2014 Elk River chemical spill
The Elk River chemical spill occurred on January 9, 2014, when crude 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol was released from a Freedom Industries facility into the Elk River, a tributary of the Kanawha River, in Charleston in the U.S. state of West Virginia.
The spill happened upstream from the principal West Virginia American Water intake and treatment and distribution center. Following the spill, up to 300,000 residents within nine counties in the Charleston, West Virginia metropolitan area were without access to potable water. The areas affected were portions of Boone, Clay, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, Putnam, and Roane counties and the Culloden area of Cabell County.
Crude MCHM is a chemical foam used to wash coal and remove impurities that contribute to pollution during combustion. The "do-not-use" advisory for drinking water from West Virginia American Water's system began to be gradually lifted by West Virginia state officials on January 13 based upon "priority zones."
On Tuesday, January 14, the company revealed that the tank, which leaked about 7,500 gallons into the ground by the Elk River, had also contained a mixture of glycol ethers known as PPH, with a similar function as MCHM.
The Elk River spill was the third chemical accident to take place in the Kanawha River Valley within the previous five years. On June 12, 2014, another spill of containment water occurred at the same site.
Freedom Industries
Freedom Industries was founded in 1992 by Melody, and Carl L. Kennedy II. On December 31, 2013, Freedom Industries merged with three other companies, Etowah River Terminal, Poca Blending, and Crete Technologies. Gary Southern became president of Freedom Industries on December 10, 2013, and remained president until April 2014 when Chemstream appointed a reorganization officer. The company distributed chemicals used in coal mining.Freedom Industries' Charleston facility was located along the Elk River, approximately upstream from the river's confluence with the Kanawha River, Previously in use by Etowah River Terminal, the facility stored chemicals in 14 storage tanks with a capacity of 4 million gallons. The facility stored chemicals, but did not conduct coal cleaning. Eastman Chemical Company was the manufacturer of the crude MCHM. Federal and West Virginia state regulators had not inspected the Freedom Industries chemical storage site in Charleston since 1991 when the facility was owned by Pennzoil, according to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. Under state law, the facility had been required to have only an industrial stormwater permit, which it possessed. Freedom Industries was required to test the rain runoff every quarter, and send the results to the DEP.
Under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, Freedom Industries filed its "Tier Two" form in February 2013, which contained detailed information about each chemical it was storing at its Charleston facility. Following its filing of the tier two form, West Virginia state emergency response officials and Kanawha County emergency planners and responders received copies. These entities received copies of the form under law so that its chemical inventory information could be utilized to prepare plans for possible accidents.
4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol
4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol, or more appropriately 4-methylcyclohexylmethanol, is an organic compound with the formula CH3C6H10CH2OH. Classified as an alcohol, it exists as two isomers with similar properties. MCHM is a colorless oil with an odor of licorice.The amount of reliable information of this chemical is still unknown. Further data from Eastman's internal studies was released after the Elk River, West Virginia spill, including the studies upon which the LD-50 estimate was based and one 28-day study of oral toxicity of pure MCHM which concluded that 400 mg/kg doses were associated with erythropoietic, liver, and kidney effects, though these were not considered more than "minor toxicity" and the "no observed effect" level was considered to be 100 mg/kg/day.
Crude MCHM is a chemical foaming agent utilized in the processing of coal at coal preparation plants to remove impurities that contribute to pollution during combustion. The chemical washes coal in a process known as "froth flotation," which involves the separation of sand-size particles of coal from the surrounding rock within a tank of water or other solution. MCHM is utilized in about 20 to 25 percent of coal preparation plants in West Virginia.
MCHM is not used in the majority of West Virginia's coal preparation plants, because it is only used to produce coal for metallurgical purposes, a type of coal known as "coking coal" and most West Virginia plants process coal that is to be used for the generation of electricity.
Diesel fuel was originally used for the froth flotation process, but it was replaced by MCHM because of air emissions regulations.
Glycol ethers are a group of solvents based on alkyl ethers of ethylene glycol commonly used in paints. These solvents typically have a higher boiling point, together with the favorable solvent properties of lower-molecular weight ethers and alcohols.46
Incident
The spill began on Thursday, January 9, 2014, when up to of crude MCHM leaked from a one-inch hole in the bottom of a stainless steel storage tank capable of holding and its containment area at Freedom Industries' Charleston facility. The MCHM leaked from the containment area and into the ground, through which it traveled into the Elk River. The chemical spill occurred upstream from West Virginia American Water's raw water intake at its Kanawha Valley Water Treatment Plant. The Elk River measured approximately in depth at the time of the spill.File:Charleston Kanawha River.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Charleston's downtown skyline viewed from the south bank of the Kanawha River, of which the Elk River is a tributary.
