What began as a chemical spill has landed a West Virginia manufacturing company in hot water.
While the ban on consuming water from the public water supply has been lifted, residents of Charleston, West Virginia — the state’s capital — continue to report that the water coming from their taps has a distinct licorice-like smell.
According to news reports, the emergency began Thursday, January 9, when about 7,500 gallons of the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol leaked out of a 40,000 gallon tank at Freedom Industries, a manufacturing plant on the banks of the Elk River, the city’s primary water supply.
For nearly a week, residents were required to used bottled water. As many as 32 people were hospitalized as a result of the incident. The US Chemical Safety Board has launched an investigation.
Questions Remain About What Happened
Now Freedom Industries finds itself in the center of a lot of unwanted attention. In the wake of the chemical spill, the facility has been visited by investigators from several government agencies and its president has had to publicly defend his company’s actions during a brief high-profile news conference, portions of which were broadcast on national television.
The incident adds up to a public relations disaster for Freedom Industries, which makes chemicals for the mining industry.
When state inspectors first arrived at the facility, they discovered that the cause of the Elk River’s pollution was an above-ground storage tank that was oozing the chemical through an old, cracked containment wall. Company executive Dennis Farrell told state investigators that it had just discovered the leak. Workers apparently had attempted to staunch the leak by placing a bag of absorbent material over the hole and weighing it down with a cinder block.
During a news conference on the day following the leak’s discovery, Freedom Industries president Gary Southern fielded a few questions from the media before quickly ending the briefing by explaining that he was tired.
After several days of avoiding questions, Farrell again made a brief public statement, although it offered little explanation for how the disaster occurred.
“It’s not that we don’t want to,” Farrell told the Huffington Post. “It’s that one, we’re a little busy, and two, we’re not ready.”
Company Under Intense Scrutiny
The increased focus on the company as a result of the incident has also brought to light previous scandals that the company probably would have preferred to have kept buried. One of the company’s founders, Carl Kennedy II, went to prison for withholding more than $1 million from employees’ paychecks between 2000 and 200 and diverting at least some of that money for his personal use, including flying a personal plan to a Bahama island where he owned both he and Farrell owned land.
Now several companies that were forced to shut down as a result of the water supply shutdown have filed lawsuits against Freedom Industries.
And the local US Attorney has promised to determine who is responsible for the chemical spill and hold them accountable.