West Virginia spill criticism grows amid new fear over tainted water
Source: The Los Angeles Times
West Virginia spill criticism grows amid new fear over tainted water
By David Zucchino
January 31, 2014, 2:47 p.m.
The top public health official in Charleston, W. Va., has added to widespread criticism of the decision to declare drinking water safe despite a critical lack of scientific data about the coal-washing chemical that spilled into the Elk River on Jan. 9.
Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, the largest in West Virginia, said in an interview Friday that the water can't be considered completely safe because scientists don't know the possible health effects of exposure to the chemical. He said officials have confused the 300,000 residents whose water was tainted by first declaring it safe, then resuming distribution of bottled water Thursday.
"If you weren't confused before, welcome to our world of confusion here," Gupta said in a telephone interview. "People are naturally confused when they are told on the one hand that the water is safe, and on the other hand they [officials] are now redistributing water."
Further complicating matters, Gupta said, three local schools on Friday reported low but elevated levels of 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol, or MCHM. Kanawha County school officials said the schools' water systems would be flushed again over the weekend... MORE
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-west-virginia-spill-criticism-grows-20140131,0,5603683.story#ixzz2s1HbL78K
I just knew this wasn't over.
= new reply since forum marked as read
- But then we knew it would, didn't we?
ESQUIRE
By Charles P. Pierce
January 31, 2014
It has been amusing to watch the local politicians and government officials in West Virginia try to comfort their constituents, while simultaneously keeping faith with the corporations to whom they have been whoring out the state for two centuries, including the hilariously named -- and now conveniently bankrupt -- Freedom Industries, which poisoned all the water in the state.
- Scott Simonton, a Marshall University environmental engineer, told a legislative committee Wednesday that he found cancer-causing formaldehyde -- which he said is one possible breakdown product from the chemical -- in one local water sample and that the continued lack of data on the chemicals that leaked into the Elk is very concerning. "It's frightening, it really is frightening," said Simonton, who is a member of the state Environmental Quality Board and also consults for at least one local law firm that's filed suit over the leak. "What we know scares us -- and we know there's a lot more we don't know."
Gee, that sounds bad. Wait, here's some people from the state to reassure us.
- Dr. Letitia Tierney, commissioner of the Bureau for Public Health, said Wednesday evening that the chemists the state had consulted with all said the formaldehyde could not have come from the MCHM. "Our experts are all in agreement that it's unlikely that his findings are in any way related to the chemical spill," she said. "It's already in our environment."
The formaldehyde in your water is not from the spill. The formaldehyde in your water is from...somewhere else. "Formaldehyde In Your Water -- It's The New Normal."
MORE
...whether or not the formaldehyde might be a break-down constituent from the chemical spill since the owners of the company have previously failed to disclose chemical spills and the contents inside their tanks. And probably wouldn't have said anything in this case if it hadn't become necessary to deal with it directly.
- Which is why their first step in dealing with the emergency was to protect their own asses by filing bankruptcy. Dr. Tierney, you and your experts are frauds.
