300,000 without water
due to West Virginia chemical spill
Rick Moran
The clean water crisis in West Virginia entered
its third day as frustrated residents in 9 counties deal with the fallout from
a serious chemical spill into the areas water supply.
Most visitors have
cleared out of Charleston while locals are either staying home or driving out
of the area to find somewhere they can get a hot meal or a shower. Meanwhile,
business owners with empty dining rooms and quiet aisles of merchandise around
West Virginia's capital were left to wonder how much of an economic hit they'll
take from the chemical spill.
The emergency began Thursday following
complaints to West Virginia American Water about a licorice-type odor in the
tap water. The source: the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, which had
leaked out of a 40,000-gallon tank at a Freedom Industries facility along the
Elk River.
It could take days for clean tap water to flow
again. First, water sample test results must consistently show that the
chemical's presence in the public water system is at or below 1 parts per
million, the level recommended by federal agencies, West Virginia American
Water President Jeff McIntyre said Saturday at a news conference.
Officials said that water samples were
"trending in that direction," and most were below that level, but
flushing would not begin until readings were under the 1 part per million level
for a 24-hour period. More than 100 more samples were due to be tested
overnight.
State officials said Saturday they believe about
7,500 gallons leaked from the Freedom Industries plant in Charleston. Some of
the chemical, a foaming agent used in coal processing, was contained before
flowing into the Elk River; it's not clear exactly how much entered the water
supply.
Meanwhile, 800,000 liters of fresh water were
scheduled to be shipped into the affected area Saturday and Sunday night.
Residents in nine counties were told to not
drink, bathe in, or wash their dishes or clothes with their water, which could
only be used for flushing toilets. The order applies to about 300,000 people.
Virtually every restaurant was closed Saturday,
unable to use water to prepare food, wash dishes or clean employees' hands.
Meanwhile, hotels had emptied and foot traffic was down at many retail stores.
I don't know whether I'd drink the water even at
1 part per million. That MCMH is all over the place where I live. Streator was
a coal mining town until about 50 years ago. My house sits on an abandoned mine
shaft and while there haven't been any boil alerts since I moved here 6 years
ago, my neighbors inform me that it's happened before.
The crisis may ease in the next few days as it
appears that natural cleansing processes are diluting the chemical in the
water. No doubt, the restoration of clean water can't come soon enough for
residents.
Eventually, it will get better, and the contamination will thin
out and flush downstream, for others to worry about.
From the Survival Blog
Mr. XXXX,
I noticed your reference to the water situation in the Charleston, West Virginia (Kanawha Valley) area. As of Saturday when I'm writing this, the water is suitable for flushing toilets and fire fighting but that is all. The town I live in (St. Albans) has their own independent supply, but most of the surrounding area is fed from the centralized West Virginia American Water Plant in Charleston. One plant serves a very large geographic area. I know when I first finished mechanical engineering school I could only find a job working for a small civil engineering company. We had to survey a water line expansion in Boone county near the small towns of Van, Twilight, and Bandytown. Fairly deep in the southern coal fields but not nearly as deep (feels kind of like a different world being raised near the valley) as McDowell county and the low volume coal fields. I could not believe the West Virginia American plant in Charleston was going to serve that far away from the city.
I noticed your reference to the water situation in the Charleston, West Virginia (Kanawha Valley) area. As of Saturday when I'm writing this, the water is suitable for flushing toilets and fire fighting but that is all. The town I live in (St. Albans) has their own independent supply, but most of the surrounding area is fed from the centralized West Virginia American Water Plant in Charleston. One plant serves a very large geographic area. I know when I first finished mechanical engineering school I could only find a job working for a small civil engineering company. We had to survey a water line expansion in Boone county near the small towns of Van, Twilight, and Bandytown. Fairly deep in the southern coal fields but not nearly as deep (feels kind of like a different world being raised near the valley) as McDowell county and the low volume coal fields. I could not believe the West Virginia American plant in Charleston was going to serve that far away from the city.
St. Albans has lines out the door at
the Laundromat and restaurants,. Even the Krogers [grocery store] was stripped
bare, even of the toilet paper. The parking lots of the stores remind me of
Christmas time when I was a kid in the late 1970s, prior to many of the strip
malls being built and taking business from the business districts.
If the water had been cut off
completely, unfortunately it probably would have very quickly required
deployment of the National Guard. I passed one water relief station where they
were giving out bottled water and it had a sheriff eyeballing everyone that
went by even if you did not stop for water.
Making large complex systems helps
for economies of scale, but a single point failure makes them far from robust.
- Paul in West Virginia
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