In August of 2008, Freedom Industries, the same company that caused this spill to happen, experienced a chemical explosion where two workers were killed. The US Chemical Safety Board stepped in to investigate what went wrong, identifying equipment failures, management lapses, poor procedures, as the the cause of the explosion, but the most shocking revelation was that these problems had been documented before. With Freedom Industries poor track, the CSB strongly urged the state and Kanawha County to implement a new safety program that would include regular government audits and new accident-prevention procedures, but this was ignored by state officials (Cantú). So, in theory, this spill could have been prevented, had that state taken the suggestions into action Also, according to Plumer, little testing is required for new chemicals and no testing is required for the 62,000 chemicals that were grandfathered in back in 1976, so if laws were passed requiring all chemicals to be tested, the chance of this leak happening would be nearing zero (Plumer). And, if a chemical did happen to leak all safety information would`1 be readily available. There are also new analytical technologies, such as gas chromatography, a type of chromatography that can be used for separating and analyzing compounds that can be vaporized without decomposition, and mass spectrometry, used to determine the elemental structure of compounds by creating single spectrum. That can be used to test a longer list of unknown chemicals, but “to expect a water company to monitor for thousands of chemicals, it just is not practical and it would be cost-prohibitive," (Shrogen) Brent Fewell, senior vice president of environment, health and safety of a different water company, United Waters, told the National Public Radio.
How is this problem being resolved?
On January 12th, three days after the spill, officials tested the amount of chemical in the water, but concluded that it might take days before the water could be determined safe (Heyman). That Saturday and Sunday, officials conducted at least 100 additional tests of samples. Also, different organizations are working together to create how-to manuals for cleaning their plumbing systems when the ban was relegated. So far, as of January 28th, “the company has been able to clean up about 1,272 gallons of the chemical using absorbent booms and other control devices” (Valentine). The other 6,000 have not been mentioned.
Possible solutions to prevent future spills
Last year, the EPA proposed setting limits on some of the compounds since there are no federal limits on the majority of chemicals that power plants pipe directly into rivers, streams and reservoirs. This was the the first update proposal since 1982 (Cappiello). It is necessary that all companies should research the toxicity of the chemicals before use, in order to know how to clean chemicals up and how these chemicals can affect people. Also, there should be a creation of jobs that allow all sites to be inspected more frequently since the water plant in Charleston has not been inspected in thirteen years. The inspection regarded MCHM as safe enough that additional regulations were not required — “so, given limited manpower, the site was deemed a lower priority and the problems with the containment dike were never discovered,” (Plumer). The fact that the last inspection was in 2001,may have been a huge factor in why the spill happened. Finally, the government could go as far as passing legislation that prevents these types of spill from happening, since it is clear that these types of bills have not been passed. These bills could require state inspections of aboveground chemical storage facilities and the industry's development of state-approved emergency response plans. It would allow states to recoup emergency response costs and to ensure drinking water systems have the tools and information to respond to spills and other emergencies.
Once again, think about just how much water you use on a regular basis. It is so precious that come think of it, almost all your everyday activities require some water. Now, put yourself in the shoes of the 300,000 West Virginia citizens who were stripped of this privilege. What would you do? Who is there to blame? Could more have been done?
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