State utility regulators have ordered West Virginia American Water to continue providing quarterly reports on the quality of its service. The Public…
State utility regulators have ordered West Virginia American Water to continue providing quarterly reports on the quality of its service.
The Public Service Commission’s order says the information will allow it to monitor whether the company’s response to a Jan. 9 chemical spill has any lasting impact on its distribution infrastructure in the Kanawha Valley.
The PSC’s Consumer Advocate Division cited the spill when it requested the reports’ continuance last week.
The reports contain statistical information about water line breaks, staffing levels, average response times to repair leaks and other service-related metrics.
The PSC ordered the reports in 2011 in a case involving the company’s staffing levels. The reports were to run through the fourth quarter of 2013. Tuesday’s order extends the reports for another year.
Marc Glass is a principal researcher in charge of evaluation and remediation of environmental contamination in soil and water for the environmental consulting firm Downstream Strategies. He’s been testing water samples for private residents affected by the Elk River chemical spill. While his results haven’t turned up any traces of formaldehyde, it is something they’ve been testing for.
How long did the Freedom tank leak?
Glass says the MCHM process of breaking down starts pretty quickly. The half-life is approximately 14 days—meaning about half of the chemical compound will have broken down into other products (like formaldehyde and formic acid) in about two-weeks’ time.
“But the more breakdown products you find,” Glass says, “the longer ago it makes you feel the spill started.”
That’s the big question burning in Glass’s mind: What kind of a time frame are we really talking about? Glass says it shouldn’t be difficult to find out. He says it should be a simple matter to reconcile the inventory for Freedom Industries to compare what they purchased to what they sold or used.
“I think we should start looking at that and I think we should start looking at a much longer term than just a few hours or days prior to the spill. I think we should for starters look at maybe a three-year period.”
What are the adverse health effects?
Glass says the Environmental Protection Agency, under the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control, has determined that small exposures to formaldehyde, about one part per million in drinking water, is not expected to cause adverse health effects.
“They further determine that they don’t think that ten parts per million consumed in drinking water for a day, or five parts per million for 10 days is expected to cause any adverse health effects. That’s why the concentration and the amount of time that somebody’s had exposure to that is relevant to assessing the health impacts.”
That’s not the only question Glass has.
What other chemicals should we be testing for?
“I’m also curious about what’s in the soil at the site because this was released from a tank and went across or through soil prior to getting into the Elk River. So maybe there were other contaminants.”
Glass points out that the Freedom site is a storage place that’s had products stored for decades. So accidental spills and releases could be present in the soil. He says if those are present in the soil and you put a solvent like MCHM into the mix, you risk mobilizing contaminants.
“So I’d really like to get a characterization of that site vertically and horizontally to know really what we should be looking for,” Glass says.
Glass says it’s frustrating to have so many unanswered questions when he’s asked by residents if the water is safe. He says basic information key to safeguarding the community is simply out of reach.
In a release from the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health, Commissioner and State Health Officer Dr. Letitia Tierney said experts who have been assisting the state through this response say that the only way possible for formaldehyde to come from MCHM is if it were combusted at 500°F.
Dr. Tierney cited The World Health Organization (WHO) and says formaldehyde is the most frequent aldehyde found in nature and is naturally measurable in air and water. Formaldehyde is created through the normal breakdown cycle of plants and animals.
“Formaldehyde dissolves easily in water and does not last a long time in water,” said Dr. Tierney in the statement issued Wednesday afternoon.
“Additionally, formaldehyde is naturally produced in very small amounts in our bodies as a part of our normal, everyday metabolism and causes no harm,” she added.
The Bureau for Public Health says they are unaware of Dr. Simonton’s testing procedures and notes they are interested in finding out whether another issue is affecting Vandalia Grill.
In a separate statement, West Virginia American Water said the following:
“We believe it is misleading and irresponsible to voice opinions on potential health impacts to residents of this community without all of the facts. Procedures for water analysis are carefully prescribed, outlined and certified. West Virginia American Water will continue working with governmental health and environmental professionals and, in conjunction with these professionals, we and public health agencies will make public any reliable, scientifically sound information relating to risks to public health, if any. As a regulated water utility, West Virginia American Water adheres to industry best practices and is in compliance with all federal and state regulations and guidelines.”
Fresh Air recently interviewed Charleston Gazette investigative reporter Ken Ward about the Freedom Industries chemical spill. Here are the highlights:
On how the chemical leak was discovered
Some people who live in that part of town called in both to the metro 911 — the county emergency operation center — and to the state Department of Environmental Protection complaints of an odor, that they smelled some sort of a strong licorice odor in the air.
