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Three Years After the Elk River Chemical Spill, Advocates Continue to Work to Protect Drinking Water

Monday marks the third anniversary of the Elk River chemical spill that left more than 300,000 West Virginians without usable drinking water for more than a week. The leak originated at Freedom Industries just outside of Charleston.

After the spill, the West Virginia Legislature passed a bill that required 125 public water systems across the state to write improved source water protection plans. Those plans included updated inventories of potential contamination sources as well as new contingency plans to respond effectively to potential spills. They also required the systems look at alternative water intakes so that if there was a problem with a primary intake they could still provide clean water to customers.

Evan Hansen is an advisor to the WV Rivers Water Policy Workgroup. He said the main challenge now is implementing the laws that have been written.

“The commission has a total of 17 recommendations that we will be providing to the legislature,” he said. “Some require changes to the state code or the state rules and some require additional appropriations – especially appropriations to the Bureau for Public Health that can get passed on to the local water systems to help with implementation.”

Hansen worked on the 2014 legislation and says the bill was not a partisan issue then. He hopes the House and Senate will continue to work together to provide clean drinking water for West Virginians.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

DHHR Continues Source Water Protection Plan Hearings

Since July 1, the state Bureau for Public Health has been holding public hearings across West Virginia to discuss proposed Source Water Protection Plans.

The plans are the result of legislation approved after a 2014 chemical spill in Charleston left hundreds of thousands of people without usable drinking water for days.

Monday evening was the second time citizens in the Kanawha Valley—those who were directly impacted by the spill—were able to comment on their local plan.

The public hearing in South Charleston focused on West Virginia American Water’s proposal submitted this summer. The company is one of 125 utilities required to submit the proposals, and Scott Rodeheaver, Assistant Manager for the Source Water Protection Program at DHHR, says public hearings are being held to discuss each one.

“It varies from place to place what the exact issues are,” Rodeheaver said, “but I think the people that come are concerned about the long term quality of the water supply in their area.”

Only six people attended Monday’s hearing, including Phil Price. He’s a semi-retired analytical chemist who works with the Charleston-based group Advocates for a Safe Water System. Price claims West Virginia American Water’s plans are not adequate.

“Many, many, many, many of the hazards upstream from our intake are excluded from the plan,” Price explained. He points to Yeager Airport as one of those hazards. But Laura Martin, the company’s External Affairs Manager, says her utility is prepared.

“What is outlined in state law is a zone of critical concern and then a zone of peripheral concern, and if we feel that there are entities or aboveground storage tanks or other facilities located outside of those, we have included them in our plan,” Martin said.

The plans need final approval from the DHHR before taking effect.

Two Years After Chemical Spill, Water Utilities Submit Protection Plans

Source water protection plans are mandates water utilities are required to follow to keep drinking water safe. However, before 2014, following these plans in West Virginia was voluntary. Since the January 2014 Elk River chemical spill, though, legislation was put in place requiring about 125 water systems in the state to have these plans. The law also made what was already on the books much stronger.

Friday, July 1 is the deadline for water and sewer utilities to submit their new plans to the state Bureau for Public Health. Liz McCormick has been following this story and brings us a look into how two utilities – large and small – have been dealing with the new regulatory landscape.

Source water protection plans in West Virginia aren’t anything new, water utilities across the state have been asked to have them for years. But after a coal cleaning chemical leaked into the Kanawha Valley water supply in 2014 leaving, 300,000 people without drinking water, state lawmakers decided to make a change. Senator John Unger headed up that process.

“And then when the chemical spill happened, and the water became a top issue again. Then this was a time that we needed to address protecting our water resources here from chemical contaminations,” Unger said.

The 2014 bill did two things – it changed the way aboveground storage tanks are regulated, and it required 125 water systems in West Virginia to create and implement source water protection plans.

The Harpers Ferry Water Works. It’s a small utility that serves drinking water to about 800 customers in Harpers Ferry, Bolivar, and the National Park Service. The utility doesn’t provide sewer service.

