CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Those who make up a Kanawha County citizens group are looking forward to steps the U.S. Chemical Safety Board will take to re-examine sections of the agency’s report released Wednesday into the 2014 chemical spill and water emergency that began on the Elk River in Charleston.
“The report was incomplete in a couple of pretty important ways,” Cathy Kunkel, a member of Advocates for a Sate Water System said Thursday on MetroNews “Talkline.”
Kunkel said the report doesn’t really cover how holes developed in the Freedom Industries chemical tank that leaked 10,000 gallons of MCHM other than to say it was caused by corrosion.
“Maybe the MCHM was degrading into something else that seems to be perhaps what was happening but that wasn’t really well described in the report. They didn’t particularly say what it was that corroded the tanks,” Kunkel said.
Kunkel believes the CSB report “glossed over” the role West Virginia American Water Company played in the water crisis. A Bureau of Public Health requirement for water utilities to have two-days of water storage wasn’t addressed, she said.
“West Virginia American Water wasn’t operating with anywhere close to that level of storage in their system which really impeded their ability to shut off their intakes to manage the spill. That wasn’t an issue the CSB addressed at all,” Kunkel said.
The report credited state leaders for reacting to the emergency by passing the new storage tank law but it will only have an impact if it’s enforced, according to Kunkel.
“The tank law was an important step but I think DEP enforcement of existing regulations is equally if not more important to preventing something like this from happening again.”
The CSB will accept written public comments on the report through Oct. 1.
The spill of MCHM was detected Jan. 9, 2014. Initially Freedom Industries told West Virginia American Water 1,000 gallons had spilled. The company later learned it was 10,000 gallons. A “Do Not Use” order impacted approximately 300,000 residents in parts of nine West Virginia counties serviced by the company’s Kanawha Valley Plant just 1.5 miles downstream from the spill site.