Former TV news reporter Kallie Cart talks about her water crisis coverage 10 years later, especially a live interview that went viral.
A chemical spill into the Elk River 10 years ago this week contaminated drinking water for more than a quarter million West Virginians. The water crisis sent people to the hospital, closed schools and businesses and became a national story of corporate distrust and community action. But the news reports began on the local level.
Kallie Cart is now the deputy chief of staff for the state auditor’s office. Ten years ago, she was a reporter and anchor for Channel 8 out of Charleston and one of the lead journalists covering the devastating event.
Cart spoke with Randy Yohe about her water crisis coverage, especially a live interview that went viral.
Yohe: Kallie, you were at WCHS-TV at the time of the water crisis. What were your duties? And how did you first learn there was a water problem?
Cart: At the time of the water crisis, I was a reporter and also an anchor. We were actually getting ready to launch a 5 p.m. newscast. We knew something serious was going on. WCHS is on Piedmont Road, near Freedom Industries, actually, and we could smell the licorice early on in the day. We didn’t know what it was, but we knew something had happened. Then we started to realize something very serious had happened. And then they called a press conference to issue the “do not use” order at about 6 p.m. or 6:30 p.m., something like that.
Yohe: What happened next?
Cart: That press conference was with Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and the water company. They were explaining to folks what they knew had happened at that point, that there was some chemical that had gotten into the water supply. They didn’t shut off the valves leading into the river, and it had gotten into the water supply. And basically they had issued this widespread “do not use” order for folks in nine different counties. That covered hundreds of thousands of people, because they talked about it in households. There were a lot of people, right after dinner time, who were being told your water has been contaminated, do not use.
Yohe: The toxic chemical leak came from a Freedom Industries’ above ground storage tank. Talk about your live interview with Freedom Industries President Gary Southern.
Cart: That was the next day. And it was a press conference, I’m sure you’re familiar with, where everyone is invited to come. We hadn’t heard a word from Freedom Industries since they had poisoned the water. So everyone was obviously anxious to hear what they had to say and to learn more about what had happened, and to learn more about this chemical that we really didn’t know a lot about. So it was a really scary time for people.
This could have been, and it ended up being, our one and only chance to hear from Freedom Industries about what was going on. So I obviously had a lot of questions, as I always did for all stories. To me, it was just a normal press conference. He didn’t really give us much information. But as I said, I was armed with a lot of questions. And so as he tried to wrap things up, I just was like, “well, wait, we’re not done here,” and I think he’d said something to the effect of, “look, it’s been a long day, you know, I’m done with this, it’s time for me to go.” And I was like, “well, it’s been a long day for a lot of people who don’t have water. So I want to know, XYZ.” Then I peppered him with a lot of questions, and then I still had more questions as he was trying to walk away.
I think that’s what everyone talks about, because that was like, hey, get back here, we’re not done. To my surprise, he turned around and came back. I was just doing my job, but that was one of the first times that they started to live stream press conferences. That wasn’t happening a lot 10 years ago. So after it was done, my phone started blowing up and people were texting me and calling me and I’m like, what happened, I’m a little bit confused. So yeah, it just kind of took off from there.
Yohe: It has become a journalistic touchstone in a way, hasn’t it?
Cart: Yes, it really has. And that does make me proud. I mean, to this day, people will say, “oh, I loved your Freedom Industries press conference,” or “you’re the girl from that press conference.” And whenever other journalists say it, it does make me proud, because that’s what we’re supposed to advocate for the people that are in our community.
Yohe: Your pregnancy came into play in your coverage, did it not?
Kallie Cart being interviewed on CNN.
Courtesy of Kallie Cart/CNN
Cart: I was about seven and a half months pregnant during that interview, and during the water crisis. So I was in an interesting position, being not only a journalist working for Channel 8, but also I was a victim and a victim in this kind of rare class of people. Then the next day, they said, “wait, wait, wait, everyone can use the water, except for people who are pregnant.” That was scary. A lot of people who were pregnant were turning to me to find out what’s going on. We just didn’t feel safe, and that was an interesting position to be in.
Going back to the interview, a lot of people were like, don’t mess with a pregnant woman, she was mad. I was like, well, that was how I operated all the time. I mean, I was always prepared for interviews. So it really had nothing to do with me being pregnant and grouchy, I probably was a little extra grouchy, but as the time went on, I realized kind of what was happening. I couldn’t use the water in my own home. I had the licorice smell at my house. It was scary. So I did an interview with ABC News. I think I did a couple of other interviews, talking about being pregnant. I went on CNN.
