New tests confirm there are no
traces of MCHM in the tap water in parts of the nine West Virginia
That’s according to the results of
another round of testing West Virginia American Water Company conducted,
earlier this month, using samples taken from 49 points throughout the company’s
1,900-mile distribution system.
Water for that entire system comes
from the Kanawha Valley Water Treatment Plant.
“There’s no detection whatsoever of
MCHM,” said Laura Jordan, spokesperson for WVAWC. “We certainly hope this helps
bring some sense of certainty to the customers who still may have had some
uncertainty. We have been confident in the quality of water for some time now.”
The water samples were collected
between June 5 and June 11 after WVAWC finished a more than $1 million project
to change out nearly one million pounds of carbon within the 16 filters at the
Kanawha Valley Water Treatment Plant. Two samples were taken in each of the 24
zones that were part of January’s do not use order.
Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories
performed the testing using the lowest existing detection level for MCHM.
Last Thursday and Friday, though,
two separate overflows happened at a stormwater trench at the Freedom
Industries site in Kanawha
County
“We did testing following both
Thursday’s and Friday evening’s stormwater overflows that were reported to us.
Not only was there no detection of any MCHM in samples taken inside the plant,
but also from samples taken in the Elk River at the intake site,” Jordan
“There’s no reason to believe water
quality was impacted in any way.”
More than five months have passed
since an estimated 10,000 gallons of MCHM and another coal processing chemical
spilled from a faulty storage tank at Freedom Industries into the Elk River which feeds the Kanawha Valley Water Treatment
Plant about a mile downstream.