“This facility was built in 1985, so it’s pretty old, but it’s worked pretty well,” said Josh Carter, the Water System Manager for the Harpers Ferry Water Works, “It’s a small operation, but it actually serves a whole lot of people.”

In fact, it’s the smallest water utility in Jefferson County falling under the new source water protection plan requirements. Those plans contain six things: a management plan, a contingency plan, engineering details, an inventory of potential sources of significant contamination, a communication plan, and an early warning monitoring system.

For larger water utilities – like the Morgantown Utility Board which serves 25,000 customers – those requirements were easy to meet.

“You know the honest answer is, it’s as tough as the utility chooses to make it,” explained Tim Ball, MUB’s general manager, “We made it tough on ourselves. We imposed a high standard. We tried to include multiple scenarios, and we’ve committed to a level of preparedness that I’m pretty confident that most of the state has not committed to.”

MUB was the first water utility in the state to provide its new source water protection plan to the public for comment. But Ball’s feelings weren’t shared by every water system.

As lawmakers crafted those requirements in 2014, many small utilities cried out for help, saying the plans would be too expensive to draft and implement. So, the state is providing about two and a half million dollars for these smaller systems.

“The funding has been provided through a series of grants during 2015 and 2016 to assist in the development of various sections of the source water protection plans for about 116 of the 125 public water utilities,” said Rahul Gupta, the Commissioner for the state Bureau for Public Health.

Harpers Ferry Water Works was one of those 116 water utilities in the state that qualified for the aid. Still, Barbara Humes, Harpers Ferry’s water commissioner, says her town already had a source water protection plan in place dating back to 2011. She says updating for the 2014 requirements wasn’t as difficult as it could have been.

“It didn’t really scare us at all, it didn’t… All we had to do was dig through our data and develop a team,” Humes said.

Harper’s Ferry, the Morgantown Utility Board and 123 other water utilities are required to turn in their source water protection plans Friday. From there, the state Bureau for Public Health will review the plans and give them a final approval. But Rahul Gutpa says these documents won’t just be put away.

“It’s important to highlight that this is not a stale document that gets put on the shelf,” he noted, “It’s a dynamic, living and breathing document.”

Utilities will be required to renew their source water protection plans in three years.

Chemours to Pay for Carbon Filter Installation in Vienna

A company has agreed to pay for the installation of carbon filters in Vienna’s water treatment plant.

Vienna Mayor Randy Rapp says the installation paid for by Wilmington, Delaware-based Chemours Co. will begin immediately.

Rapp told the Parkersburg News and Sentinel the filters are temporary while construction begins on a permanent facility.

West Virginia officials issued a “Do Not Drink” advisory last week for Vienna water after the Environmental Protection Agency announced a new limit for the chemical C8 present in Wood County’s drinking water. C8 levels in the city’s water source are slightly above the new limit.

C8 was used until 2013 in the manufacture of Teflon at the DuPont Washington Works plant along the Ohio River. Chemours is a spinoff of DuPont’s performance chemicals division.

Ohio Jury to Decide Suit Over Chemical DuPont Put in Water

Jurors are deliberating in the federal case of an Ohio woman who says she got cancer after drinking water contaminated by a chemical from a DuPont plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia.

It’s one of two test cases that could influence thousands of similar lawsuits about the chemical giant’s discharging of C8 into the Ohio River and drinking water.

The Columbus Dispatch reports jurors heard closing arguments Tuesday.

Attorneys for Guysville resident Carla Bartlett argue Delaware-based DuPont long knew about C8 risks but downplayed or hid that from the public. They say DuPont tested the blood of employees who worked with C8.

DuPont attorney Damon Mace told jurors that workers drank the same water as residents. He says: “Just because C8 is capable of causing cancer doesn’t mean it did.”

From Springs to Spills: How Does West Virginia's Water Taste to International Judges?

Appalachia is no stranger to industrial or environmental disasters that affect our water. Because of crumbling water infrastructure in many coalfield communities, folks often turn to bottled water for regular use.

