Daily Archives: January 11, 2014

This is the Freedom Industries plant along the Elk River, just north of Charleston, where the "Crude MCHM" leak occurred Thursday.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- When West Virginia inspectors arrived at Freedom Industries late Thursday morning, they discovered that the company had taken "no spill containment measures" to combat the chemical spill that has put drinking water supplies off-limits for hundreds of thousands of residents.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- When West Virginia inspectors arrived at Freedom Industries late Thursday morning, they discovered that the company had taken "no spill containment measures" to combat the chemical spill that has put drinking water supplies off-limits for hundreds of thousands of residents.

The state Department of Environmental Protection said Freedom Industries violated the West Virginia's Air Pollution Control Act and the Water Pollution Control Act by allowing the chemical "Crude MCHM," consisting mostly of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, to escape from its facility, just upstream from West Virginia American Water's regional intake in the Elk River.

DEP officials have said between 2,000 gallons and 5,000 gallons of the material leaked from a hole in a storage tank. A concrete-block dike, meant to serve as secondary containment, also leaked, allowing an undetermined amount of the chemical into the Elk.

"It's a bad situation," said Mike Dorsey, chief of the DEP's homeland security and emergency response division.

Dorsey said the tank contained about 30,000 gallons of material at the time of the leak, and that the company had pumped the rest of the material out and shipped it to another of its operations.

Dorsey has said DEP officials began an investigation after receiving odor complaints from nearby residents starting at about 8:15 a.m. The DEP and Kanawha County emergency officials traced the odors to Freedom Industries, which had not self-reported any sort of leak or accident, officials said.

In an air-quality enforcement order, the DEP said air-quality officials who arrived at the site at 11:10 a.m. "discovered that no spill containment measures had been initiated and that an accumulating MCHM leak pool was seeping thru a dike wall adjacent to the Elk River and a downstream oil sheen was observed."

DEP Secretary Randy Huffman said more information needs to be gathered, but that it seems possible the spill into the river might not have been as bad if Freedom Industries had acted more quickly.

See original here:
Freedom Industries cited for Elk chemical spill

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CHARLESTON (WVVA) - Freedom Industries has issued its first statement on the che
mical spill the occurred at its plant along the Elk River near Charleston. Below is the full statement:

"Since the discovery of the leak, safety for residents in Kanawha and surrounding counties has been Freedom Industries' first priority. We have been working with local and federal regulatory, safety and environmental entities, including the DEP, Coast Guard, Army Corp of Engineers and Homeland Security, and are following all necessary steps to fix the issue. Our team has been working around the clock since the discovery to contain the leak to prevent further contamination. At this point, Freedom Industries is still working to determine the amount of 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol, or Crude MCHM, a chemical used in processing coal, that has been released, as the first priority was safety, containment and cleanup.

Freedom Industries is in the process of setting up an Incident Command Center on site. As more factual information is made available, we will keep you updated."

Link:
Freedom Industries issues statement on spill