Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper on Monday pressed the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection for more details about what apparently was a small spill of MCHM - the primary chemical in the January 2014 water crisis - from a coal preparation facility along the Kanawha River upstream from the drinking water intake for the town of Cedar Grove.
The spill was reported to be very small and there were no indications from state health officials that the Cedar Grove drinking water supply had been contaminated or that the chemical had even reached the Kanawha River.
There also was no concern about potential contamination of West Virginia American Water's main Kanawha Valley water intake, because it is located on the Elk River, upstream from the Elk's intersection with the Kanawha.
As of Monday evening, though, DEP Secretary Austin Caperton had not responded to a list of Gazette-Mail questions about the Mammoth Coal incident, despite a strongly worded letter to the DEP from Carper demanding answers to the newspaper's queries.
The DEP had released only a short prepared statement on Sunday evening, after county officials had alerted the news media of the incident.
"I find the lack of information concerning this spill and its cleanup to be alarming," Carper wrote. "Obviously, a spill of any chemical near a water treatment facility creates a huge public safety concern."
A few more details did emerge Monday about the incident, in documents and other information provided by the Bureau for Public Health at the state Department of Health and Human Services and the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management at the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety.
The only new information from the DEP on Monday was the release of audio files from the state spill hotline, which were provided by the DEP only after reports summarizing those calls were released by the homeland security division.
Records from homeland security indicated that a woman driving along U.S. 60 called the state's spill line at about 4:30 p.m. Friday to report the strong smell of licorice, associated with the coal-cleaning chemical MCHM, in the London area, as she had passed the Mammoth Coal preparation plant.
MCHM has a strong odor that can be detected at very low levels, as residents found out after the Freedom Industries spill into the Elk River three years ago.
Then, sometime early Saturday, an official from Alpha Natural Resources, which operates the Mammoth plant, called the state hotline to report "a discharge of an unknown foam" from one of the company's pollution outlets into West Hollow Creek, which runs into the Kanawha.
The Alpha official called the spill hotline only after being advised to do so by a DEP inspector who had visited the site Friday night to investigate the odor complaint.
Steve Hawkins, an Alpha spokesman, said Monday that less than 10 gallons of MCHM was spilled Thursday inside the preparation plant during a transfer of the material into containers. Hawkins said, "It is possible that some residue made it into" a sediment pond and that the company planned to hold the water in the pond "at a level to ensure that any diluted chemical that might be present does not reach the river."
Later Saturday, at about 11 a.m., the DEP's John Vernon called homeland security to report that, when he investigated the odor complaint Friday night, "There was an odor at the site," but that "he could find no spill onto the ground," according to the homeland security report of that call.
Some of the material might have gotten into a sediment ditch, the report said, but it was not clear if any got into the Kanawha River.
Vernon also reported to homeland security that employees at Alpha had used Dawn dish soap to clean up a spill "that was reported a few days ago and that may have been causing 'frothing' " in the company's sediment ponds.
At about 11:30 a.m. Saturday, the Bureau for Public Health was notified of "a spill on the ground" by the homeland security division, according to answers that the bureau's environmental health services director, Walt Ivey, provided through DHHR spokeswoman Allison Adler. Two hours later, the bureau was told by homeland security that there was "foam" in West Hollow Creek, Ivey said in his agency's response to questions.
Ivey, through Adler, confirmed that the site of the spill is within the "zone of critical concern" for the Cedar Grove water system's drinking water intake.
Additionally, Ivey said his agency contacted Cedar Grove at 1:30 p.m. and suggested that Cedar Grove monitor the situation and, if necessary, shut down its intake pumps and use reserve water, but that Cedar Grove reported that, "since nothing unusual was spotted in the water, and no smell detected," the town would continue to treat the water as normal.
"We know with MCHM only a minuscule amount of the chemical will create a distinct smell," Ivey said. "As such, the local water operator continued to treat the water as normal. Our understanding is that the service was not discontinued or interrupted to customers of the water system."
Ivey said, "It is doubtful that customers would have been notified by the local water system, since there were no irregularities found, no service interruptions and no advisories or notices issued."
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kward@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1702 or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.