Chemical Leak in West Virginia
Antimatter
Devo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered User regular
Devo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered User regular
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/us/west-virginia-contaminated-water/
The water that some 300,000 people in West Virginia usually depend on to slake their thirst, wash their bodies and brush their teeth is now good for only one thing -- flushing their toilets, authorities told them Friday.
"We don't know that the water is not safe, but I can't say it is safe," Jeff McIntyre, president of West Virginia American Water Co., told reporters about the water his company provides to customers in central and southwestern West Virginia.
That's the way things have been since Thursday night, when residents of Kanawha County reported a foul odor -- similar to licorice -- in the air. By Friday afternoon, it was unclear when the situation would revert to normal. "We have no timeline," McIntyre said.
Investigators from the Kanawha County Fire Department and the state Department of Environmental Protection quickly found the source -- a leak from a 48,000-gallon storage tank along the Elk River, which serves as the source of water for the 1,500 miles of pipeline that carry water to customers in the region.
The chemical had overflowed a containment area around the tank and then migrated over land and through the soil into the river.
"I do not believe it is continuing to flow," McIntyre said.
But finding the source didn't solve the problem. By 4 p.m. Thursday, the odor was coming from the water that had already been treated, meaning it was contaminated, McIntyre said. Within two hours, officials issued the stop-use warning, a move that McIntyre described as unprecedented.
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Please be careful.
I desperately want to make an Olive Garden Unethical Practices joke but I wouldn't feel ok doing it until I know how the sevre the effects of this will be.
http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+2910
un
fuckin'
likely
Paid administrative leave.
Ffffffffffffffffffffffuck.
The amount is question is probably too small to do anything much to anyone
probably
hopefully
just look at love canal!
motherfuckers.
It's significantly worse via ingestion.
Hopefully the leak was very small, but I don't trust that it will be.
which to me reads holy shit massive
If it's used to wash coal this should be ok for showers, aren't people from Virginia 60% coal already?
Unless the bund was already full of water/snow!
I get the feeling that if it were only 10 gallons, there is a slightly lower likelihood of 300,000 people being told to not even use the water to wash their dishes.
A properly designed containment area should be large enough to hold the full contents of its largest tank in a leak though. That's not to say there wouldn't be any carryover due to other conditions (water in the containment already due to rain, wind blowing, other materials in the containment, further leaks in the containment, bad design, etc.) but if they did their shit right we wouldn't be in this situation.
Inconclusive?
Either it's drinkable or it isn't.
that's freedom juice
The test is a bunch of people going around in a circle with a PPM readout going:
"Well, are you going to drink it?"
It means they didn't detect the chemical in their sample, but can't yet conclude that all the water is safe to drink. More tests are necessary.
Which just made me keel over with irony overload when I read this story.
Also, no fighting in the war room
(holy shit this chemical leak)
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
Does their mission statement say anything about working towards equal rights and freedoms for all chemicals?
reddit.com/r/chemistry/comments/1uunyw/4methylcyclohexane_methanol/
I dont trust shit from reddit
You dont say
You do realize that Reddit isn't a monolithic opinion, right?
I'm not taking it on faith. As other commentators pointed out, while not particularly lethal, the health effects and toxicity short of death is unknown.
The guy I'm quoting is speculating that there is probably something else going on. I've listened to an NPR bit on the story and did hear about the burning sensation and vomiting thing, so that's a curious bit of reporting going on there.
How is this Obama's fault?
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
In all the ways.
MSDS Sheet for Crude MCHM
Obama's government thugs brutally captured and sent all the upstanding American workers at that plant to Gitmo to enact his horrible scheme.
He ordered his illuminati agents to intentionally overflow the tanks and dump into the river to strengthen his EPA so he can continue to ruin business and capitalism.
It also had the side affect of forcing hundreds of thousands into hospitals and doctors offices where they''ll need government teat moocher insurance to pay for their treatment!
DOWN WITH THE COMMUNIST