On the same day West Virginia American
Water Company announced the changing out of its carbon filters at its Kanawha Valley
water plant Charleston had been completed, the
state DEP announced it was investigating a small spill at the Freedom
Industries site just up the Elk River .
The spill was discovered by a DEP
inspector at around 5 p.m. Thursday. The inspector noticed a sump pump in place
to pump overflow from a storm water collection trench to a storage tank was not
working and water was spilling into the Elk River .
The DEP said in a news release issued
late Thursday night it was unclear if the water entering the river contained
any crude MCHM, the chemical that spilled from the site into the Elk Jan. 9
that touched off the water emergency to parts of nine West Virginia
Samples taken from the trench, the
intake at the West Virginia American plant and the treated water were sent to
multiple labs for testing with results expected back Friday morning.
The DEP said no odors were reported at the site Thursday. It
added it was able to discover the overflow because the agency has inspectors at
the Freedom cleanup daily to monitor the work and the containment facilities.
