Qualla: 2014 Elk River chemical spill

2014 Elk River chemical spill: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. Around 8:15 a.m. on January 9, 2014, a state inspector pulled into the Freedom Industries chemical storage site on the banks of the Elk River in Charleston, West Virginia and smelled licorice in the air. The smell was MCHM - 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol, a chemical used in coal washing - and it was pouring out of a corroded steel tank, through a hole in a cinderblock containment wall, into the Elk River about one mile upstream of the intake for West Virginia American Water's regional treatment plant. By the time anyone realized what was happening, the chemical was already in the pipes that served roughly 300,000 people in nine counties. The do-not-use order that followed lasted four to ten days depending on the neighborhood. It remains one of the largest drinking-water contamination events in modern American history.

Image: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) | CC BY-SA 2.5

2014 Elk River chemical spill: The Spill

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Vincentz, CC BY-SA 3.0. Freedom Industries was a small Charleston company that stored bulk chemicals for the coal industry. Tank 396 at the company's Etowah River Terminal had been used to hold Crude MCHM, a mixture whose primary component is 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol - a chemical reagent used to sepa...

Image: Frank Vincentz | CC BY-SA 3.0

2014 Elk River chemical spill: Do Not Use

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Justin.A.Wilcox, CC BY-SA 3.0. By that evening, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin had declared a state of emergency. West Virginia American Water issued a 'do not use' advisory for tap water - not just 'do not drink,' but do not bathe in it, do not wash dishes with it, do not cook with it. Customers were told they cou...

Image: Justin.A.Wilcox | CC BY-SA 3.0

2014 Elk River chemical spill: The Independent Scientists

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. On January 16, an engineering team from the University of South Alabama drove eight hundred miles from Mobile, Alabama to Charleston on their own dime to help. Dr. Andrew Whelton and Dr. Kevin White, along with graduate students Keven Kelley, Matt Connell, Jeff Gill, and Lakia Mc...

Image: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) | CC BY-SA 2.5

2014 Elk River chemical spill: Aftermath, and a Question About Regulation

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. Freedom Industries filed for bankruptcy eight days after the spill. Federal prosecutors eventually charged six of the company's executives and employees with environmental crimes; all six pleaded guilty. The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a field hear...

Image: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) | CC BY-SA 2.5