Wednesday Week Two

...some (more) questions about the WV chemical spill...

1. When was water restored to the WV American Water customers that were affected by the spill? What were the customers told to do as their part in flushing the system? How has the concentric flushing progressed through the affected area?

2. What does the role of Erin Brockovich at a recent town meeting in Charleston suggest about the future of civil action regarding the WV chemical spill?

3. What (specifically) has been done to remediate the Freedom Industries site and what will have to been done in the near future?

4. What considerations have to be made by downstream water treatment plant operators that draw water from the Ohio River?

5. What are the criminal charges for Freedom Industries stemming from the spill? What are the criminal charges for WV American Water? Is there standing for a civil case? What is standing?

6. (How) could this (this being the temporary disruption of water supply to 300,000) have been prevented? Was Freedom required to have a leak containment system? Was Freedom required to have a leak detection system? Was Freedom required to communicate the storage of chemicals to local authorities? Was Freedom required to communicate the spill of chemicals to local authorities? Why is it easy in hindsight to say that too much time elapsed before WV American Water stopped taking water in from the Elk River immediately following the spill? What are the specific considerations in this case that made it more difficult for WV American to act quickly?

7. What is the role of local emergency management and environmental protection workers to protect source water and facilitate communication about potential sources of contamination to WV American and to the public?

8. During the spill, Freedom was/will be found in violation of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act; before the spill, was the Freedom facility regulated under the SWDA, RCRA, CERCLA, or EPCRA? Why or why not?

9. Is this a big deal? How can you use your understanding of the severity, number affected, proximity, periodicity, geospatial area affected, and duration of the situation to determine whether it is "a big deal" or not?

10. How do communities and individuals prepare for situations like the WV spill? Should they? Are some communities and individuals more prepared than others?

Slides from today are on Sakai. For tomorrow, please read the following short articles: Lawyers Aim Bigger Than Freedom Industries in West Virginia Chemical Spill by Paul M. Barrett published January 14, 2014 in Businessweek, No One’s Job: West Virginia’s Forbidden Waters by Jedediah Purdy (probably not a made up name) published January 14, 2014 in the New Yorker, and State acknowledges it had no plan for Freedom spill by Ken Ward Jr. published  January 14, 2014 in the WV Gazette and visit the Facebook page for the WV Clean Water Hub. After the quiz tomorrow, we will start with a few updates about the WV spill and then talk about how we get domestic water and how we manage sewage as a class and as a developed nation.