Chemical smell to linger after West Virginia water is safe to drink

[jakeXT]

The water ban that left 300,000 people in West Virginia unable to drink tap water, shower or wash their clothes was lifted in some places on Monday as the aftermath of a chemical spill stretched into its fifth day.

But as hospitals began to get their water systems online and officials disbursed instructions to homeowners on how to clean out the chemical that contaminated their tap water -- and in some cases, their clothes and their dishes -- at least one reminder of the disaster was expected to linger a while longer.

The signature black-licorice smell of the obscure coal-cleaning chemical was expected to stay in West Virginians' tap water even after it is deemed safe to drink, officials said Monday.

"Don’t flush to try to get rid of all the odor," Jeff McIntyre, president of the West Virginia American Water utility, told reporters at a news conference, alluding to the "flushing" protocol that officials designed to make homeowners' water usable again.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-west-virginia-chemical-20140113,0,7906874.story

[madaboutharry]

1. I wouldn't trust the water.

I don't know how I would cope, but I would be very reluctant to believe the water was safe.

[angstlessk]

2. Just because it SMELLS like a chemical does not mean it IS a chemical

"trust us"

[jakeXT]

3. A good track record

'In 2009, an investigation by The New York Times found that hundreds of workplaces in West Virginia had violated pollution laws without paying fines. In interviews at the time, current and former West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection employees said their enforcement efforts had been undermined by bureaucratic disorganization; a departmental preference to let polluters escape punishment if they promised to try harder; and a revolving door of regulators who left for higher-paying jobs at the companies they once policed.

In June 2009, four environmental groups petitioned the E.P.A. to take over much of West Virginia’s handling of the Clean Water Act, citing a “nearly complete breakdown” in the state.

“Historically, there had been a questionable enforcement ethic,” said Matthew Crum, a former state mining director at the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

Cindy Rank, chairwoman of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy’s mining committee, said that the coal lobby has wielded great influence in crafting state environmental regulations. “Accidents are always preventable. For the most part I think that’s true in these disasters that keep happening,” she said. She recalled negotiations over a groundwater protection bill from the early 1990s. “We swallowed hard and allowed the coal industry to get away with a lot in that bill,” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/us/critics-say-chemical-spill-highlights-lax-west-virginia-regulations.html?_r=0

[Squinch]

4. In other words, "Yes, I poisoned you, but now you should trust me."

Shall we take bets on increases in cancers and birth defects in those counties in the years to come?

[Champion Jack]

5. From what I understand

They don't even know what the stuff is let alone how to treat it or how to get it out of the water. And when they talk about flushing the system where does that water go?

[jakeXT]

6. They know about its half-life but not so much about its effect on humans.

The chemical has a half-life (meaning half of it will have broken down into other elements in this amount of time) of roughly two weeks in water, a month in soil and, if it gets into the muck at the bottom of the river, 140 days in sediments. Microbes and the slow workings of natural chemistry help with that. Its half-life is less than a day in air, quickly broken down by sunlight.

Nonetheless, as Halden says "exposure should be avoided because the health effects are a bit uncertain. You should never be exposed to an industrial chemical unless there's a good reason."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-dangerous-is-the-chemical-spilled-in-west-virginia&page=2

[Nihil]

7. Nice to see that West Virginia American Water is doing their bit ...

... to reduce the over-population problem ...

The way to get them to focus on the problem is to block all shipments of bottled water
into the areas where they live & work. Pow! Instant concern!