Water Ban Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Rockefeller's Bills Would Make Polluters Pay

A week after Freedom Industries spilled chemical into the Elk River and tainted the water supply for more than 300,000 West Virginians, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, has introduced a pair of bills to make those responsible pay.

Rockefeller’s bills would not only make those responsible for a chemical spill pay for its cleanup, they’d provide more funding for states and agencies tasked with cleanup.

Rockefeller co-sponsored the bills with Senator Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who is responding to a 233,000-gallon molasses spill that occurred in Honolulu last year.

The legislation would force companies that spill materials that are dangerous but not deemed hazardous to pay for cleanup costs under the 1980 Superfund act. Currently polluters cannot be held liable under Superfund for cleanup costs if the materials released are not deemed hazardous.

The bills also double the Superfund cap on clean-ups associated with harmful spills from $2 million to $4 million.

The two bills can be viewed here and here.

Poison Control Not Seeing Increase in Calls Since Flushing

The West Virginia Poison Center says calls have not increased since the ban on water use in nine counties affected by Thursday’s chemical leak was lifted in some of those areas. The majority of residents and businesses affected by the chemical leak remain without clean tap water.

On Monday afternoon, West Virginia American Water began the process of lifting bans on water usage for thousands of West Virginians.

The ban was first issued last week when a chemical used in coal processing leaked from a Freedom Industries plant into the nearby Elk River.

Since then, the public has been instructed to call the poison control center with concerns.

Director Elizabeth Scharman says calls have been steady since the initial “do not use” order was first put into place.

As the ban is lifted in areas, Scharman says the center has received calls about an increased odor, but that was expected. She says residents should keep in mind that the flushing process will likely cause the smell to increase since the contaminated water has been sitting in the water lines for days.

The center is evaluating each call individually and suspects that some cases of skin irritation could be caused by constant hand sanitizer use. Scharman says excessive testing would be needed to confirm the source of the irritation.

West Virginia American Water Lifts Ban Zone-by-Zone

West Virginia American Water began the long-awaited flushing process yesterday afternoon for residents who have been without water since Thursday.

Residents in the nine counties began the flushing process using an interactive online map. The chemical leak has left residents without the use of water since Thursday. Residents have been instructed to follow a detailed process once their area is in the blue zone on a map at amwater.com. Jeff McIntyre is President of West Virginia American Water. He said it’s a three-step process.

Turn on all your hot water taps and flush for 15 minutes and shut those taps back off.
Turn on your cold water taps and flush for five minutes and then turn those off.
Go outside and then go to your outside taps, any fixtures you have outside and flush for five minutes.

The press conference was held Monday afternoon at the capitol where McIntyre and others outlined the next step. McIntyre said residents need to follow the precise instructions located on the website for additional outlets that the public may have such as appliances.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6w6HVVbTOI

“There’s the flushing and then it’s your appliances and fixtures, so if you have a dishwater and an icemaker there are additional steps that you may have in your house, but once you finish our protocol that’s laid out on several pages, once you’re done you’re done,” McIntyre said.

McIntyre did not offer a time table for how long it would take to get all zones through the flushing process. The first zone yesterday afternoon focused on the downtown Charleston area and included local hospitals in the region.

With the focus turning to how to prevent any future instances of chemical leaks into the water supply, Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Randy Huffman says they’re already working on legislation to help prevent accidents like this in future.

“We’re also at the governor’s request developing some proposals for how we might more properly regulate these facilities in order to minimize the risk of a spill,” Huffman said.

Huffman said they are looking into ways to more closely pay attention to sites that are storage-only such as the Freedom Industries site where the leak occurred. Sites such as Freedom’s are not regulated like facilities that house the production of the chemical at issue.

McIntyre said from the perspective of West Virginia American Water it’s not time to look at risk assessment until they have got the water once again available to all its customers.

“We’re not doing anything of that work at this time, there is no risk assessment going on at this time, our focus is singular to getting the customers back into water as early as possible,” McIntyre said.

Major General James Hoyer of the West Virginia National Guard said it may have taken a few days, but the group has been doing its best to deliver accurate information to people in the region.

“Every member of the inter-agency team that’s doing the testing and analysis and working this process has family members and loved ones that live in this area, so one of the over-arching things in addition to the science of what our folks are doing is the fact that we owe a responsibility to the citizens of the state and our families to provide the best information we have,” Hoyer said.

Members of the public seeking information on flushing process, should visit West Virginia American Waters site.