On January 9, 2014 West Virginia officials discovered Freedom Industries, a coal processing company, discharged more than 10,000 gallons of a liquid with little understood toxicity into the Elk River. This river served as the sole water supply for 300,000 people near the state capitol Charleston. Contaminated river water, with an irritating licorice odor and multitude of other chemicals, was pumped through the water plant and distributed across a nine county area. An emergency ‘Do Not Use’ drinking water order was issued lasting up to 10 days for some areas and the incident was declared a federal disaster. The author and his research teams conducted several rapid field- and bench-scale investigations to examine the public health, infrastructure, and environmental impacts of the spill. Results showed that water treatment processes did not generate breakdown products but were incapable of removing all spilled contaminants. The odor threshold of the contaminated water (&lt; 0.15 ppb) was found well-below analytical instrument detection capabilities (0.38 ppb), and some chemicals diffused into plastic drinking water piping. The team’s also discovered population illnesses were caused by plumbing system decontamination actions recommended by responders who did not consider contaminant inhalation. Additional testing, in accordance with EPA and CFR methods, revealed that the spilled chemicals exhibited greater aquatic toxicity in 2014 than found in 1998 by the chemical manufacturer. Spilled chemicals also migrated 400 miles downstream prompting four states to take precautionary response measures. This incident underscores the need for safer chemical development and rapid screening tools that can help ascertain the toxicity of chemicals in commerce. More than 80,000 chemicals in commerce have limited toxicity information, and, as a result rapid screening tools are urgently needed to respond to future chemical spills. This presentation will describe the chemical spill event, public health, analytical, environmental consequences, and identify opportunities where spills of safer chemicals would have lesser impacts. Results have direct relevance to public safety, welfare, and economic security risks posed by chemical spills and scientific innovation needed.

Need for safer chemicals and rapid screening tools: The 2014 Freedom Industries chemical spill, West Virginia, USA

250th National Meeting (2015)

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