The Department of Environmental Protection sent a couple of air quality inspectors out and … when they first went there they were told by company officials, “No, we’re not having any problems. What are you talking about?” They asked to tour the site. The inspectors went out and they noticed there was a problem at one of the tanks. They described to me a 400-square-foot, 3- to 4-inch-deep pool of this chemical that had leaked out of a hole in the tank, and a 4-foot-wide stream of this stuff that was pouring across the containment area … and it was kind of disappearing … into the river. … Much of the Elk River was frozen over so you couldn’t immediately see that it was in the river.
The problem that arises from that is that Freedom Industries [the company that owns the chemical storage tanks] had a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection — a storm water permit, a permit to govern runoff from its facility. One of the requirements of that permit is that they immediately report any spills. The Department of Environmental Protection says they didn’t report this spill to the state and the fact that they didn’t report it immediately delayed some efforts at containing the spill and certainly affected the size of it and made the situation worse than it necessarily had to be.
On the ambiguity around the health risks of the chemical spill
Eastman Chemical, which makes it, puts out what’s called a Material Safety Data Sheet [MSDS]. An MSDS is something that’s required under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. It’s supposed to be kept on site for workers to look at and it’s supposed to be filed with emergency responders and local environmental authorities. It’s supposed to list the properties of the chemical, its flashpoint and what’s the toxicity of it.
And the problem with this particular substance is that if you read the MSDS for it, where it lists toxicological effects: Is it a carcinogen? No data. Does it cause developmental problems? No data. Most of the basic health effects that you’d want to know about, there’s no data available listed on the MSDS for this material.
On what citizens are doing in response
My family and I, we’re not drinking this water. I know a lot of people that aren’t. When you go to the grocery stores here you still see people buying pretty significant quantities of bottled water, filling up their carts. When you go to restaurants you hear people asking, “Are you using bottled water? Are you using tap water?” And restaurants are putting out press releases and they have signs that say, “We’re using only bottled water.”
On the U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s recommendations for stricter oversight of industrial chemicals in West Virginia
The Chemical Safety Board has been to West Virginia quite a few times and they came here in 2008 after an explosion at a Bayer CropScience chemical plant. … The Chemical Safety Board came in and investigated that and found a lot of problems at the plant and found a dearth of regulation of that sort of a plant. And one of the things the Chemical Safety Board said was that our state … should work with the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department to create a new chemical accident prevention program through which government inspectors would more frequently go into these plants, would ensure they’re being operated safely.
The Chemical Safety Board came back again after a series of accidents at a DuPont chemical plant … in West Virginia — [a series of] accidents there in January of 2010 ended up with one worker being killed. And the Chemical Safety Board repeated its recommendation after that incident.
… The state has really done absolutely nothing to implement that recommendation. The Kanawha County officials have encouraged the state to work with them … and the state has just basically ignored the recommendation.
On misconceptions about federal regulation of dangerous industrial chemicals
The industry officials didn’t like the Chemical Safety Board recommendations. They insisted there’s enough regulation already and that agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration do enough already.
And I think there seems to be this idea that … agencies like EPA and OSHA are these jack-booted thugs that are kicking down the gates of manufacturing facilities and stomping out jobs. When in fact, a lot of these facilities will go for years and years without ever seeing an OSHA inspector coming in and checking on the workplace conditions; without ever seeing an EPA inspector who is looking at their environmental conditions. The notion that these places are just terribly overregulated is wildly exaggerated.
On what authority the Obama administration has to regulate industrial chemicals
[The Obama administration] certainly ha[s] broad rule-making authority at EPA, and the Environmental Protection Agency can make rules about all sorts of things about this; the Occupational Safety and Health Administration can make rules about these things.
One example is [that] the coal industry here likes to complain about how tough the Obama administration is on them, but a few years ago we had a major spill of toxic coal ash from an impoundment in east Tennessee, and the Obama administration promised after that, “We’re going to write new rules to govern toxic coal ash and ensure that it’s handled and disposed of safely.”
Well, they still haven’t done that. OSHA knows that combustible dust is a big problem. They haven’t written rules about that.
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
By now, you’ve probably heard of crude MCHM, the chemical that spilled into the Elk River in early January contaminating the drinking water of 300 thousand West Virginians.
And may be you’ve even heard of PPH, the second chemical contained in the leaky tank at the Freedom Industries site.
But almost three weeks after the leak, how much do we really know about these chemicals?
Scott Simonton, vice chair of the West Virginia Environmental Quality Board, told a Joint Commission on Water Resources Wednesday, they still don’t know much, and they certainly don’t know enough.
