Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

photo courtesy occupy.com

As most of my buds who read my blog know, I'm from West Virginia. Charleston, to be exact. Born and raised there, and left home when I was 19 to join the U.S. Navy. I moved back for about 6 months in 2004 to do a contract gig for a bank. It's home, no matter where else I have or will live. I gave you that preface because I'm about to rant about this latest chemical spill that contaminated the water supply of my home town and surrounding counties. It was the fault of a coal mining company, and people are up in arms over it. I've seen tons of articles and perspectives, yet not one of the people writing seems to understand my home state- at all.

West Virginia became a state on June 20, 1863. She seceded from Virginia during the Civil War. West Virginia was always different from it's eastern sister. She was home for mountain folk, living a much more rugged existence than the plantation owners of the rolling hills of Virginia. West Virginia's mountains are much less forgiving, and her terrain is not for the faint of heart.

You've heard the song that starts, "Almost Heaven, West Virginia". Well, much love to John Denver, but the man knew nothing of the state, either. The Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah River run through VIRGINIA.. not West Virginia.We forgave him that, because Country Roads is a pretty damned fun song to sing, and we West Virginians never did have many catchy tunes written about our beloved state.

The people of West Virginia are a breed a part. We ADORE our home state. I've never met anyone who grew up in WV who doesn't still call it home and miss it. It's a vastly different culture from any other surrounding states or any of the other states in which I've visited or lived throughout my life. Our unofficial motto? A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet. And, if you haven't lived there for any length of time, it's difficult to comprehend. So, I tend toward forgiving people who really don't get it.

Blackwater Falls, WV

West Virginia is beautiful. The mountains, forests, rivers, streams, wildlife, et al.. there's just no place like it. It's also an industrial state, and its resources (including human ones) have been exploited for over a century.

When the industrial revolution began to kick off in the U.S., rivers were key assets. They were used for transport of resources such as coal and steel. Coal was plentiful, and mining of that resource became huge in the areas of Pennsylvania, Kentucky and West Virginia. Natural Gas and Steel were also part of the mix.

Kanawha River, Charleston

Charleston was founded as a fort in the years prior to the Revolutionary War, and the citizens began exploiting its natural resources in the early 1800’s. It began with chemical products. "Chemists had plentiful raw material, or feedstock, in the area from natural gas, coal, oil, and other mineral deposits, such as high quality limestone. Carbon from coal, oxygen and nitrogen from the air, and chlorine from the salt brine, hydrogen from water, and easy importation of sulfur, provided the “big six” main elements that are the base of all products” (1).

Charleston flourished in chemical and steel production through the early 20th Century. The outbreak of World War I brought new attention to the region. “After a visit to Charleston by Secretary of War Newton Baker in 1917, approval was made for development of a location along the Kanawha River just outside of Charleston at the villages Lock Seven and Sattes” (1).

Additionally, the U.S. government set up ordinance and mustard gas plants in the areas of South Charleston and Bell.  South Charleston became known as the "Chemical Capital of the World".

These military manufacturing facilities continued to operate and expand their chemical-based products well past World War II. Several chemical corporations were created, and competition gave birth to new jobs and a booming economy in the region. Indeed, the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries were kind to the area.

Map Courtesy of Geology.com

Did we *know* about the chemicals in the Kanawha and Elk rivers growing up? Absolutely.No one ate fish from the river. We joked that we'd seen more deformed fish in that river than Carter's had liver pills.  I attended the University of Charleston and was on the crew team. One of the guys thought it would be funny to push me into the Kanawha river after practice one day. I jovially came up out of the water, fully prepared for retaliation. When I stood up on the docks, all I could see was a look of shock and then fear run across the faces of my fellow crew team members. I was bewildered, until they grabbed me up and took off running with me heading as fast as possible toward the showers. And, it hit me. I reeked of chemicals. My roommate ran for the dorms to get me new clothes, and we decided to burn the ones I'd had on. Even wet, they sent a flame shooting up from the barrel in which we'd thrown both the clothing and a wet match.

Elk River, Charleston

The Elk River was no different. It runs right into the Kanawha (as does the Ohio River, which served as both a dump and transportation for Pennsylvania's steel mills and coal mining industries as well).

 In 1984, an incident nearly 8,000 miles away sparked the beginning of the decline for West Virginia's chemical industry.

On December 2nd of that year, “roughly 2,000 pounds of methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked from a Union Carbide facility in Bhopal, India. The leak was finally contained the following day, but not before reaping (sic) havoc on the local community” (1).

The estimated death tolls from that incident were around 5,000 with up to 50,000 people affected by the leak. This caused an uproar in the Charleston area community, when it was discovered that “the only other place in the United States producing the poisonous gas was at Union Carbide’s Institute plant” (1). Another incident in 1985 came much closer to home.

On August 11, “approximately 5,000 pounds of aidicarb oxide leaked into the valley’s air” (1). The plant operators waited over 19 minutes before warning authorities about the gas leak.  By that time, over 135 people had been sent to the hospital for medical treatment.

Citizens began demanding better environmental protections and more corporate responsibility from the area chemical corporations. This, combined with the de-industrialization in America overall, caused these companies to begin to look elsewhere for chemical manufacturing locations. “Cheap labor, lax environmental regulations and newer facilities have driven chemical producers to invest in other areas of the nation and globe” (1)

While citizen committees did push for environmental responsibility, most chemical companies made very little effort to clean up after themselves before moving the majority of their holdings out of the Charleston region. “To this day it is believed that tens of thousands of pounds of MIC are still stored in an underground tank at the Institute site” (1). As a result, “West Virginia’s all-site cancer mortality rate was significantly higher than the all-site cancer mortality rate of the United States” (2).

So, what's all of this got to do with the coal company chemical spill? Everything. West Virginia's unemployment rate skyrocketed to the highest in the nation when those chemical companies pulled out. Every single time regulations are introduced into WV legislature, the coal companies now threaten to leave.

With the unemployment rate sitting comfortably at 6.2% currently, there is no way that the people will rise up to fight for a better, healthier water supply. Oh sure, because it's hit the national stage for it's 15 minutes of fame, there will be some blustering, but I assure you, the people are held hostage by the coal industry's stranglehold on them.

Charleston still endeavors to court chemical companies like a reticent old lover. Their revitalization plans always include ways of attracting the corporations who poisoned their people and left them with a toxic mess. Given that scenario, what makes anyone in his/her right mind believe that there will be any true solution to the catastrophic damage incurred by the chemical, natural gas and coal mining industries throughout this past century?

The people have already seen the devastating economic results of an industry leaving them for places outside our country where it can pollute without regulation or uprising. What they need is new blood. What they need is new sources of revenue and income that make them independent of the industries that brought them jobs and destroys their quality of life.

Unfortunately, I don't see that happening anytime soon, and my heart breaks for my people, my home and its environment.


Sources:
(1): Cantrell, Nathan. "West Virginia's Chemical Industry."West Virginia Historical Society XVIII.No. 2 (2004): 1-15. West Virginia Historical Society. 4 Apr. 2004. .