A chemical spill into a West Virginia river has led to a tap water ban for up to 300,000 people, shut down bars and restaurants and led to a run on bottled water in some stores as people looked to stock up.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency Thursday in several counties because of a chemical spill into the Elk River.

The advisory was expanded at night to nine counties and includes West Virginia American Water customers in Boone, Cabell, Clay, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, Putnam and Roane counties…

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources told NBC affiliate WSAZ symptoms include: severe burning in throat, severe eye irritation, non-stop vomiting, trouble breathing or severe skin irritation such as skin blistering…

Residents were told not to drink the tap water, bathe in it or cook with the water and only use it for flushing and fire emergencies. Boiling it will not remove the chemicals.

West Virginia American Water did not provide a timeline for the clean-up process, but the company’s external affairs manager Laura Jordan told Reuters that the spill originated with Freedom Industries, a Charleston company…

Clean coal from Freedom Industries. Severe burning in throat, severe eye irritation, non-stop vomiting, trouble breathing or severe skin irritation such as skin blistering are all you have to worry about.



  1. bobbo, loquacious limber liberal liberating licentious libels laid liberally (by) lying PUKESlazily lipped says:

    “Clean coal from Freedom Industries.” /// So FULL of SHIT festering LIES, it must be a front org for the Coke Brothers?

    to restate: anything that starts with “Clean Coal” is an outright lie accepted only by the cook aid crowd. You know who they are: flat earthers who deny AGW. Much like fracking is safe, so is Nuke Power, Smoking Cigarettes, and ground water pollution. You know…… the standard stuff.

    Sucks to be YOU!!!!!!

    Ha, ha.

    • Cap'n Kangaroo says:

      When I first read the headline, I also thought this chemical is used in “Clean coal” processing. But after trying to investigate the chemical I am forming the opinion that the chemical is simply used to clean the coal dust from coal, ie wash the coal. A fairly common practice.

      I did run across this blog:

      http://feww.wordpress.com/tag/4-methylcyclohexane-methanol/

      While the main post is fairly straightforward, look at the right and left columns. Or click on some of the links at the top. I really enjoyed this one.

      http://feww.wordpress.com/2-bulletin-board/

      Paranoid chicken littles on steroids came to mind.

      • spsffan says:

        Well Cap’n,

        those are pretty fun sites. Based on some truth, but so ridiculously overboard and short sited that they are easily dismissed.

        I’d say that we’ve surpassed the earth’s capacity to support humans, at least in the manner they would prefer to survive. But the earth, like all living things, has its own version of an immune system. It will fight back, we will loose and our numbers diminish.

        Short of a world wide nuclear war, I don’t think we’re going to wipe out life on the planet. Some forms of life will die off, others will thrive.

    • spsffan says:

      Well, actually, there are ways to burn coal much, much more cleanly than is typical in the USA or China. See Germany, for example.

      I didn’t believe in clean diesel vehicles myself, but the technology was eventually developed in Europe to make it a reality.

      On the other hand, when I was in physics class in 12 the grade in 1980, the speculation was that controlled commercially viable fusion power was 15 -20 years off. I stopped tapping my foot a long, long time ago.

      • bobbo, loquacious limber liberal liberating licentious libels laid liberally (by) lying PUKES lazily lipped says:

        Sure, some coal burns with less pollution than others but no coal burns without putting the Big C into the atmosphere. …………………….aka ………………….. ITS DIRTY.

        Its why the long term sustainable sources are called GREEN.

        Like that other subject, it depends on where you get your science from: vested business interests or science.

        Same as it always was. ((What the l. Think I’ll go thru the alphabet.))

        • Glenn E. says:

          You’d better stop breathing, because your lungs are also putting the “Big C” into the atmosphere. Big C, give me a break. Every living thing on earth emits CO2, in case you don’t know it. And the oceans are the largest source of it. Dwarfing all man made sources. Or are you an Ocean denier? So stop blowing all that Big C dirty out of your lungs, about what you think you know. When obviously, you don’t know much. Or are some “green” shill, pretending not to know jack about the real world. Sucks to be you.

