Water Crisis Story Archives - Page 3 of 3 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

One Year After the Chemical Leak, Mother and Daughter Still Don't Drink Tap Water

It was some ten days before all of the families affected by the tap water ban following Charleston’s chemical spill were able to return to life as usual within their homes. And many did just that, once again drinking, cooking and bathing with water straight from the tap. The same, however, can’t be said for every family in the valley including Lida Shepherd, who says she still won’t drink the water.

Lida Shepherd and her two-year-old daughter, Lucia live in a small apartment on the East End of Charleston. Lucia loves tea.

This time last year, tea wasn’t so easy to make. Lida and her daughter were one of many families directly affected by the January 9^th chemical leak.

“When I first got the word of the chemical leak, and the chemical spill, it was very frightening,” Lida remembered, “It was very frightening to turn on the water, and that smell was, I mean it gave me headaches, I mean I had a, definitely like a physical reaction to it.”

Her reaction was similar to hundreds of Kanawha Valley residents’ reports to their doctors.

Lida and her daughter now use city water to bathe and wash dishes and laundry in, but they still refuse to drink from the tap. Instead, Lida drives 20 miles to her parent’s farm in Sissonville to collect 4 to 6 gallons of water each week from their well. It’s a practice she began a year ago when the water use ban was still in place.

“It certainly has had lasting effects on me,” she said, “It’s now, even when I travel anywhere, whereas before I absolutely, I would just drink water from tap where I go, that’s not the case anymore. I always just sort of think about where I am, and like what’s going on with the water here? There’s definitely some sort of lasting fears, and like I said, I still don’t drink the water.”

Lida is an advocate for West Virginia Free, an organization that focuses on rights for women, and she also works with the American Friends Service Committee where she directs a youth leadership program in Boone County, an area also affected by the spill.

“They grew up in communities where not being able to drink the water comes up a lot,” Lida noted, “This was not a new experience for them to get word that the water wasn’t safe. And so when the chemical spill happened, some of them very much reacted just like, I’m not dead yet, literally that’s one of the girls said, she’s like, oh I’m showering in it.”

Lida says some of her students, however, felt angry at their lawmakers, blaming them for letting this happen or in some cases continue to happen.

After the spill and hearing from her students, Lida says it empowered her to want to make a difference in her state. She’s often advocated for stricter regulations and held a fundraiser at the time to provide bottled water to those who needed it.

“Reflecting on the year after the chemical spill, what we’ve been able to achieve and organize around, I’m pretty impressed by. I think because Charleston, you know, sort of a population center was largely impacted; it shed light on an issue that was an issue before this chemical spill,” she said.

As for Lucia, Lida says her daughter will continue to have tea parties with drinks made from her parents’ well water. At least, for now.

W.Va. Stores Agrees to Pay Fine in Water Crisis Price-Gouging Case

A Putnam County store operator has agreed to pay a $5,000 fine to the state to settle a price-gouging complaint after the January water crisis.

Under the terms of the agreement released Tuesday by Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, Mid Valley Mart LLC says it will comply with state consumer protection laws. In exchange, a Putnam County Circuit Court complaint will be dismissed.

According to the agreement, store manager Achraf Assi admitted raising the price of some water products after a chemical spill forced a tap water ban in nine counties.

Morrisey alleged Mid Valley Mart more than doubled prices for one-gallon water jugs at two Hurricane stores.

It’s illegal in West Virginia to raise prices on essential products and services by more than 10 percent in a state of emergency.

What Does the World's Best Water Smell Like? (Hint: It's Not Black Licorice)

When I signed up to be a judge at the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting, I thought it would just be a bit of fun — a relaxing weekend in an historic West Virginia mountain spa town.

Then came the water crisis: a massive spill of the coal-cleaning chemical MCHM into our water supply, and more than a week under a “do not use” order.

My seven-year-old son, Max, came down with the stomach flu right in the middle of all this. We couldn’t use tap water, not to wash our hands or even our clothes. I’ll spare you the details, but it was rough.

So you can understand how the spill changed my outlook toward a water-tasting competition. On the day of the competition, I arrived completely unsure how to judge the quality of water. I learned to trust my sense of smell — in more ways than one.

This is an event some Berkeley Springs leaders dreamed up 24 years ago to showcase their historic springs (home of “George Washington’s Bathtub.”)

Contestants from five continents entered, as far away as Tanzania, Bosnia, New Zealand, and South Korea. A panel of mostly novices like me were to judge dozens samples of tap water and bottled water (both sparkling and non-carbonated.)

