A tale of caution for a precious resource

Last week's major chemical spill into West Virginia's Elk River cut off water to 300,000 people. West Virginians could not drink, shower or wash clothes with their water.

West Virginia's Elk River

It is estimated that 1,200 gallons of a chemical, 4-methyl-cyclohexane-methanol or MCHM, was released from a tank. So little information is known about the chemical that state officials had to rely on the Centers for Disease Control for advice on whether and when the water would be safe for use. NPR reported that toxicologists were relying on their knowledge of the chemical makeup of the compound, and a single study that established lethal doses for rats, to make judgments about when it was safe to drink the water.

According to PennFuture friend Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, the state has yet to explain why the storage facility was allowed to sit on the river and so close to a water treatment plant that is the largest in the state. The facility had not been inspected by the state or federal government since 1991. The area where the spill occurred is known to West Virginians as "Chemical Valley."

The company responsible for the spill, Freedom Industries, reportedly supplies "environmental chemistries and services" to the coal industry. According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, the chemical spilled is harmful if swallowed or inhaled. MCHM can cause eye and skin irritation, nausea, and vomiting. The EPA has no drinking water standard for MCHM.

Pennsylvanians should not consider themselves immune from such incidents. In 1988, a new storage tank at an Ashland Oil facility along the Monongahela River collapsed, pouring an estimated one million gallons of diesel oil into the river, and threatening drinking water for 750,000 Pittsburgh-area residents. As with the West Virginia spill, a dike around the tank failed to contain the spill.

As proposals are made to build up a petro-chemical industry on Pennsylvania's rivers that rivals Louisiana's Chemical Corridor, the West Virginia spill is a reminder that regardless of how plentiful our fresh water, it remains a precious and fragile resource in need of protection and conservation.

George Jugovic Jr. is chief counsel for PennFuture and is based in Pittsburgh.