          • bobbo, meandering miles morosely milling malignant miasmas morbidly manufactured says:

            Oh Glenn—for shame.

            What we hooman breathe out is little c.

            Kinda like the difference between Kilo-Calories and calories. bits and KiloBytes.

            Know what I mean?

            ((((((Big C is sequestered Carbon that is dug up and burned. Breathing only recycles what is already out there. Surely, you know this….. so why the Big L? No….not lazy lips….look before Pukes!)))))

            I crack myself up. Good thing too since TeaDude isn’t here to do it for me.

          • Tim says:

            Hmm. A large percentage of our mass is, in fact, carbon. The same for plants.

            “”Breathing only recycles what is already out there

            Hmm. And what is ‘already out there’ must be replenished with big C to continue to facilitate the first part of breathing. That is because oxygen is too reactive to remain in the environment indefinately {it locks itself up as oxides in rocks and even gets blown away into space}. The only way the oxygen is replenished is through photosynthesis and the only way that happens is from co2! Less co2 == less oxygen, less biomass. Less life!!

            Less life. Perhaps, the draconian strangling of co2 (life giving gas) is self-fulfilling that Earth can only be maintained at a population of 500,000,000. Look ahead ten million years to people that have never seen a clear sky or many plants; A co2 depleted world in which the only thing grown to eat will be fungus. The people of that time will then convince themselves that the population must be maintained at 50,000. I call them ‘greys’.

          • bobbo, Nattering nabobs never negotiate nuanced notions not nonsensical says:

            “Hmm. And what is ‘already out there’ must be replenished with big C to continue to facilitate the first part of breathing.” /// Hey Timmmmmmay:

            Make the dictionary your friend.

            The word for today is: recycled.

            Go for it!!!

          • Tim says:

            “”The word for today is: recycled.

            And I have pointed out that it can’t just be recycled indefinately — there are losses to the environment. Like if you were recycling bodily water (think Dune) then there will always be some lost to evaporation as you breath and talk — it can be minimized but not eliminated.

            If you were going to refute my statement, then I rather thought it would be on the grounds of practical timescale (which is rather large, unless there are some unforseen feedbacks??) for the O2 to leech away.

  2. Morey says:

    Don’t they use 4-methylcyclohexane methanol to make Bud Light?

    • Tim says:

      Probably. And corn/rice adjunct. Really nasty stuff.

    • ± says:

      Very funny! I’ve got a sixtel of Victory Dirt Wolf IPA in my kegerator. The difference between this beer and Bud Light is the difference between nectar and 4-methylcyclohexane methanol.

  3. Huxter says:

    So let’s all turn on more devices like more idling file servers and more unused portable devices to suck up all this extra energy. That’ll help. Maybe we can even get all of our old CRT television sets back since there’s now an abundance of energy. Ya! (NOT!)

    I can see many a liberal using this very same logic in other areas.

    But doesn’t it bother anyone to be looking at an energy commercial that has been dumbed down to a 2-year old’s level of attention? Could those voices be any more SMURF like?!

    What’s next? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s endorsing Obamacare?!

    Screw that!

    “Don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain.” There’s no need to worry about your water being undrinkable or anything. Your mamma government will take care of it for you.

    … And if you believe that one, I have a bridge for sale too!

  4. NewFormatSux says:

    So the key is to abandon clean coal and go back to regular coal.
    In light of Chris Christie’s traffic jam, we need to consider that this is deliberate punishment of West Virginia coal country for protesting global warming policies.