Simonton said one of the biggest questions is what happens to these chemicals when they begin to react with the environment.
What happens when they mix with chlorine in the water treatment facility?
What happens when they mix with soaps or detergents in your home?
What happens when the human body metabolizes them?
Those questions, he says, don’t have answers.
But Simonton is starting to find the answers to some of those questions as he tests the water quality throughout the West Virginia American Water distribution system in the Kanawha Valley.
The testing is funded by a Charleston law firm, Thompson Barney LLC, which is also representing businesses that lost money because they couldn’t use water for days.
“Our concern was these breakdown products. We know for example that methanol can break down into formaldehyde,” he told the commission.
“Formaldehyde is a known human carcinogen. That’s important and so we thought, ‘wow, we should be looking for formaldehyde.’ Sure enough we have found formaldehyde in the water system.”
Test results were positive for the water at the Vandalia Grille in downtown Charleston.
“We don’t know what the concentration of it is in air, but I can guarantee you that the citizens of this valley are at least in some instances breathing formaldehyde,” he said.
“They’re taking a hot shower, this stuff is breaking down to formaldehyde in the water system and they’re inhaling it.”
The new revelations and new information Simonton provided the commission is something Senate Majority Leader Senator John Unger said shocked him and his fellow lawmakers.
“The testimony today was quite disturbing and I think the entire commission was kind of put back quite a bit because that’s not the information we’ve been hearing as far as the news media,” Unger said, “and what he was testifying today was the hard truth and it definitely was difficult.”
Simonton told the commission the information state officials released in the days during the chemical leak, information about when the water was safe for use and consumption, he can’t find what evidence they had to back it.
“What concerns me is the information they were giving out as if they did know. They were saying ‘go ahead and drink it, it’s okay, it’s safe now.’ Well, we heard both on Friday from the Chemical Safety Board and from Dr. Simonton that it’s not safe to drink,” Unger said.
“I think that’s where the disappointment is that these authorities are saying things without the proper science to back it up.”
Unger said by allowing people to continue to consume and use the water without having that evidence could possibly be exposing more people to the chemical.
Tuesday, Senators passed Senate Bill 373 creating new regulations for similar above ground storage facilities and called it step one in preventing future water contamination, but Unger said figuring out the health effects, that has to be part of step one as well.
“We need to do it simultaneously. We need to be moving forward. The whole idea of Senate Bill 373 was to make sure that this doesn’t again anywhere in West Virginia,” he said. “Now we have to look at what do we do in response now that it’s happened and this is an ongoing situation that’s unraveling as we get more and more information and how do we help those people that have been exposed to it, which is all of us here in Charleston and the Kanawha Valley.”
Going forward, Unger said lawmakers will rely on the medical community to monitor and figure out ways to treat anyone exposed to the chemical.
His commission hopes to hear from the Department of Health and Human Resources on monitoring in the next week.
Since the recent chemical spill in Charleston, the issue of clean water in West Virginia is a topic that many Southern West Virginians are discussing. The Coal Heritage Lecture Series, an annual program presented by Concord University’s Beckley Center and the Coal Heritage Highway Authority, kicks off the 2014 programs with a look at this critical issue.
Each spring, the Coal Heritage Public Lecture Series explores the legacy of coal in West Virginia. The series is a part of an academic class offered at Concord University called, Coal Culture in West Virginia.
The first lecture explores Industry and the Environment and Responsible Development. Eric Autenrith and members of the Plateau Action Network, are expected to discuss their take on how industries can create responsible economic development. Speakers are expected to address past situations in the state and examine how to maintain a sustainable environment.
Lectures take place on the first Tuesday of February, March, April and May at the Erma Byrd Center. located in Raleigh County, in Room E 10 at 7:00 p.m.
Students taking the course for credit hear lectures, watch films and participate in field trips that help them better understand the rich history of coal in the state, but all lectures are free and open to the public.
The lecture series will continue on March 4 with singer/songwriter Kate Long as she performs Songs of the Coalfields. April 1, National Park Service Interpretive Ranger, Billy Strasser, will discuss the recent work the New River Gorge National River has completed in the town of Nuttallburg in the lecture Nuttalburg: Then and Now.
The series will conclude on May 6 when Gordon Simmons, historian and Marshall University Instructor, will explore the culture of resistance in coal miners. The Miner’s Freedom considers the history of coal miners and their ability to exert some control in the workforce, despite the autocracy of the coal camps.
9(MDA4NDQ1MjMzMDEzMjA3NzExMTA5OTU5Yw004)){kind=small}
