By Matthew Larotonda
February 8, 2014
Photo courtesy cnn.com
WASHINGTON – Sen. Jay Rockefeller doesn’t believe the tap water for 300,000 in West Virginia is safe to use a month after a massive chemical spill in his state put it at risk. And with ongoing uncertainty over the water supply in Kanawha Valley, the lawmaker says he won’t trust investigators’ assurances, given the state’s history of “lack of regulatory control.”
“No, I don’t, and even if some expert group told me it was safe I don’t think I’d believe it,” he told ABC affiliate stationWCHS-TV Friday, adding “They can say it’s not hazardous or this or that, but it doesn’t mean anything.”
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have asserted that levels of the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or MCHM, are at acceptable or non-detectable levels in the affected counties. But the Democrat says 50 years of public service in the state, which is known for its relationship with energy industries, has left him skeptical.
“It just gets into the degree of control that corporations have over people,” he said. “They dominate in West Virginia’s life. Governors get elected – and I was a governor once – and they appoint people to regulatory jobs who helped them in campaigns. What does that tell you?”
On Jan. 9, Freedom Industries reported its chemical processing plant in Charleston had leaked up to 5,000 gallons of MCHM, used in coal processing, into the Elk River. The company later upped that number to 10,000 gallons and announced two weeks later that a smaller amount of a second chemical, a mixture of propylene glycol phenyl ether, or PPH, and dipropylene glycol phenyl ether had escaped from the same tank.
Rockefeller said the fact that the containers at the facility had not been inspected since 1991 was “absolutely astounding.”
Rockefeller along with fellow West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Senate Environmental Committee chair Barbara Boxer have authored legislation to strengthen inspections of above-ground chemical containers such as the Freedom Industries plant, and to require industries to develop state-approved disaster response plans. The three Democrats’ bill is undergoing committee review.
Few health studies have been done regarding the substances, and while the water ban has been lifted, the CDC has suggested – “out of an abundance of caution” – that pregnant women avoid consuming the water.