  5. Dallas says:

    This is an outrage. If it were a clean renewable energy spill using solar, wind or hydro it would be a beautiful day

  6. dusanmal says:

    Very good example to distinguish between real ecological threats and ideological “ecological threats”:
    1) Ecology and ecological concerns are and always will be LOCAL. Conditions are local, damage is local, consequences are local and (the point Left EcoNazis fail the most): it is duty and choice of local people to impose ecological limits and controls as it fits their needs and wants and abilities (that would be true even if we didn’t have Constitution that explicitly limits Federal Government from meddling in local ecological standards).
    2) Real ecological threats are NOT agents that biosphere knows how to deal with (as it is constantly exposed to them) and has use for them. Real ecological threats are chemicals we introduced that life/biosphere have had no chance of adapting to. Perfect example are heavy metals – rare, encased in earth, biosphere doesn’t know what to do with them. They are poison even for cockroaches (as opposed to CO2 which is useful for vast majority of Earth’s biosphere).

    And for @bobo again some published, peer reviewed, solid science to rethink AGW:

    1) Are we warming in last 200 years? According to Greenland ice core records, yes. But – from what? Not from some everlasting stable median. From, even in the last 10000 years fast changing climate and from the coldest period in last 10000 years -“Little Ice Age”. Despite 200 years of warming, whoever caused it – we are still below average and normal Earth temperatures in last 10000 years. We are in coldest 10%.
    2) Is it natural or human produced CO2? Two independent studies: 250000 years of Antarctic ice core data – a) Rise in CO2 NEVER caused rise in temperature. Always followed, at about 400-700 years of delay. b) Dozens of periods in last 250000 years are marked by steep temperature decline while CO2 concentration was steeply rising.; MIT/NASA satellite study of Earth during 8 years of strongest warming in 1990’s – Every year as T Earth rose and CO2 rose,… proportion of energy returned from Earth to space ROSE. Explicitly excluding any chance that Earth is warming due to ANY Greenhouse effect (any, CO2 by humans, by nature, some other “known” greenhouse gas, some other unknown greenhouse effect,…). Earth is NOT warming due to greenhouse effect.
    3) 2011 CERN Cloud experiment: Earth global temperature impacted mainly by energetic distribution of incoming particles. Total amount of energy is not so important. It is important how that energy is delivered. If mainly by high energy particles – water vapor in Earth atmosphere is much more efficient in converting that to heat -> Earth is warmer. More active Sun, more high energy interstellar radiation -> warmer Earth. This effect dominates CO2 by couple order of magnitudes. Hence 2011 CERN ideologs ban on interpretation of Cloud experiment data.

    • Tim says:

      Oh yea, right… that group that collapsed the world into the size of a pea because they made a strangelet what fell into the earth has got anything to say about aerosols, clouds, condensation, and ionization of the upper atmosphere that we would believe is why the earth is fucked {just fine} instead of us damn, dirty hoomans.

      “”It is a classic type XIII planet that typically destroys itself at about this stage in its development…..but most oftenly, the type 13 planet is unintentionally collapsed into a pea-sized object by scientists trying to determine the mass of the Higgs Boson particle…

      http://youtube.com/watch?list=PLC3B1CE9235E72252&feature=player_detailpage&v=HgHBAmUBxp4#t=716

    • Cap'n Kangaroo says:

      Just a quick debunk to “Ecology and ecological concerns are and always will be LOCAL”.

      The use of chlorofluorocarbons (Freon, CFCs). Their use may be local but their spread is global, including the poles.

  7. Captain Obvious says:

    The Chinese are into clean coal, and gosh, they don’t have any problems with pollution or air quality.

  8. bobbo, meandering miles morosely milling malignant miasmas morbidly manufactured says:

    dusanmal in a rare demonstration of why he so rarely actually tries to support his ludicrous positions says:
    1/10/2014 at 2:43 pm

    Very good example to distinguish between real ecological threats and ideological “ecological threats”:
    1) Ecology and ecological concerns are and always will be LOCAL. /// I am dumbstruck at how stupid a statement this is. Did you PEER REVIEW this conclusion along with the rest? ha, ha. But you have the “form” of the argument anyway. But analyzing your analysis, did you set up your argument correctly or just fail to follow thru on it? IE==you leave it to your readers to assume that AGW is not “real” but is only “ideological” but its obvious that carbon pollution of the atmosphere may or may not be good or bad but it certainly is global. global = every local there is??? You actually equate being global with being ideological. But atmospheric and oceanic pollution is “real” or is that idealogical for you????

