Elk River Chemical Spill Story Archives - Page 2 of 41

Federal Judge Reviews $151 Million Chemical Spill Settlement

A revised class-action settlement plan is back before a federal judge deciding how to pay victims of a chemical spill that left people without tap water for up to 9 days.

The drinking water of about 300,000 people in the greater Charleston area was contaminated in January 2014 when a chemical used to clean coal spilled from a storage tank at the now-defunct Freedom Industries, polluting the Elk River upstream from the system’s water intake.

Judge John Copenhaver raised concerns about previous terms of the negotiated $151 million settlement with West Virginia American Water Co. and Eastman Chemical. This amended plan replaces tiered and fixed amounts with percentages and cost-based factors for businesses and medical claims.

It would raise payment for a simple household claim from $525 to $550.

Commission Closes Probe in 2014 West Virginia Water Crisis

West Virginia’s Public Service Commission on Thursday issued a final settlement order closing its investigation into West Virginia American Water’s role in a chemical spill and resulting water crisis in the Charleston area in January 2014.

Thousands of gallons of a coal-cleaning agent leaked from a Freedom Industries storage tank into the Elk River, leaving 300,000 people in nine counties without water for up to nine days. Businesses in the state’s largest drinking water system were temporarily shut. Hundreds of people headed to emergency rooms for issues from nausea to rashes after contact with tap water that smelled like licorice.

The settlement requires regular updates of the company’s source water protection plan, annual reports on potential contamination sources, continuous monitoring for various contaminants at its intake and an emergency reporting system. It largely reflects the proposed settlement filed by attorneys for the parties in the case in January.

The commission called it “just, reasonable and in the public interest.” The chemical released about a mile upriver got into the company’s raw water intake and into the region’s treated water supply.

The settlement requires West Virginia American Water to prepare a pilot study and install monitoring both 30 and 60 minutes if it can get necessary approvals.

Meanwhile, a federal judge is considering a settlement in a lawsuit that would result in residential customers and small businesses receiving thousands of dollars.

If approved, the settlement filing shows West Virginia American Water would pay up to $126 million and Eastman Chemical $25 million.

Residents would receive $525 each and small businesses would receive $6,250 each. Affected renters and homeowners could claim $170 for each additional person living in their household, plus medical expenses and repairs.

Larger businesses could get from $12,500 to $40,000 for lost revenue and documented property damages. Affected nonprofits and government entities would get $1,875.

Lawyers Still Working on Terms of Water-Crisis Settlement

More than three months after a tentative settlement was announced, lawyers are still trying to work out documents to spell out terms of a $151 million deal resolving a class-action lawsuit over a West Virginia chemical spill that tainted a local water system.

Lawyers for area residents and businesses, West Virginia American Water Co. and Eastman Chemical met for nearly two hours Tuesday with U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported. The purpose was to discuss “the progress of finalization of the settlement agreement,” according to a court docket entry that offered no other details of the closed-door conference.

Tentative settlements were reached in late October between lawyers for hundreds of thousands of residents and businesses and attorneys for West Virginia American Water and Eastman Chemical.

In an order made public Thursday, Copenhaver pushed the trial date in the case back from Feb. 7 to March 21. The move is mostly a formality, because no trial is planned in the case, unless the settlement were to fall apart, and there has been no indication that is likely to happen.

Under the deals, West Virginia American would pay up to $126 million and Eastman up to $25 million to residents, businesses and workers who were unable to use their tap water during the “do not use” order period that followed the contamination of the region’s Elk River water supply by a spill of MCHM and other chemicals from the Freedom Industries facility just 1.5 miles upstream from the water company intake.

Lawyers are now trying to work out the exact language of more detailed settlement documents that must be submitted to Copenhaver for his review and approval and for a public review period that allows members of the plaintiff class to object or opt-out of the deal.

More information about how residents and businesses can file claims for compensation will be made public once those formal settlement documents are publicly filed with the court.

Since the tentative settlement was announced, Copenhaver has held at least 10 closed-door meetings with lawyers in the case to discuss the exact language of the settlement documents those lawyers are trying to finalize.

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.

Testimony Begins in Water Company, Spill Investigation

A former Putnam County Public Service District employee says West Virginia American Water Company should have closed its intake at the Kanawha Valley plant after the Freedom Industries chemical spill three years ago.

Former South Putnam Public Service District general manager Fred Stottlemyer testified Thursday before the state Public Service Commission as part of the investigation into the handling of the January 2014 chemical leak.

Stottlemeyer testified the company didn’t close its intake because it hadn’t been producing treated water up to the plant’s capacity in the days before the spill. If production had been higher, he said, the company could have shut down its intake pipes to let the worst of the Freedom spill pass.

Testimony will resume Jan. 24.

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.