Dirty Coal owns elected officials with generous campaign contributions.
Please add your name to the petition below - it's time to end Dirty Coal!
While 300,000 West Virginians are still suffering the effects of having their water system poisoned by a coal chemical leak, we are still trying to do what we can by delivering to communities most in need. Since the very first day after the spill, we've been delivering water and supplies.
We need your help. Please donate to help cover the cost of water, supplies, and
delivery. Please write "Water" in the notes. You can also
donate by check to CRMW, P.O. Box 303, Naoma, WV 25140.
The official verdict, based on "shaky science," is that the water is now okay to
use, except by pregnant women, in spite of the many reports of rashes, headaches, nausea, and other symptoms,
and in spite of new revelations that additional chemicals were leaked. Our governor and the water company may
have turned their backs on the most vulnerable, but we will
not.
This disaster has been largely ignored by the
mainstream media, but there have been reports by Jon Stewart, Chris Hayes, Melissa Harris-Perry, and Rachel Maddow. Please keep
spreading the word, via letters to the editor, Facebook, or just telling your
friends.
Mountaintop removal and coal waste sludge (the
end product of the spilled chemical) contributed to ruining so many water
sources that 300,000 in nine counties depended on one inlet for their water.
Without an effective regulatory agency, coal companies have done
as they please for years.
Please join over 26,000 people who have
signed this petition demanding that
the federal Office of Surface Mining intervene and protect the water and health
of West Virginians from unchecked industry.
Please enjoy and share the images of last night's vigil at the WV Capitol and around the
world. We must not let our leaders wash their hands of this
affront to basic human decency. And don't forget to join over
2,500 friends in liking us on Facebook.
Vernon
Haltom, Executive director, Coal River Mountain Watch
Al Jones of the West Virginia Department of General Services flushes the water as he reopens a restroom on the first floor of the state Capitol in Charleston, W.Va. (photo: Steve Helber/AP)
t took nearly five days after a major chemical spill in West Virginia for residents to receive the go-ahead to start using their water again.
Nothing is known about most of the chemicals in our environment:
West Virginia officials say they also turned to safety information companies, which are required to provide information on the chemicals they possess. But that so-called material safety data sheet included very little data in this case.
"The entries were largely 'data not available' for this particular compound," says Sharon Meyer, a toxicologist from the University of Louisiana, Monroe.
Experts weren't surprised that the scientific literature had so little information about MCHM, because there is very little toxicological research about many chemicals. Priority for testing is given to chemicals used by consumers or in food preparation.
"There are 85,000 chemicals in commerce right now in the United States, and we cannot possibly test all the chemicals for all their different properties," says Rolf Halden, an engineering professor at Arizona State University who researches how chemicals move through the environment and people.
Al Jones of the West Virginia Department of General Services flushes the water as he reopens a restroom on the first floor of the state Capitol in Charleston, W.Va. (photo: Steve Helber/AP)
Chemical-Related Hospital Admissions in West Virginia Have Doubled Since Water Deemed Safe
21 January 14
t took nearly five days after a major chemical spill in West Virginia for residents to receive the go-ahead to start using their water again.
Nearly 7,500 gallons of crude MCHM - a little-known chemical used to wash coal - had leaked into the Elk River on Jan. 9, perplexing state officials on how exactly to get the chemical out of the water and what exactly it would do to people if they used it. It was Jan. 13, a Monday, when the first bans were lifted. As of Saturday, everyone affected by the spill was given the all-clear - water everywhere, state officials said, was now fine to drink.
In a perfect world, that would be the end of the story. But according to statistics released by the state health department on Saturday, it turns out that since the bans on water began being lifted, hospital admissions and calls to the poison control center have doubled. Emergency room visits have nearly tripled.
On Jan. 12, the day before do-not-use orders began being lifted, health department officials cited 10 hospital admissions, 169 people treated and released from the emergency room, and a little more than 1,000 calls to the poison control center.