    Ha, ha. So mixed up on the science/common sense of the subject, your political analysis is likewise just factually wrong. Not just wrong, but wrong cause its based on made up non-sense.

    From the Bill Buckley quote of other thread: Yes, I’m shocked that anti-AGW positions have only craptastic made up nonsense to support them.

    Do you feed yourself Dusanmal?

    2. “And for @bobo again some published, peer reviewed, solid science to rethink AGW: //// How many years has it taken for you to be nudged to even acknowledge there is such a thing as science? …. as in, yes “peer reviewed” publications, not bumperstickers or paid for propaganda placed in business magazines. I think you have been nudged, but you screw the pooch again. You can’t just take a bumpersticker position and preface it by saying “some peer reviewed studies show….(in your case)….that atmospheric loading by co2 is purely a local issue.” No, you have to LINK TO the study you have reviewed.

    Ahhh, I grow tired. I’ll stop here and just agree with you. THANK GOD, stupidity like yours is local. Ha, ha.

    • One says:

      … And just when I thought it couldn’t get any more ridiculous.

      It’s good to see Bobbo will now “THANK GOD” after having posted like a million comments under the partial pseudonym and self-given title of enlightened atheist.

      Funny stuff there Boob! What’s next? Clinton-like flip flopping with some more bad mouthing of Obama policies/agenda? How about condemning him for allowing those evil Bushies to suck him into that cesspool called Washington politics? The very same cesspool you once claimed would save everyone if we all just quit acting like “stoopid hoomans.” (Obvious spelling mistakes intentional, I suppose.)

      And no. I didn’t bother to read your never-ending dribble. Because, it’s always the same old en-darkened liberal bullshit. I just happened to glance at that last run-on paragraph and got a chuckle out of the clear hypocrisy.

      Bla. Bla. Bla… Go ahead. You’re turn to be the loudest SHEEP now.

      • bobbo, the iconoclastic.... {not really} says:

        Don’t you mean ‘bleat bleat bleat’??

        translation: “are you guys gonna shave my balls while you’re at it because I got an unconventional date tonight.

  9. Coal Water says:

    If an upstream river water source is next to ANY kind of processing plant, the water filtration plant might consider:

    1. Buffering a couple/few days worth of known clean river water.
    2. Real-time monitoring of the water upstream, and closing the gates if the stink alarm goes off.

    Practical? How long does it take to test for bad water?

  10. t0llyb0ng says:

    badmouthing is one word
    groundwater is one word
    loose is rarely a verb
    no hyphen in nonsense
    shortsighted is one word
    worldwide is one word

  11. bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Devo says:

    Tim says:
    1/11/2014 at 9:48 am

    “”The word for today is: recycled. /// Yes, in context it leads us into what “carbon neutral” and green vs sequestered and dirty means. It is a very basic cornerstone of the subject and you don’t have it.

    And I have pointed out that it can’t just be recycled indefinately — there are losses to the environment. Like if you were recycling bodily water (think Dune) then there will always be some lost to evaporation as you breath and talk — it can be minimized but not eliminated. /// Exactly so…….. except ….. such “bodily water” is NOT LOST===>it is RECYCLED. It is “lost” to the hoomans in the desert for the time being but it will go into the WATER CYCLE that in the main part is about 1-2 years (sic–I’m going on memory here) for a water molecule to go from ocean into the air, rain, onto the ground or ocean, used by plants and animals, then back to the ocean to be RECYLCED AGAIN. Of course, different molecules wind up sequestered and can take millennium to recycle. Its all percentages, identify them, add them up, take an average. A Cliff Claven moment: it takes a year for water that falls at the head water of the Amazon to reach the Ocean and is in fact recycled as rain back into the Amazon (some number of times) before reaching the Ocean—again, its averages. AND–supposedly we have some number of molecules in us that were in Julius Cesar or any other notable from history. These base molecules like O2, Co2 etc are not lost, they are recycled. Dog shit too. Water Cycles, CO2 Cycles, Carbon Cycles===EVERYTHING CYCLES. Something that may be hard to replicate in an expanded man made habitat.

