friday
morning.Under the order, the Department of Homeland Security and Federal
Emergency Management Agency will coordinate efforts with local
officials.
Kiley Kroh
wrote for Thinkprogress yesterday,
West Virginia Declares State Of Emergency After Coal Chemical Contaminates Drinking Water,
Residents of nine counties in West Virginia have been told not to
use or drink their water after a chemical used by the coal industry
spilled into the Elk River on Thursday. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin
declared a state of emergency as more than 100,000 customers, or
300,000 people, are without safe drinking water.“Don’t make baby formula,” said West Virginia American
Water Company president Jeff McIntyre. “Don’t brush your
teeth. Don’t shower. Toilet flushing only.”
Ned Resnikoff wrote for MSNBC yesterday,
West Virginia chemical spill leaves 300,000 without clean water,
The leak started in Charleston, West Virginia’s capital, the county
seat for Kanawha County, and the state’s largest city. Local
officials became aware that something was wrong around 10 am
Thursday morning, after residents called to complain of a black
licorice smell in the water, according to Kanawha County director of
homeland security and emergency management Dale Petry. After
consultation with the local health department and state authorities,
the West Virginia American Water Company warning went out a little
before 6 p.m.“This has been devastating to the public at large and the
people who live in our city,” said Mayor Danny Jones of
Charleston, W.Va. in a Friday morning press conference.
Shades of the
Waycross Seven Out Superfund site:
The spill originated at a chemical storage facility run by the
Charleston-based company
Freedom Industries, when a 48,000 gallon
tank dumped an indeterminate amount of the compound
4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol into the Elk River. The chemical, also
known as MCHM, is used by coal companies to wash and prepare their
product. People who are exposed to a sufficient quantity of MCHM may
experience vomiting, skin blistering and shortness of breath. Very
little is known about the other potential health consequences of
exposure to the compound.
Ken Ward Jr. wrote for wvgazette.com yesterday,
Freedom Industries cited for Elk chemical spill,
Virginia inspectors arrived at Freedom Industries late Thursday
morning, they discovered that the company had taken “no spill
containment measures” to combat the chemical spill that has put
drinking water supplies off-limits for hundreds of thousands of
residents.The state Department of Environmental Protection said Freedom
Industries violated the West Virginia’s Air Pollution Control Act
and the Water Pollution Control Act by allowing the chemical “Crude
MCHM,” consisting mostly of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, to escape
from its facility, just upstream from West Virginia American Water’s
regional intake in the Elk River.
What do we know about
what burned at Perma-Fix in Valdosta in August
or what is leaking from that chemical treatment plant into our aquifer
or downhill into the Withlacoochee River?
Greg Botelho and Tom Watkins wrote for CNN today,
Chemical levels in West Virginia water drop, but still no end in sight to ban,
Freedom Industries is feeling the heat from others as well.
President Gary Southern tried several times to walk away from a
press conference Friday evening, saying “it has been an extremely
long day,” only to be called back by insistent reporters —
including one who noted how long a day it has been for all the West
Virginians now without drinkable water or a full explanation as to
why.“This incident is extremely unfortunate and unanticipated,” Southern
said. “… This has been a very, very taxing process.”
Poor baby: feeling taxed because his company poisoned drinking water
for 300,000 people.
Shauna Johnson wrote for MetroNews yesterday,
Company president tells different leak story than DEP,
Southern said the problem tank had been emptied by Friday evening
and its contents were moved off site. The next step in remediation,
he said, would be to remove dirt that may be contaminated from the
property.
That “next step”
still isn’t done in Waycross many years later.
Once contamination gets into the ground, it’s very hard to get it back out.
The CNN story concluded:
“I do not know how long this will last,” the governor said.
Cassady Sharp
wrote for Greenpeace yesterday,
Hours before chemical spill, West Virginia Governor promises to keep coal industry “alive and well”.
The disaster of continued spills and
contamination will last until we got off of fossil fuels.
How about we stop poisoning people with coal and fracked “natural” gas
(no, nukes are not the answer), and get on with solar and wind power?
-jsq