Source: Dow Jones News Service, January 22, 2014
Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com
State regulators have ordered Freedom Industries to disclose all the chemicals that spilled when a storage tank leaked and contaminated the water supply for 300,000 people.
The state Department of Environmental Protection said it has given the company until 4 p.m. Wednesday to provide the information.
The move comes after state officials disclosed Tuesday that a second chemical had entered the water supply from the storage tank leak earlier this month.
A substance called “PPH, stripped” was part of an industrial chemical cocktail known as Crude MCHM that authorities said spilled into the Elk River on Jan. 9, a spokeswoman for Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin confirmed. The chemicals entered a water treatment plant and tainted the supply for as many as nine days.
Spokeswoman Amy Shuler Goodwin said the state’s environmental-protection agency first learned of the presence of PPH on Tuesday morning from Gary Southern, the president of Freedom Industries Inc., which owns the site of the leak.
A representative of Freedom didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment late Tuesday.
PPH isn’t listed among the components of Crude MCHM on safety data sheets provided by the manufacturer. Crude MCHM is used to clean coal and is primarily made up of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol. It can irritate skin, eyes and breathing tracts but little is known about its long-term effect on humans.
Ms. Goodwin said state officials are conducting tests to look for the presence of PPH. The state has begun to take 20 samples of the water and the first have shown no signs of the new chemical, Ms. Goodwin said.
West Virginia American Water Co., which runs the plant and the region’s water distribution network, said in a statement on its Facebook page that state chemical experts believed PPH would have been removed in its treatment process.
“We are also testing water samples collected last week to further confirm this and will share those results when available,” the statement read.