Chemical spill brings West Virginia capital to standstill

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - West Virginia authorities have ordered a company to remove the chemicals from its storage tanks after a spill contaminated the water supply of nine counties and forced residents to use bottled water.

Officials at the Department of Environmental Protection ordered Freedom Enterprises Inc. late Friday to start removing all the chemicals in 14 above-ground storage tanks near the Elk River within 24 hours.

The chemicals in three of those tanks, including one that was discovering leaking Thursday, have mostly been removed. Within a day, the company must submit a plan to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater.

The leak left the water for 300,000 people in and around Charleston stained blue-green and smelling like licorice. Officials said Friday it was unclear when it might be safe again for even mundane activities like showers and laundry.

Federal authorities 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.

Officials are working with the company that makes the chemical to determine how much can be in the water without it 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.

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 their clothes in water affected, as the compound can cause symptoms ranging from skin irritation and rashes to vomiting and diarrhea.

No more than six people have been brought into emergency rooms with symptoms that may stem from the chemical, and none were in serious or critical condition, said State Department of Health & Human Resources Secretary Karen L. Bowling.

The company where the leak occurred, Freedom Industries, discovered Thursday morning around 10:30 a.m. that the chemical was leaking from the bottom of a storage tank, said its president Gary Southern. Southern said the company worked all day and through the night to remove the chemical from the site and take it elsewhere. Vacuum trucks were used to remove the chemical from the ground at the site.

"We have the mitigated the risk, we believe, in terms of further material leaving this facility," he said.

Southern said he didn't think the chemical posed a public danger. He also said the company didn't know how much leaked.

The spill brought West Virginia's most populous city and nearby areas to a virtual standstill, closing schools and offices and even forcing the Legislature to cancel its business for the day. 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.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency also planned to deliver more than a million liters of water from nearby Maryland. Several companies were sending bottled water and other supplies, including Pepsi and the Coca-Cola Co., Tomblin said.

Freedom Industries was ordered to stop storing chemicals in areas where they could flow into the retention pond that failed in Thursday's leak, said state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Tom Aluise.

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 company was already cited for causing air pollution stemming from the odor first reported Thursday, Aluise said.

The primary component in the foaming agent that leaked is the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol. The agent is mixed with ground-up coal to separate it from soil and rock particles, said Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute. After the coal is cleansed, the leftover mixtures of chemicals and mud are piped to slurry ponds, where much of the chemical mixture is stored until re-used.

The chemical is water-soluble, meaning it cannot be removed with surface booms that are sometimes effective in capturing spilled oil.

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 has dropped from 2 to 1.7 parts per million, said Maj. Gen. James A. Hoyer, Adjutant General of West Virginia.

At 0.1 parts 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, Ziemkiewicz said.

"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."