The spill was noticed around mid morning on January 9 by several Charleston area residents when they began to notice a "sweet smell" in the air. DEP began receiving odor complaints from Charleston residents at 8:15 a.m. According to Freedom Industries, two employees noticed leakage from the tank into the containment area around 10:30 a.m. on January 9. According to the company's president, Gary Southern, workers began cleanup immediately by hauling away the remaining MCHM in the storage tank and vacuuming the spilled MCHM from the ground nearby.
However, the DEP, whose inspectors discovered the leak at 11:10 a.m. in response to residents' complaints about the odor, contradicted Southern's claim. When the department's inspectors arrived at the facility, they observed the MCHM leaking through a concrete block containment dike with no cleanup or containment measures underway. Inspectors found a wide stream of chemical liquid flowing across the floor of the containment dike and into the ground where the dike's wall joined with its floor. According to DEP inspectors, they discovered a pool of clear liquid measuring approximately in size outside of the damaged white stainless steel tank, Number 396. DEP inspectors also stated that Freedom Industries' workers had set up one cinder block and a bag of safety absorbent powder to stop the flow of the stream of leaking chemical.
DEP air quality inspector Mike Kolb described the scene as "a Band-Aid approach" and stated further that it was "apparent that this was not an event that had just happened." The DEP and the Kanawha County Fire Department had been able to locate the origin of the leak by tracing the smell. At the time of the leak's discovery by the inspectors, the damaged storage tank contained about of MCHM.
West Virginia American Water was aware of the chemical spill by noon, but assumed that they could filter it. By 4 p.m., when its carbon filtration system could no longer handle the large amount of contamination in the water and the chemical began flowing through the carbon filter, they decided to report the problem. This they did at 5:09 p.m. West Virginia American Water concluded that its tap water was unsafe for use and instructed its customers to cease using its tap water at 5:45 p.m. Freedom Industries failed to contact West Virginia American Water following the spill, and West Virginia American Water was instead notified by the DEP.
Freedom Industries refused initial media inquiries following the spill. The company's president, Gary Southern gave a ten-minute news conference the next evening, January 10.
Local residents
Residents were advised not to drink, cook with, bathe, or wash with West Virginia American Water tap water; up to 300,000 residents were affected. The area affected spanned nine counties within the Charleston, West Virginia metropolitan area. The areas affected included Boone, Clay, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, Putnam, and Roane counties and in the Culloden area of Cabell. The majority of Cabell County was unaffected as its public water system uses water from the Ohio River, and some residents in Saint Albans in Kanawha County, Lincoln County and Hurricane in Putnam county were not affected by the water ban as they were served by local public water systems.The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources stated that 122 people had sought treatment by January 11 for symptoms including nausea and vomiting. Of those 122 people, four people had been admitted to the Charleston Area Medical Center and one at another area hospital for observation with symptoms of nausea. On January 12, the number of patients treated at hospitals for their symptoms from chemical exposure grew to about 169. By that evening of January 10, nearly 700 residents had contacted West Virginia's poison control center, reporting a range of symptoms including nausea and rashes. On January 13, the total number of residents who had been hospitalized had risen to 10, and by January 14, the total reached 14, although none were in were in serious condition.
By 1 p.m. on January 10, the sweet-smelling odor was no longer detectable, according to West Virginia National Guard Adjutant, Major General James Hoyer. On January 11, the chief of DEP's Homeland Security and Emergency Response division, Mike Dorsey, stated that of MCHM had spilled into the river, more than had previously been estimated.
The "do-not-use" advisory on drinking water from the West Virginia American Water system began to be lifted by West Virginia state officials on January 13, five days after it had been put into effect following the January 9 detection of the chemical spill. The lifting of the ban started with hospital facilities and extended zone by zone within the West Virginia American Water system. Following the gradual end to the "do-not-use" advisory, affected Charleston area residents were instructed to flush water from their pipes, hot water tanks, and the icemakers in their refrigerators. West Virginia American Water began lifting the "do-not-use" ban in downtown Charleston, and would begin phasing in use of the system's drinking water based upon "priority zones." By the evening of January 13, 15 percent of West Virginia American Water's customers were permitted to begin using the drinking water.
On January 13, a Kanawha County Circuit Court judge issued a temporary restraining order to preserve evidence at the Freedom Industries' Charleston facility. The order also prohibited the company from modifying in any manner "any structure, tank, equipment, material or condition of" its facility, except as necessary to stop and clean up the chemical spill.
On January 21, Freedom Industries notified West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection that a second chemical, polyglycol ethers, was in the leaking tank with the MCHM. The department said that the failure to report accurately the type of materials and the quantities is a violation of state law.
A one-year incident timeline can be found published in the Supporting Information section of a 2014 research paper
A case study of the incident can be found published here . This report only includes information that was publicly available as of March 2016. This report does not include the findings and information released by the US Chemical Hazard and Safety Board, US National Toxicology Program, and other academic studies. Information disclosed as part of these studies indicated more than 100 mg/L of 4-MCHM was present in the Elk River, levels greater than 3.773 ppm 4-MCHM were present in the water treatment plant, among other information.