Yohe: I saw in the interview that Southern was holding a bottle of water.
Cart: That infuriated people because you could not get bottled water. We weren’t prepared. There was a run on grocery stores. You couldn’t find bottled water, you couldn’t find baby wipes. You couldn’t find it, because I was looking for something to wipe my makeup off at night because I didn’t have a way to clean my face or anything else. So you couldn’t find any of these supplies for several days, and eventually the distribution systems got caught up, but of course you’re not prepared for something like that. So yeah, him pulling out a bottle of Aquafina or whatever it was definitely did not sit well.
On this West Virginia Morning, ten years ago, a state of emergency and water advisory was issued for nine West Virginia counties following a chemical spill in the Elk River. We look back on that day and the effects of the past decade.
On this West Virginia Morning, ten years ago, a state of emergency and water advisory was issued for nine West Virginia counties following a chemical spill in the Elk River. Appalachia Health News Reporter Emily Rice has more on the health effects of the past decade.
Also, in this show, the water crisis closed schools and businesses and became a national story of corporate distrust and community action, but the news reports began on the local level. Kallie Cart is now the deputy chief of staff for the state auditor’s office. Ten years ago, she was a reporter and anchor for Channel 8 out of Charleston and one of the lead journalists covering the devastating event. Cart spoke with Randy Yohe about her water crisis coverage, especially a live interview that went viral.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Eric Douglas produced this episode.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
This article was updated on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021, to include information about a new reference to the House Health and Human Resources Committee.
The House of Delegates is on track to consider a bill that would exempt oil and gas operators closest to intake sites for drinking water from the 2014 Aboveground Storage Tank Act.
Under existing law, above-ground storage tanks holding water and other byproduct materials gathered from gas and oil drilling are subject to yearly inspections and rules for maintenance.
However, House Bill 2598 would exempt oil and gas operators, who own tanks located within five hours of an intake site for drinking water, from these requirements.
Since passing a law for above-ground tanks in 2014, state lawmakers already have exempted oil and gas companies who operate tanks at farther distances from intake sites.
A representative for the Department for Environmental Protection reported that this bill would apply to 887 oil and gas tank operators.
Advocates for the legislation brushed off most safety concerns Tuesday, arguing that these tanks hold mostly harmless brine water.
However, experts that testified before the House Energy and Manufacturing Committee pointed out this brine water also carries varying degrees of hazardous compounds like benzene and radium, which in high amounts can lead to cancer.
Phillip Reale, a lobbyist for oil and gas companies, told the committee on Tuesday that the bill will save costs for small operators who, by his estimate, are subject to more than 40 inspections a year through other laws established to protect water quality.
“It’s not like these aren’t being looked at,” said Reale, adding that most operators inspect their tanks independently to “preserve investment.”
“If there’s a serious issue here, it’s addressed as quickly as possible.”
However, Democrats on the committee, like Del. Kayla Young of Kanawha County, argued that the bill repeals a law that has been working well to prevent spills and contamination.
“I think those of us here in Kanawha County will never forget what happened in 2014,” Young said in committee Tuesday, referring to the Elk River chemical spill that lead to the Aboveground Storage Tank Act in the first place. “I have children. I’m sure a lot of you have children, and I want to know that their water is safe. And I don’t think this is the way to do that.”
Members of the Energy and Manufacturing Committee heard on Tuesday from Dorothy Vesper, a professor at West Virginia University who’s been studying West Virginia water resources since 2002.
The committee also heard testimony from Mark Kozar, a hydrologist for the United States Geological Survey.
Kozar helped author a report in 2016 that found the Ohio River, one of the state’s largest sources for drinking water, is especially susceptible to compounds that are associated with above-ground storage tanks, like benzene and radium.
Committee members spent more than an hour and a half questioning experts and debating the bill Tuesday. Del. Mark Zatezalo, R-Hancock, told lawmakers that as a hydrogeologist, he had a hard time believing the bill’s passage would have severe environmental impacts.
“I have a real hard time seeing impacts to the environment because of the small volume,” Zatezalo said. “The inspections that go on catch these things relatively fast. Not always perfectly, but relatively fast.”
Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, said it’s likely that people can’t identify any recent examples of contamination because the Aboveground Storage Tank Act is doing its job.
“The system is working,” said Hansen, an environmental scientist. “The fact that we have had leaks and spills from some of these tanks, but those are getting less and less frequent, that’s a good thing.”
Although the committee on Tuesday rejected a request to do so by Del. Ed Evans, D-McDowell, the bill by Wednesday had been referred to the House Health and Human Resources Committee for consideration.
Committee chair Bill Anderson also denied requests from the public for a hearing on the bill, before the full House takes it up for a vote.
House Delegates agreed before session to amend the chamber’s rules for public hearings, in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
New, temporary rules for the 2021 session allow committee chairmen the discretion to deny a request for a public hearing, depending on timeliness, committee size and demands of staff.
Temporary rules also allow electronic hearings when possible.
A federal judge has given final approval of a $151 million settlement of a lawsuit stemming from a chemical spill into a West Virginia river.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver granted approval Friday of a 2014 settlement between plaintiffs and West Virginia American Water and Eastman Chemical Co.
Businesses and residents sued after a chemical known as Crude MCHM spilled from a storage tank at Freedom Industries into the Elk River, upriver from West Virginia American Water’s plant in Charleston.
The class-action lawsuit claimed West Virginia American Water didn’t react to or prepare for the spill, and that Eastman Chemical, which made MCHM, didn’t do enough to warn Freedom Industries of the chemical’s danger. The settlement is supposed to cover 300,000 people who were told not to drink, clean with or bathe in the water for days after the spill.
There is a 30-day appeal window, and those who filed claims in the lawsuit will start getting checks sometime after that, lawyers said.
However, it’s still not clear exactly when claimants will start getting their checks, said Anthony Majestro, a lawyer for the residents.
The settlement administrator is “engaged in the tedious process” of looking at the claims to make sure they’re correct, the judge’s order reads. Those who need to fix their claims will have 30 days to do so.
Initial estimates indicated residential households would receive $550 for the house, plus $180 for each additional member. But payments might ultimately be 20 percent lower than originally predicted, the order states.
A lawyer for West Virginia residents affected by a 2014 chemical spill says they will not receive settlements until a judge’s final approval, and administrators finish processing the over 95,000 claims.
Attorney Anthony Majestro tells The Charleston Gazette-Mail no one will be paid without U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr.’s order.
The $151 million class-action settlement covered anyone who may have received tap water from West Virginia American Water Company’s Elk River intake plant or businesses that suffered from the spill at Freedom Industries. An estimated 300,000 people were without water for days.
The lawsuit says West Virginia American didn’t react to or prepare for the spill, and Eastman Chemical Co. didn’t properly warn Freedom about the chemical’s dangers or take appropriate action.
Looking back, four years after the 2014 Elk River chemical spill
There’s an old-time method I use for preserving trout. It’s a simple process — coating fresh fillets with coarse salt until the moisture is withdrawn and the flesh stiffens. Prior to the 1920s, salting of red-bellied speckled brook trout was a thing of ritual in highland communities. At some point, the tradition slipped away. That didn’t happen because the convenience of electric refrigerators made salt-preservation unnecessary. It happened when reckless logging operations ruined high-elevation streams. To make salt trout a century ago, you’d need access to a healthy supply of catchable fish, and native trout don’t survive in tainted waters.
Buried in the story of salt trout is an important lesson — not about ingredients or technique — but about the relationship West Virginians have with land and water. It’s about place-based cultures, unbridled greed and our forebears’ ghostly heartache that deepens each time streams are diminished in the name of extractive riches. When endless clearcuts led to fish kills high in the mountains, more than a protein-rich culinary provision went absent from kitchens and earthen cellars. For people who drew sustenance from those rivers, and those of us who follow in their footsteps, an important piece of their heritage — our heritage — suddenly went missing.
I know about these things, how a connection to resources shapes our identity. I was born into a long line of Appalachians whose livelihoods depended on waterways. They were river people, you could say. Most of them passed on long before my time, but I’ve seen their striking images in family albums, and I’ve heard their stories. I want to believe the plight of river people — my family and others like them — can inspire us to avoid life-altering disasters that occur when we compromise precious resources for economic gain. It’s why I’m compelled to share the lessons of salt trout and other stories about river people — stories, I feel, are important to remember.
