Days of water woes still ahead for West Virginia residents after chemical spill

Freedom Industries executives have kept a low profile since a news conference Friday in which the company’s president, Gary Southern, complained of having a long day, repeatedly swigged from a bottle of water and several times tried to cut short questions from reporters. Southern played down the scale of the leak, saying, “We don’t believe a great deal of material left the facility.” He said the offending material had all been removed from the site.

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That assertion was contradicted by Dorsey, who said the chemical is in the soil along the bank and in various layers of clay and concrete in the containment area. “I’m guessing there will be some coming out of that bank for some time now,” Dorsey said.

Workers have dug trenches along the river to contain further leakage of the chemical, he said. Dorsey estimated the size of the leak at 7,500 gallons, up from an initial estimate of 5,000.

The West Virginia American Water Co. sent out the do-not-use order late Thursday afternoon, but by then people had been drinking the water, cooking with it and bathing children with it. Residents are anxious and outraged and want to know how this happened, why they weren’t warned earlier and when, exactly, the chemical got into the water.

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