I have family in South Charleston just up the river and their county is affected. Apparently, this has set off a case of mass hysteria and caused "chaos".
My brother is ready to leave the state but not because of the spill necessarily, but the reaction to it from some of the people.
Old , Ugly and slow
You can smell it in the air.
When you run the water you can smell it.
It has stopped leaking but there is no word on how long before the water will be okay.
first race sept 1977 last race sept 2007
2019 goals 1000 miles , 190 pounds , deadlift 400 touch my toes
Oh, reallll good, District 12!
LTH - You are right about people not being prepared for a true emergency. I got really nervous about that the first day after the blizzard here -- the grocery store was an absolute zoo, bordering on hysteria. If something worse than a bunch of snow and wind happened, it would get really ugly really fast. Survivalist "prepping" should not be an object of ridicule -- there is no guarantee that civilization will stay civilized.
This is so exciting! Sorry, I do research in river water quality, waste treatment, and water chemistry. I worked for EPA in the Superfund program. Teaching now. I hadn't been paying attention to the news and just found out about this a few minutes ago. I haven't looked at the details yet, but this is pretty thrilling. From a professional standpoint I mean. My heart goes out to all those inconvenienced and affected by leak (did that sound sincere?).
For whoever said this sounds like the future, actually our rivers are cleaner now than they've been in 70 or 80 years and are getting better. 50 years ago this crap was dumped in the rivers and nobody even paid attention to it. The fact that it's such a big deal is a sign of progress (a good thing, imo).
I know nothing about this chemical. A fairly simple hydrocarbon, I would think it's be pretty benign, but I don't really know. I wouldn't want to drink it and the ban is appropriate.
With all the regulations in place, you have to screw up really really bad for this stuff to get into the river.
The tanks sit right on the river bank.
It looks like it could have been leaking foe a while before it was found.
People reported a smell and officials were in the area looking long before
the company found the problem.
They also waited at least 8 hours before making the ban.
My water still smells this morning.
Also it is raining and they have not removed all the dirt from the river bank yet.
The company who spilled it handled it about as badly as it's possible to do. Rather than reporting the leak, it was discovered only after people started reporting that their water smelled like licorice. The President of the company, Freedom Industries, finally held a belated press conference only to walk away from the microphones several times. I see a Chapter 7 in their near future. Even if no one was physically harmed, every business that has been shut down due to this has a legitimate claim against them.
Folks, I live in Putnam County and I'm not on the WV American Water Company lines. I have water. If you need some or you know of anyone who needs some, just let me know.
Short term goal: 17:59 5K
Mid term goal: 2:54:59 marathon
Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life. (I started running at age 45).
Hip Redux
DH's friend posted on FB that she collected enough rain water to mop her floors. Possibly the last thing I would do if my water was tainted with chemicals - mop. I don't even mop when I have free access to water.
My biggest problem is cooking.
We have paper plates but I am running out of things to cook on.
I have a grill that fits on my stove and will have to start cooking on it .
You can boil bottle water to bathe but washing dishes is hard.
I think this is going to last a while and people are going to start getting real crazy.
Then there's the question of the folks even farther downriver. The Elk River isn't the only one affected. It merges with other rivers. How far downstream is the chemical being found?
Ginny - I haven't seen anything about how far its traveling. Though I would imagine it's getting very dilute the further downstream it goes, so unlikely to be an issue. But I'm not sure.
Latest report:
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.
Niiiiiiiiiiiice.
Reports now that it was 7500 gallons.
They just had another news conference they still don't know how long it is going to take.
All restaurants are closed no fresh meat any where.
So it's been several weeks and water is still contaminated..
What a mess.