I remember what happened to river people four years ago this month. I remember when toxic chemicals spilled from a corroded storage tank near Charleston; when 300,000 West Virginians lost access to potable water; when small businesses in nine counties were forced to close; when residents were told the water was safe to use again … although it actually wasn’t.
I remember social media posts from friends back home, how they evolved from vignettes of annoyance to panicked concerns about young children whose rashes and vomiting intensified in the days after the spill. I remember watching politicians who’d made careers of de-regulating industry fumble their way through a hastily-conceived response. I remember feeling cynical, furious and helpless. I remember looking ahead in the weeks and months after the spill, thinking to myself, “Is any of this going to matter in a few years?”
When I first heard the news of the incident on the afternoon of January 9, 2014 it all felt so familiar. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that chemical spills in a place dubbed “The Chemical Valley” aren’t exactly unheard of. I’d routinely seen coverage of them as a kid, and this was the third since 2009. We’d been here before. Or so it seemed.
Industrial disasters in the Charleston area typically occur along the Kanawha River, from looming vestiges of a once-prominent industry — aged tanks and chemical manufacturing facilities like the DuPont Chemical plant where both my aunt and my grandfather found work. But this spill occurred on the Elk, just a few miles from where I grew up. This time, it hit home.
To say the Elk is a lifeblood of central West Virginia is not an understatement. Winding over the Central Allegheny Plateau, it’s a river to which my ancestors and I are inextricably linked. I’ve never gotten a tattoo, but I’ve often thought about it — what it would look like and where it would be drawn. I’ve pondered it long enough to know a map depicting the Elk, from start to finish — all 170-some miles — would be fitting.
The map I’ve envisioned would be simple and discrete, made up of thin lines beginning near my right shoulder, running up and down the inside of my arm. It would start where pristine headwaters tumble down the mountains of Pocahontas and Webster Counties, where I learned to fly-fish, watched black bears traipse through rocky stream beds and came to appreciate the infinite rewards of nature’s solitude. The sketch would meander over the slope of my bicep to the crevice of my elbow, where, in the relative lowlands of Braxton County, the river passes slowly and quietly, translucent, with a mesmerizing emerald hue. There would be a notch representing the modest house in Sutton where my grandmother was born, then another downriver at Gassaway, the birthplace of my grandfather. I’d mark the tiny fishing camp in Clay County, where, during her childhood years, my mother’s summertime meals included catfish snagged from metal Jon Boats and legs of bullfrogs gigged from shoreline reeds. Some of the Elk’s tributaries would be drawn, too — Birch River and Middle Run, where my great-great-grandfather baptised faithful souls in frigid waters, or the sycamore-shaded alcoves of Blue Creek and Little Sandy, where my friends and I watched our youthful innocence fade into the nascent trials of adolescence. Back on the mainstem, my lower forearm would show my hometown of Elkview in the stretch between Falling Rock and Mink Shoals, a twelve-or-so-mile segment that includes my former elementary school, middle school and high school, each building situated within yards of the river. Finally, the map would end near my wrist, as the Elk meets the mighty Kanawha, where I came into the world in 1983.
Whether or not I’ll ever hire an artist to apply their inked needles to my skin, the Elk will always be imprinted upon me. The river is part of me, and what happens there is part of my story. The qualities I’d expect from a tattoo — pride, pain, permanence — they already exist as products of a complicated relationship with place.
The memories of my upbringing along the river are overwhelmingly fond, but we can’t pick and choose which parts of our place-based legacy we inherit. When I think about my grandfather teaching me how to clean and gut a fish, I’m obligated to remember my great-grandfather was a logger no doubt responsible, in some way, for the demise of fragile trout streams. And with every dose of feel-good Elk River nostalgia come acknowledgements to the contrary — families displaced from homesteads to construct Sutton Lake and Dam, recent floods destroying much of my hometown, and, of course, a heavy dose of poison making the Elk River infamous four years ago.
Crude 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol, commonly known as MCHM, is the substance that trickled out from a 46,000 gallon storage facility operated by Freedom Industries on January 9, 2014. The chemical’s primary use is for washing coal, ironically, to reduce pollution during its combustion in power plants. While some elected officials went to great lengths to absolve the coal industry of any perceived responsibility, others chalked up the incident to the “heavy lifting” expected of West Virginians, a people supposedly blessed with opportunities to provide cheap energy for the rest of the nation. The idea that diminished water quality simply comes with the territory of being a coal state was a hard sell, but it’s easy to see why politicians might offer it up. After all, when you’ve been blessed with opportunity, it’s rude to complain.
