Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on State Water Resources Story Archives

Environmental Official: Coal Companies Don't Want Stigma of MCHM

At the statehouse Friday, members of the Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on State Water Resources continued their hearings on the Elk River chemical spill with testimonies from representatives of the state Department of Environmental Protection.

DEP Chief of Homeland Security and Emergency Response Mike Dorsey told lawmakers he’s been working to remediate the site since the initial incident in January.

Freedom Industries is located in what was previously a petroleum storage area and Dorsey said it doesn’t appear the tanks were modified when the company began to fill them with tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals.

Dorsey said the Chemical Safety Board found two holes in the bottom when they emptied the leaking tank, but investigators are still unsure as to when the leak started.

“We may never know that,” Dorsey testified. “We know that the smell of this stuff is so strong that once it got to the surface we smelt it. What’s it smell like underground? Is there a big odor? We don’t know.”

Dorsey added the incident shows the vulnerability of the system.

Head of the DEP Division of Mining and Reclamation Harold Ward updated commission members on their investigations into crude MCHM, the chemical involved in contaminating the drinking water of 300,000 West Virginians.

Ward said about 35 companies in the state use MCHM in their coal washing process and from tests, the DEP has found most of the chemical sticks to the coal and is shipped out with the product.

He said three site tests showed trace amounts of the chemical being discharged from their impoundments, but they were still below permitting levels.

Ward said two companies, including Freedom, are continuing to sell the chemical in the state, but many are looking for an alternative, even at a cost of 70 to 100 percent more.

“There are better products out there that can be used and I don’t think its toxicity the reason that the operators in the coal industry are switching away from it,” he told lawmakers. “It’s just that nobody wants to be attached to this product in any way shape or form.”

Ward told the commission he fully supports the above ground tank inspection program as being discussed in the legislature now and said he will have additional legislative suggestions for the department secretary to share in the next two weeks.

State Health Officials, Water Company Say Reports of Formaldehyde Are 'Misleading', 'Unfounded'

Officials from the Bureau for Public Health and West Virginia American Water released separate statements regarding Dr. Scott Simonton’s testimony Wednesday to Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on State Water Resources, calling his remarks on the discovery of formaldehyde in the water of a Charleston restaurant “unfounded”, “misleading”, and “irresponsible.”

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.”

West Virginia Official: People Are Inhaling Formaldehyde

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.

Simonton said formaldehyde is most dangerous and most toxic when inhaled. Formaldehyde often leads to respiratory cancers. State health officials and representative of West Virginia American Water have refuted Simonton’s research on the matter, calling his remarks “mileading” and “unfounded.”

“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.