14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, a storage tank owned by Freedom Industries somehow ended up sporting a not-so-small hole in it. The result was that a noteworthy amount of a chemical compound used during coal washing leaked, and worked its way into the Elk River.
News of the chemical spill first reached the public on Thursday. In the aftermath of this incident, some 300,000 consumers were asked not to drink tap water, or use it to either clean themselves or cook food, and a state of emergency was issued for nine counties in West Virginia.
At first, it was said that some 2,000 to 5,000 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol had spilled from said storage tank.
However, CleanTechnica tells us that, according to more recent estimates, the tank leaked an impressive 7,500 gallons of said chemical compound.
This past Saturday, the current President of West Virginia American Water Company, Jeff McIntyre, stressed the fact that, although workers were doing their best to get things under control, it would probably be “several days” before the water ban was lifted in all the nine counties affected by the spill.
On the same day, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin's office shared the results of a new series of tests concerning water quality in the region.
It would appear that, although water concentrations of 4-methylcyclohexane were found to be below 1 part per million and therefore safe in some areas, 8 of the 18 tests whose results were published this past weekend indicated still dangerously high concentrations of said compound in other regions.
“The reason the numbers are going down is we believe less of the material is getting into the water,” Mike Dorsey, the chief of homeland security and emergency response at the State Department of Environmental Protection, explains in a statement.
Furthermore, “We have cut of the source of the leak, the tank. There is still material under the concrete and the soil. We’ve taken aggressive measures on the shore line below the site.”
Despite the water ban issued not long after the chemical spill was reported, over 600 people needed medical attention following their becoming exposed to the contaminated water, EcoWatch reports.
These people all displayed symptoms such as vomiting, dizziness, nausea, headaches, diarrhea, reddening skin, itches and rashes, the same source details.