To some who’ve dealt with the coal industry’s direct impacts on water quality for decades, the hype surrounding the 2014 spill probably seemed a bit overblown. There are plenty of coalfield residents who never have and likely never will receive safe, drinkable water from their taps. This is an Appalachian phenomenon, but not uniquely so. This country has always found a way to pave highways toward environmental disaster, situating them among our most vulnerable populations. The same patterns found in McDowell County, West Virginia can be seen on Navajo lands, where abandoned uranium mines led to heavily-polluted water sources, in southern California, where long-closed battery factories still tarnish water supplies in Latino communities, and in rust belt towns like Flint, Michigan, where largely African American communities suffer the ongoing effects of lead contamination in public drinking water systems. We shouldn’t, but we tend to forget these communities when they’re out of sight and, therefore, out of mind.
But when an incident eliminated the water supply for hundreds-of-thousands in and around West Virginia’s largest city, when quality of life for state lawmakers was affected, its impacts became tough to ignore. In front of glaring lights, rolling cameras and the watchful eyes of national media, political leaders soon began to respond.
Senator Joe Manchin went on national television to label the incident “a wake-up call,” promising strict new regulation to prevent similar disasters. He pledged to make West Virginia known as a safe haven for clean rivers, not as a place where water quality gets in the way of purported industrial progress. Both chambers of the state legislature responded to an outcry from residents and business owners, passing comprehensive above-ground storage tank regulation and new laws requiring public water utilities to complete source protection plans. They were steps in the right direction, but it all seemed too good to be true.
Time went on, and the same question surfaced in my mind, again and again. “Would any of this matter in a few years?” I wanted to stay positive, but I had my doubts about what would happen when the cameras were turned off and the media left town.
As we now know, lawmakers’ love affair with shiny, new water quality safeguards would be short-lived. Most of the regulation pertaining to above-ground storage facilities has been repealed, and further weakening of storage tank rules is expected in this year’s legislative session. Manchin’s water-friendly rhetoric has mostly dried to a trickle. He did introduce legislation to improve rural water infrastructure, but his press releases have routinely touted the weakening of the federal Clean Water Act and a number of administrative water quality standards.
When the anniversary of the spill hit on January 9th, I decided I should revisit that question I asked myself four years ago, and capture some of what came to mind. I paid close attention to news of the anniversary, hoping to read something, anything, from elected leaders upholding their then-boisterous commitments to protect water, to do things differently, to heed the lessons of 2014. If the news I’d hoped for exists, I missed it.
I read headlines about an oil spill from a sunken towboat on the Big Sandy, and about the impacts of two proposed major gas pipelines crossing the Elk along their routes. I read about plans to open state parks in the Elk River watershed to logging for the first time ever, and about Governor Jim Justice issuing a moratorium on all new regulations in the name of “individual, family and business freedom.”
There was, in fact, mention of the water crisis in the press that week, but in the context of a $151 million class-action lawsuit close to being settled. It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it was an appropriate reminder that the battle continues for leaders who stood up for those most affected and who don’t intend to sit down.
Politicians who would inevitably backtrack from promises might have grabbed the biggest headlines in the wake of the spill, but the story of recovery is no longer about them. It’s about the diverse, organized community members who pulled together to refute the notion that clean water’s sacrifice should be accepted as a casualty of our “heavy lifting”. Their inspiring public response should teach us something about the way we all depend on rivers — how West Virginians are all river people.
As I looked back on the anniversary of the spill, the Elk was heavy on my mind. I spent time writing salt trout into upcoming menus, looking at old family photographs and mulling over the possibility of a tattoo. I talked to friends who’ve been on the front lines since the water crisis of 2014, and thought about the resilience of river people. I wondered if it will mean something when their stories are remembered.
Contributing editor Mike Costello (@costellowv) is a chef, farmer and storyteller. He and his partner Amy Dawson operate Lost Creek Farm in Harrison County, West Virginia. Through his cooking and writing, Mike strives to tell important stories about a misrepresented and misunderstood region he’s always called home.
