CHARLESTON, W.Va. — After the 2014 Freedom Industries chemical spill that contaminated tap water for more than 300,000 West Virginians in parts of nine counties, a Charleston resident found herself becoming an “accidental activist.”
“I learned how to use my voice. I was empowered by citizen groups that were forming,” said Lori Magana who’s spent the past nearly three years at the State Capitol with waterdrop cookies talking with lawmakers about water protections.
“I wanted to give children a voice to empower them,” Magana, also known as “The Cookie Lobbyist,” told MetroNews of her newest venture — a children’s book titled “Waterdrop Waterdrop,” released in September.
On Wednesday, in a blue dress and rain boots, she read the book to preschool students who were also dressed in blue for the occasion at Weberwood Elementary School in Kanawha County.
The event was part of the launch of a three-week unit focused on water pipes for the 19 students in Stacy Lazo-Deiss’ class.
“Usually we have a celebration at the end of the unit, but to kick off the study we were so excited that we did our celebration at the beginning,” Lazo-Deiss said.
“Waterdrop Waterdrop” tells the story of a girl and her dog who hike through West Virginia finding ways to shield pure waterdrops and blue streams from “black stinky invaders.”
It’s designed to be an introduction for kids to conservation and government, according to Magana.
“The book is for preschool to 2nd, 3rd grade. It is a picture book. There are some big words, but when you combine that with the art and you combine it with a discussion, I think the concepts are simple and it would be a good way to start the discussion with them,” she said.
Magana, a pediatric physical therapist, used children’s water-themed artwork to try to engage kids during the 2015 Regular Legislative Session, but she had never before written a children’s book.
“For me, it wasn’t hard. I like to write poetry, poems, rhymes and it just came,” she said. “I was inspired and it just came quickly.”
On Jan. 9, 2014, a leak of MCHM, a coal processing chemical, was discovered at the Freedom Industries site located along the Elk River.
The site sat directly upstream from the sole water intake for West Virginia American Water Company’s Kanawha Valley Water Treatment Plant.