DEP Cites Company That Moved Chemicals for Freedom Industries

West Virginia regulators have issued notices of environmental violations to a company that cleaned up and hauled a chemical from the site of a spill which contaminated the tap water of 300,000 residents.
 
The Department of Environmental Protection said Friday it issued two violations to Diversified Services LLC in St. Albans after a sheen was detected in a drainage system that empties into a tributary of the Kanawha River.

The citations include a stormwater permit violation and a failure to minimize or prevent a potentially harmful discharge. The DEP says the chemical was detected in the drainage system near Diversified Services’ facility.
 
The company worked for Freedom Industries to remove a coal-cleaning agent after the Jan. 9 spill in Charleston.
 
Diversified has until March 26 to respond to the violations.

     
 

FBI Visits Company that Hauled Chemicals for Freedom Industries

Federal agents have visited a company that cleaned up and hauled chemicals from the site of a spill that contaminated 300,000 West Virginians’ water.
 

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin confirmed that FBI investigators were at Diversified Services LLC in St. Albans on Thursday. Goodwin could not comment on why they were there.

Diversified Services received almost $433,000 from Freedom Industries in January, according to court documents. The company had worked for Freedom Industries well before the incident, however.
 
The spill spurred a water-use ban for days.
 
Freedom is also nearing a March 15 deadline to start tearing down its tanks at the Charleston site of the spill, per state orders.
 
Some witnesses, including state environmental inspectors, have already appeared in front of a federal grand jury for the Freedom investigation.

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