By Saturday - the same day the final 2 percent of people affected by the spill got their water back - those numbers had increased significantly. According to a report in the Charleston Gazette, health officials said 20 people had been admitted to the hospitals, 411 had been treated and released from the emergency room, and 2,302 had called the poison control center. Of those, 1,862 were human-related, 98 were animal-related and the rest were requests for information only.
Saturday's numbers were also much greater than Thursday's numbers, when health officials said only 317 had been treated and 14 had been hospitalized.
Part of the increased hospitalizations and calls may be due to confusion on the part of West Virginia residents, who in the last week have been repeatedly given conflicting information about the spill and whether they should use the water. The "do-not-drink" order finally lifted on Saturday, for example, was in a town that had actually had their ban lifted on Tuesday. On Thursday, however, West Virginia American Water rescinded their statements that the water was safe to drink, after water from a fire hydrant registered chemical levels above the 1-part-per-million (ppm) limit.
It's not the only instance of conflicting information. On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said pregnant women should not drink water with any amount of the chemical in it, despite West Virginia American Water saying two days earlier that water in some areas was safe to drink.
Chemical levels in the water must be below 1 ppm for human ingestion. But health experts have questioned that logic. Specifically, some are saying that the study being widely used to determine whether the water is safe does not include several chemical components that leached into the water.
"A key corporate study used by federal health officials to set a screening level for 'crude MCHM' in the West Virginia American Water system actually tested a pure form of the material's main ingredient and might not account for potential toxicity of other components," the Charleston Gazette reported on Friday.
The chemical that is thought to have spilled, crude MCHM, is actually a mixture of chemicals that is used to wash coal of its impurities, explained Evan Hansen, president of Morgantown-based Downstream Strategies, in an interview with Climate Progress' Kiley Kroh on Saturday. Of those multiple ingredients, only one of them has any information about exposure limits, he said.
"If crude MCHM is truly what leaked, it's possible that we don't even know which of this 'cocktail' is most harmful," said Hansen. "We could have set a threshold based on the wrong one. We may be testing the wrong one."
So far, however, no official diagnoses have been reported linking patients' symptoms to water exposure.
"As far as the data and recommendations we have from West Virginia American Water, the water is safe to use," Rahul Gupta, health officer for the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, said.
"We're not saying it's safe. West Virginia American Water is saying it's safe. We are taking their word for it."
Nothing is known about most of the chemicals in our environment:
The Big Impact Of A Little-Known Chemical In W.Va. Spill
"The entries were largely 'data not available' for this particular compound," says Sharon Meyer, a toxicologist from the University of Louisiana, Monroe.
"There are 85,000 chemicals in commerce right now in the United States, and we cannot possibly test all the chemicals for all their different properties," says Rolf Halden, an engineering professor at Arizona State University who researches how chemicals move through the environment and people.
Still, the spill shed light on how little is known about many chemicals. Members of Congress have been debating for years whether to update the 1976 law that governs these chemicals, the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Lynn Bergeson, a lawyer who specializes in the regulation of toxic chemicals, says she hopes the West Virginia accident will convince lawmakers that it is urgent for them to act.
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/13/262185930/mysteries-persist-surrounding-west-virginia-chemical-spill
Lynn Bergeson, a lawyer who specializes in the regulation of toxic chemicals, says she hopes the West Virginia accident will convince lawmakers that it is urgent for them to act.
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/13/262185930/mysteries-persist-surrounding-west-virginia-chemical-spill
For West Virginians – Still Major Unknowns about Chemical Spill
The chemical spill from the Freedom Industries tank farm has raised questions around chemical regulatory procedures. For more information, Melissa Block speaks with Ken Ward, a reporter with The Charleston Gazette.
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/16/263123726/west-virginia-chemical-regulations-stay-beneath-the-microscope
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/16/263123726/west-virginia-chemical-regulations-stay-beneath-the-microscope
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