Washington to Come to Charleston for Chemical Hearing

The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has announced a field hearing in Charleston on West Virginia’s chemical spill. The meeting will take place Monday at 9 a.m. at the Kanawha County Courthouse.

The witness list includes the president of West Virginia American Water, state health officials, homeland security and environmental officials, the chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board and county emergency officials.

Freedom Industries President Gary Southern has been invited. His attendance has not been confirmed.

The Jan. 9 spill left 300,000 people banned from using tap water – many for up to 10 days.

Two W.Va. members sit on the committee —the committee’s top Democrat, Nick Rahall and Republican Shelley Moore Capito.

In a release by Capito’s office the Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Republican Bill Shuster, thanked Capito for requesting the hearing, saying quote “It will be critical to helping us understand why this incident happened and how we can better prevent something like this from happening again.”