CHARLESTON, W.Va. — C.W. Sigman remembered the day very well. The Deputy Director of Emergency Services in Kanawha County investigated the initial call which came into the Metro 911 Center in Kanawha County from a motorist on I-77 northbound near the I-77/79 split.
“It was an odor complaint,” recalled Sigman. “You could smell it all along the Elk River on the way up to investigate.”
The odor was that of licorice and it was strong. Sigman knew immediately what chemical they were dealing with, it was MCHM.
“I recognized the smell because we had dealt with that material at other locations,” he said.
However, the smell was about all that was known about the material. Although the source was traced to the Freedom Industries tank farm along the Elk River, it did not initially appear any of the chemical had leaked into the river. A subsequent call revealed it had gotten into the river and nobody was sure how much.
When Sigman returned to the scene representatives of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection were on the scene as well as officials from West Virginia American Water Company.
“We asked if the were going to be okay,” Sigman recalled. “I think they thought they could treat the material based on the information they received.”
As 300,000 people are now aware, the were not equipped to treat the material. For the next nine to twelve days residents across nine counties had no tap water. They were having to use bottled water for almost everything and as the crises wore on, there seemed to be no firm answers to any of the most pressing questions.
“CDC to local health department and state health were making determinations what the safe levels were,” he said. “There was noting on the data sheet and they were working with the manufacturer in Tennessee to determine what was a safe level.”
However, with so few answers and mixed messages about the safety of the area’s drinking water the public rapidly lost confidence in anybody involved.
“There were a lot of mixed messages going out,” said Sigman. “I won’t say any of them were wrong or assign blame, but nobody had good data on it.”
Since the water crises, Sigman noted much had
changed.
“We’re working with the water company leaps and bounds ahead of what we were,” said Sigman. “We were pretty good to start with, but now we call them for everything. We also learned about protecting our water intakes. We always did that, but now we’re a thousand times more conscious about our water intakes.”