West Virginia coal mining chemical leak affects 300,000 citizens’ water supply
By: Jose G. Landa
Copyright 2014 Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc.
West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin declared an emergency on Thursday, January 9, 2014, after a coal mining chemical leaked into the Elk River near Charleston, West Virginia contaminating the public water supply of over 300,000 citizens in a nine-county area. Although municipal and state officials knew that the chemical used in washing coal was being stored in steel storage tanks about one and a half miles upstream from the West Virginia American Water Company’s public water treatment plant, local, state, and federal officials had not inspected the dangerous chemical storage site owned by Freedom Industries and did not have a contingency plan in the event of a similar chemical leak.
Workers from Freedom Industries discovered the leak of the chemical called 4methylcyclohexane methanol on Thursday, January 9th after smelling a strong licorice odor at the chemical storage facility which is near the banks of the Elk River in Charleston, West Virginia finding about an inch wide tear in one of the steel chemical storage tanks with a 40,000 gallons capacity. The workers inspected the chemical leak which went into the Elk Creek nearby. Although it is unknown exactly how much of the coal mining chemical leaked into the Elk River and entered the municipal water treatment plant, some estimate between 7,500 to 40,000 gallons may have flowed into the Elk River and contaminating the public water treatment plant.
West Virginians in nine counties were notified on Thursday, January 9th in the morning not to drink, use, cook, bathe, or use the municipal tap water except for flushing the toilet as a result of the chemical leak. Many businesses, hotels, restaurants, and residences had to close down because they could not use the municipal water supply.
Over 150 persons have gone to the emergency rooms of local hospitals and at least 12 have been admitted complaining of vomiting, nausea, headaches, and pain from having drank, cooked, or bathe with the contaminated water before learning of its ban not to use it.
President Barack Obama has declared West Virginia a national disaster area and has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and the National Guard to assist the over 300,000 residents affected by the coal mining chemical leak and contamination. Affected residents have been without public water for five days now since the discovery of the chemical leak.
Many Maverick County, Texas residents have expressed concerns regarding the potential contamination of the City of Eagle Pass and Maverick County’s public water supply from the proposed permitted Dos Republicas Coal Partnership’s Eagle Pass open surface coal mine on the banks of Elm Creek, a direct water tributary of the Rio Grande River, which is located only three miles north of the Eagle Pass city limits and about one and a half mile from both the City of Eagle Pass, Texas and the City of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico municipal water treatment plants supplying over 300,000 residents their sole source of potable water as well as the potential contamination of over 3 million Rio Grande River water users downstream from Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico on the Texas-Mexico border.
The City of Eagle Pass, Texas, County of Maverick, Texas, Maverick County Hospital District, Maverick County Environmental and Public Health Association, and George Baxter are appealing the Railroad Commission of Texas’ granting of an open surface coal mining permit to Dos Republicas Coal Partnership, a fully owned subsidiary of Mexican steel and coal conglomerate Grupo Acerero del Norte, S.A. de C.V. headquartered in Monclova, Coahuila, Mexico, on January 29, 2013. The appeal is currently pending in the 126th Judicial District Court in Austin, Travis County, Texas with a scheduled trial on February 25, 2014.
