CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A chemical spill left the water for 300,000 people in and around West Virginia’s capital city stained bluegreen and smelling like licorice, with officials saying Friday that it was unclear when it might be safe again for even mundane activities like showers and laundry.
President Barack Obama issued a federal disaster declaration for the state Friday.
Federal authorities and the U.S. attorney’s office began investigating how the foaming agent escaped a chemical plant and seeped into the Elk River. Just how much of the chemical leaked into the river was not yet known.
U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said his office will“take whatever action is appropriate.”
The “release of a potentially dangerous chemical into our water supply has put hundreds of thousands of West Virginians at risk, severely disrupted our region’s economy, and upended people’s daily lives,” Goodwin said Friday in a statement.
Officials are working with the company that makes the chemical to determine how much can be in the water without posing harm to residents, said West Virginia American Water President Jeff McIntyre.
“We don’t know that the water’s not safe. But I can’t say that it is safe,” McIntyre said Friday. For now, there is no way to treat the tainted water aside from flushing the system until it’s in low enough concentrations to be safe, a process that could take days. McIntyre said boiling water would not effectively eliminate the risk of illness.
Officials and experts said the chemical, even in its most concentrated form, isn’t deadly. However, people across nine counties were told not to so much as wash clothes in water affected, as the compound can cause symptoms ranging from skin irritation and rashes to throwing up and diarrhea.
No more than six people have been taken to emergency rooms with symptoms that may stem from the chemical, and none was in serious or critical condition, said state Department of Health and Human Resources Secretary Karen Bowling.
Thousands of miles of water mains are affected, Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin said in a statement, citing estimates from West Virginia American Water.
The spill put West Virginia’s most populous city and nearby areas at a virtual standstill.
“Downtown Charleston is dead,” Mayor Danny Jones said. “It’s not just my city, it’s nine counties. When you don’t have water you can drink or bathe in, you’re pretty much frozen solid.”
Jones said hotels, restaurants and affiliated businesses were closed in the city of 51,000 people, which swells to about 125,000 on an average workday. A convention of mayors and city council members from around the state, scheduled to begin Sunday, has been canceled, he said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is coordinating relief efforts, was ordered by the president to respond to the spill and avert the threat of a catastrophe in Boone, Cabell, Clay, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, Putnam and Roane counties, according to a White House statement.
The federal government will pay for 75 percent of the cost for equipment and resources to fight the spill, the administration said.
Officials focused on getting water to people who needed it, particularly the elderly and disabled.
“If you are low on bottled water, don’t panic because help is on the way,” Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said at a news conference Friday afternoon. The governor said there was no shortage of bottled water and that officials were working to get water to those who need it. At least one charity was collecting donations of bottled water, baby wipes, plastic utensils and other items for people unable to use tap water.
FEMA also planned to deliver more than 1 million liters of water from nearby Maryland. Several companies were sending bottled water and other supplies, including PepsiCo Inc. and the Coca-Cola Co., Tomblin said.
However, at a Kroger grocery store along the Kanawha River, people scrambled in the aisles to find bottled water, only to learn the store had been out since early Friday.
Robert Stiver couldn’t find water at that store after trying at least a dozen others in the area, worried about how he’d make sure his cats had drinkable water. The water at his home had a blue tint and smelled like licorice, he said.
“I’m lucky. I can get out and look for water. But what about the elderly? They can’t get out. They need someone to help them,” he said.
That’s what 59-year-old Dan Scott was doing: Taking care of his 81-year-old mother, Bonnie Wireman, and others in the area.
“She takes everything to heart. She forgot a few times and stuck her hand in the kitchen sink. When she realized what she did, she took out alcohol and washed her hands. Scrubbed them. She was really scared,” he said.
Inside Kroger, there were signs that the chemical spills had affected business. Anything that used water - from the deli counter to the produce section - was either closed or had a limited supply.
Outside the restrooms, a handmade sign told the story: Because of a chemical spill in the Elk River, the store was advising people not to use the water fountain. The bathroom sinks were wrapped in plastic.
The spill apparently occurred after the chemical leaked from a hole in the bottom of a storage tank at Freedom Industries and then filled a retention pond before spilling into the river, said state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Tom Aluise.
Freedom Industries was ordered to stop storing chemicals in areas where they could flow into the retention pond, Aluise said.
State environmental officials ordered the company later Friday to start removing chemicals from its 14 above-ground storage tanks within 24 hours. Authorities said the chemicals must be stored somewhere that has a working containment system. Within a day, the company also must submit a corrective action plan that includes steps to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater.
The tank that leaked holds at least 40,000 gallons, Aluise said, though officials believe no more than 5,000 gallons leaked from the tank. Some of that was contained before escaping into the river, he said.
The chemical resembled “cooking oil floating on top of the water,” Aluise said.
The company already had been cited for causing air pollution stemming from the odor first reported Thursday, Aluise said.
In a statement from Freedom Industries President Gary Southern, the company said it was working with all authorities to deal with the issue.
“Our team has been working around the clock since the discovery to contain the leak to prevent further contamination. At this point, Freedom Industries is still working to determine the amount of 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol, or Crude MCHM, a chemical used in processing coal, that has been released, as the first priority was safety, containment and cleanup,” Southern stated.
The chemical is water-soluble, meaning it cannot be removed with surface booms that are sometimes effective in capturing spilled oil.
Southern said Friday evening that after the leak was discovered, the company worked all day and through the night to remove the chemical from the site and take it elsewhere. He said he believes the work will prevent any more of it from leaving the facility.
The chemical evaporates easily, which explains the smell that many people reported, said Capt. Larry Cseh, environmental health scientist with the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
The West Virginia National Guard has been running hourly tests on the chemical’s concentration since Thursday night. A safe level is 1 part per million. The level had dropped from 2 to 1.7 parts per million by Friday evening, said Maj. Gen. James Hoyer, adjutant general of West Virginia.
At 0.1 part per million, the licorice smell and green tint would disappear from the water, Hoyer said.
Even at its current concentrations, however, the chemical is unlikely to cause any serious harm, said Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute.
“You’d have to drink something like 1,700 gallons of water to even approach a lethal dose,” he said. If a person drank a glass or two of tainted water, “I would be astonished if that caused any serious problems.” Information for this article was contributed by Brendan Farrington, Jonathan Mattise, Rhonda Shafner, Monika Mathur, Mitch Weiss, John Raby, Pam Ramsey, Ray Henry and John Flesher of The Associated Press; by Michael Muskal of the Los Angeles Times; by Timothy Williams,Ashley Southall and Trip Gabriel of The New York Times; by Roger Runningen and Mark Drajem of Bloomberg News; and by Lenny Bernstein of The Washington Post.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/11/2014