    If you were going to refute my statement, then I rather thought it would be on the grounds of practical timescale (which is rather large, unless there are some unforseen feedbacks??) for the O2 to leech away. /// Well, time scales are involved. Words are relevant here. Leeching will not lose any elements–leeching is all part of recycling. Now, if you mean “lost into space” yes, we lose things to space ((Just another very large cycle in the reverberating Universe, but I dither)) but we gain things as well —like all our water came from space and we still get tons per year of metals,====and I have not read but will assume water to some degree as well? Hmmm, I know we lose helium to space. I don’t just assume we lose other elements/molecules as well. Perhaps all the gases will depart earth to some degree? I don’t know….. I’m not a scientist, just an amused reader====OF SCIENCE. Not science fiction.

    Ha, ha.

    • Tim says:

      “”supposedly we have some number of molecules in us that were in Julius Cesar

      The back-of-the-envelope calculation we learned in chemistry seemed to indicate that we inhale one of Napoleons’ nitrogen molecules every seven breaths. — This was based on an assumption of stable, relatively non-reactive N2; Of course, nitrogen fixation into plants –> protiens was not considered. Nor lightning fixation. Nor high temp and pressure fixation. I wonder if the ratio still holds for those seven breaths to the mass of that air being the same N2 incorporated into our cells. Still, I feel dirty.

      “”Hmmm, I know we lose helium to space

      That is the easiest to loose to space because the velocity of helium at the temperature of the exosphere/thermosphere is greater than the escape velocity for Earth — No solar wind need apply.

      “”Perhaps all the gases will depart earth to some degree?

      That seems to have happened to Mars. The thinking is that Mars lost it’s magnetic field and this allowed the solar winds to strip away the atmosphere.

      ^^That is, unless we’ve been mislead and the surface pressure on Mars is really .707 bar….

      Alternative 3
      http://youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=peE9Nc_pK0k#t=2832

    • What's for lunch? says:

      Yep. The only way you smell dog shit or a fart is because the shit molecules get sucked up your nose and stick to your snot molecules.

      Lesson? Don’t eat your boogers, especially when leaving a public restroom.

      We are what we eat.

  12. t0llyb0ng says:

    as you breath and talk sb breathe

    an expanded man made habitat sb manmade

    leeching refers to bloodsucking or a parasitic relationship

    unless we’ve been mislead sb misled

  13. Glenn E. says:

    Some citizen of WV asked the Tv interviewer why did Freedom Industries even build those tanks, right next to the river? And JCD is probably right. So they can dump stuff, from the tanks, whenever they want to. And most of the time, it would go unnoticed. But probably not thousands of gallons of the stuff. Just residue, when they want to wash out the tanks, before refilling them.

    I like how when I want to replace my home AC. I have to get installers to pump out and recover the old freon. So the South Pole’s ozone won’t be harmed. Which adds more expense to the job. But these large industries, just pay off some politicians and inspectors, to look the other way will they get sloppy. To avoid having to account for their spills and runoffs. Because the cost of recovering that shit, is a little inconvenient for them.

    Seems our environmental laws only apply to pushing the little guys (us poor slaves) around. And does little in stop the major polluters. Because they’ve got political connections. So while our car exhausts have to get tested, every two years. These large scale industries go for decades, without a single inspection. And even then, it’s probably a rubber-stamped one.


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