An Ounce Of Prevention

The water crises that nine counties of West Virginia have been enduring in recent days is slowly coming to an end. Steady readings of at or below one part per million have allowed their health department to begin further testing and corrective actions that will eventually return some normality to their water supply, but there are a number of questions that must be answered and corrections made. The question of criminal charges is still in the air with no resolution in site.

The real issue seems to be the all too regular compromise of health and safety for the simple reasons of profit. Companies seem to constantly battle with state and federal agencies to avoid and/or ignore these regulations rather than work with the same agencies to be in compliance at a reasonable cost. In most case (not all) compliance can be achieved reasonably, but let’s not kid ourselves. Some of these issues are great enough and expensive enough that they could close a business or entire industry. We are seeing that very thing happen to the Kentucky coal industry with so many closures of coal burning power plants. At times it appears to be one of two choices; live poor and healthy or die early and wealthy. Not much of a choice. While methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM) isn’t deadly it certainly can cause eye & skin irritation, nausea and vomiting. It’s used for washing coal and has been for a long time. This contamination hasn’t caused any deaths but more than 70 people have been treated for exposure and in all honesty the greatest impact has been the personal inconvenience to residence, businesses and the community at large. Still, in an age where less than 1% of the worlds water remains unpolluted and drinkable, it’s not a resource we can well afford to waste.

From the news accounts and video on the news a few very basic questions come to mind. Judging by the appearance and age of the tanks, they were most likely a single wall unit with no inner coating or leak detection capability. They also appear to lack any kind of containment dikes around the tanks or the entire yard and lastly, there appears to be no kind of temporary containment ponds that the leaking material could be re-directed to in case of a leak, further preventing leakage into a waterway. As the probe digs deeper one obvious question would be why on earth was such a facility located next to a waterway where pollution could compromise the drinking water? All of these are points that should have been asked and addressed prior to the opening, sale or re-sale of such a facility. Whether they were or were not remains an open question.

There are many legal issues to be investigated and compliance with regulations will certainly be near the top. Freedom Industries seems to be a bit of a mystery to many. It is a merger of Etowah River Terminal and Crete Technologies. Freedom Industries was founded in 1986. Currently the conglomerate is part of another company called Environmine, Inc, which supplies “environmental chemistries & services” to coal companies. In an age of economic downturn, many local, state, and some federal regulators may ease regulatory requirements in order to attract business, create jobs, and increase desperately needed revenues. It all seems legitimate and logical until the unfortunate event happens and the proverbial poop hits the fan. Considering all the businesses and companies that have been shuttered for the past 5 days, those economic gains from the new company are probably long since lost and the PR nightmare will live on for a long time for everyone involved.
It reminds me of an all too often heard maximum from my fathers era, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Yep, those old folks certainly did know what they were taking about … I wonder if enough of us are passing on that wisdom to our own kids and grandkids?