So What Do They Do With That Chemical When They're Not Spilling It In Rivers?

So, I guess as no big surprise, we’re finding out that a second chemical was spilled from the Freedom Industries tank along the Elk River in West Virginia. And the great consolation to southern West Virginians, whether they were sickened by their water or not, is that it appears that the second chemical, a mixture of polyglycol ethers known as PPH, is no more toxic than the 4-methylcyclohexane methanol that was spilled into the Elk River earlier this month. I'm sure that's a big relief for those folks!

            Officials at Freedom Industries knew of the other leak, but only let the state of West Virginia know about the second leak two days ago, more than ten days after the spill. And they are not being forthcoming about the nature of PPH because Freedom Industries considers the nature of this compound “proprietary.”

            My guess is that if the MCHM hadn’t made the water smell like licorice—if people couldn’t smell that their water was bad—then we may not have known about this spill until many more people had been sickened.

More compounds for your drinking pleasure in West Virginia

The 4-methylcyclohexane methanol has been used by the coal industry for years, and now it’s time to connect the dots. OK, if the mining companies have been using this stuff for a long time, where do the put it once they are through with it? You got it. They throw it in the coal slurry ponds or down old mine shafts. Joe Stanley, a former miner and union president, claims that coal companies have been poisoning the waters of Appalachia for years. He says:

I watched the coal industry poison our water for years. Now they're telling us not to drink the water? We've been dumping this stuff into unlined ponds and into old mines for years. This MCHM was just one of the chemicals we were told was highly toxic but that we dumped into old mine shafts and slurry ponds, and it's been seeping into the groundwater for years. As soon as we're out of that mine it immediately fills with water. And where does it go from there? I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine.

Robert Johnson and Gus Lubin who wrote this Business Insider feature on Stanley go on to say:

An Environmental Protection Agency assessment last year identified 132 cases where coal-fired power plant waste has damaged rivers, streams and lakes, and 123 where it has tainted underground water sources, according to an AP investigation by Dina Cappiello and Seth Borenstein. Nearly three quarters of the 1,727 coalmines in the U.S. have not been inspected in five years to see if they are following water pollution laws, according to the same investigation, which cites these and other alarming findings about coal pollution. (Italics mine)