We were trained by watermaster Arthur von Wiesenberger, whose name so perfectly matches his job that I am skeptical whether it is real.

“People will say that water is just like air: it has no taste or smell,” von Wiesenberger told us.

“Well, ask the people in Beijing if the air has no smell — or the people in Charleston about the water,” he said, and looked sheepishly at me.

Water being distributed in Kanawha County, W.Va.

Ah, the smell. That black licorice smell. After the spill, it wasn’t just emanating from the water. It permeated the air of the entire Kanawha Valley. One night, the anise odor so strong, we could smell it inside our house. It was astringent. It hurt to breathe it too deeply.

After state officials finally stopped the MCHM from entering the water supply, after they told us to flush our pipes, you could still smell it in the water for weeks. I would engage in a nervous ritual: run the tap, lean in a little and sniff three times — and there it would be.

"Well, ask the people in Beijing if the air has no smell — or the people in Charleston about the water," he said, and looked sheepishly at me.

So at the water tasting, when von Wiesenberger told us to sniff the water three times to judge its odor, I knew exactly what to do. I had trained.

Good water, von Wiesenberger told us, should have no odor. It may have a taste, based on its mix of beneficial minerals. But it should not smell.

Soon, I was judging the first category in the event: municipal tap water. I soon realized my sense of smell was one of the best indicators of whether I’d like the taste. If the sample smelled of chlorine or other chemicals, I was sure to hate it.

My son Max has a strongly-developed sense of smell…and he’s a pretty good hiker, too. Both important skills for a West Virginian.

I’ve never spent much time thinking about smells, but my son does. Max has autism, and he has trouble understanding the world through speech.

Max has this habit of bringing all food and liquids to his nose and smelling it — sniff, sniff, sniff — before deciding whether he’ll eat or drink it. My wife and I joke that he acts as if we’re trying to poison him.

After the water crisis, I get it. Smell is what you depend upon when you don’t trust anything else. It is the most primal sense.

The other day at a grocery store in Charleston, I saw they were selling a t-shirt about the water crisis. It featured a man wearing a gas mask and the phrase, “Trust no one.”

That’s the lasting damage of the spill in my community. We were failed by so many institutions: government, private industry, the water company.

I’m the leader of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, and I feel some responsibility to help turn that distrust and anger into something positive. How can we facilitate a discussion about moving West Virginia forward, and how can we, as a state, rebuild that trust?

Meanwhile, back at the water tasting, they announced the winners. I learned that Clearbrook, British Columbia has the best tasting tap water in the world, and Santa Ana, California is tops in the U.S.

And then I looked at the list of winners throughout the competition’s 24-year history. And there it was: Charleston, West Virginia, in the top five for best tasting tap water, in three separate years.

My beautiful home, Charleston, West Virginia

Having the best water in the world is a proxy for many other things — clean air, clean living, and a well-functioning, competent government. Maybe by following our sense of smell, by making our water tops in the world again, my hometown can convince the world and ourselves that we’re a wonderful little city in the mountains once again.

LISTEN: State Releases Freedom Industries' Spill Hotline Audio

The state Division of Homeland Security released audio Friday of Freedom Industries' employee Bob Reynolds notifying the state spill hotline that a…

The state Division of Homeland Security released audio Friday of Freedom Industries’ employee Bob Reynolds notifying the state spill hotline that a chemical was leaking at their Charleston location. The call was received at 12:05 p.m. on January 9.

Reynolds told the operator, identified later in the call only as Laverne, the Department of Environmental Protection was already on site.

“I heard about it about 15 minutes ago,” Reynolds told the operator when asked what time the leak occurred. The operator estimated the time to be about 11:40 a.m.

“All I can tell you is that they’ve discovered a hole in the tank and there’s material leaking out of the tank,” Reynolds said. “We’ve pumped as much out of the tank as we can so far and we’ve got a crew coming in to clean up the material in the dike.”

Reynolds described that material as MCHM.

“I think you probably want a real name for it,” he said.

“Uh, probably yea,” the operator responded.

“It’s crude methlycyclohexanemethanol,” Reynolds said.

“Uh, say again?” the operator responded. The two laughed.

Reynolds said he did not know how much of the chemical had leaked out of the tank and when asked if it was hazardous or toxic he replied, “No.”

“It’s right on the Elk River and right now the dike is containing the material so we don’t anticipate it going into the river,” Reynolds said.