But not all bottled water is equal. At least that’s according to judges at the 25th annual Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting & Competition, which took place February 19-22. The competition judges the taste of bottled water, purified water, and municipal city waters from across the world were judged.

At the water tasting and competition this year, there was some talk about the recent derailment in Fayette County.

“Well, it’s tragic. What has happened in West Virginia. And two years in a row right before the water tasting, it’s almost ironic,” said Arthur Von Wiesenberger, referring to the timing of last year’s competition, which took place about a month after the Elk River chemical spill. Wiesenberger who has trained the judges at Berkeley Springs every year since the competition started in 1990.

“I guess on the good side, it brings an enormous amount of awareness to the importance of water. And how we take clean pure water for granted until you do have a disaster. And then you do realize that this is something that’s very subject to contamination and to problems.”

Wiesenberger added that throughout the competition’s twenty-five years, some of West Virginia’s water has been judged as the best tasting water in the world.

The Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting & Competition judges bottled water and municipal water. And guess which city won the best tasting water in the world, back in 1991, and 1993, 1994? Charleston West Virginia.

Yes, that same water, which last year became notorious across the globe for its poisonous taste of liquorice-infused MCHM– that water previously won gold medals at the International Water Tasting Competition.

And since last year’s chemical spill in Charleston, West Virginia, storekeepers say they’ve seen an increase in the number of bottled water sales.

Volunteers in Kanawha County helped with water distribution during last year’s water crisis that affected the drinking water of 300,000 people.

Allan Hathaway owns the Purple Onion grocery store at the Capitol Market. “Bottled water sales have been up over the last year. A lot of consumers are switching to bottled water, not only because of the water issue but also cutting back on soft drinks.”

The Purple Onion does sell spring water from West Virginia, including water from Sweet Springs in Monroe County.

In previous years, the Sweet Springs water company won four international first-place awards for the best-tasting water at the Berkley Springs Intentional Water Tasting and Competition.

Sweet Springs Valley Water Company is located near the site of one of West Virginia’s historic mineral springs hotels. Before her death, 102-year old Pauline Baker told The Traveling 219 Project what it was like to grow up in Sweet Springs during the 1920s. She described those days gone by, when fine ladies used to bathe in the mineral waters wearing suits down to their knees, and guests from all over the world used to dine in the great Jeffersonian Hall. When the hotel was abandoned during the Great Depression, she said the neighborhood children used to go down to swim in the mineral pools.

Sweet Springs is just one example of the many old springs resorts that used to exist throughout West Virginia. Berkeley Springs is also home to one of those early resorts and is still a popular tourist destinations today. The Greenbrier is another.

However celebrated West Virginia’s water has been throughout the years, this year many overseas companies outranked local water companies in the bottled water categories. 1st place for the best bottled water this year was awarded to Fengari Platinum, Platinum Class Mineral Water, Athens, Greece. Best Sparkling water also went to a Greek company– Daphne-Ultra Premium Quality Natural Mineral Sparkling.

This year one company from W.Va. did win one of the top awards: Lesage Natural Water from Cabell County, West Virginia won the fourth place award for a new category: best purified water. Their water is not taken directly from a spring, like Sweet Springs, but rather is taken from a well and is then put through a filtration system. Lesage is located along the Ohio River.

Ranking just after Lesage for 5th place for the best purified water was Mountain Drop, Linthicum, MD, which bottles water that is shipped from Berkeley Springs.

Another Appalachian winner this year was Halstead Spring Water in East Tennessee, which won third prize for the world’s best bottled water. In 2000, Halstead Spring won the gold medal at the competition. The company’s owner, John Beitz, says that their water business is booming, and they’re looking to expand and hire about one or two new full time employees in the next year. The spring water that they bottle comes directly from a spring, known to locals in Speedwell, TN as “cold spring.” Beitz says the water they sell lives up to that reputation.

Cecelia Mason of Shepherd University contributed to this story. She was one of the judges at this year’s Berkeley Springs Water Tasting and Competition.