Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Chemical Spill - Water System Contaminated
10 January 2014, 17:01,
#1
Chemical Spill - Water System Contaminated
I am not in the affected area, but the current situation begs the lesson to all of us regarding our preps. The lesson to take away is that you must always have an emergency supply of water for drinking, cooking and washing, even during normal good times. Emergency management officials are saying with this spill there is "no way to treat the water."

When you have a chemical spill which contaminates the municipal water system on short notice you are really at a disadvantage. So ask yourself:

How much water do you have stored right now! (We keep ten 20-liter military water cans and a 90 gallon "water BOB" for the bathtub, but that normally is not filled until the hurricane "watch" escalates to "warning," so would have been no good to us in a short notice alert such as this one.

Read the news story below and think how this would affect your preps....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/w...ml?hpid=z4

Chemical spill shuts down much of W.Va. capital

At least 100,000 homes and businesses around West Virginia's capital have been told not to use the water, after a chemical spill in the Elk River.

By Associated Press, Published: January 9 | Updated: Friday, January 10, 10:46 AM

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Schools and restaurants closed, grocery stores sold out of bottled water, and state legislators who had just started their session canceled the day’s business after a chemical spill in the Elk River in Charleston shut down much of the city and surrounding counties even as the cause and extent of the incident remained unclear.

The federal government joined the state early Friday in declaring a disaster, and the West Virginia National Guard planned to distribute bottled drinking water to emergency services agencies in the nine affected counties. About 100,000 water customers, or 300,000 people total, were affected, state officials said they reported in requesting the federal declaration.

Shortly after the Thursday spill from Freedom Industries hit the river and a nearby treatment plant, a licorice-like smell enveloped parts of the city, and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin issued an order to customer of West Virginia American Water: Do not drink, bathe, cook or wash clothes with tap water.

The chemical, a foaming agent used in the coal preparation process, leaked from a tank at Freedom Industries and overran a containment area. Officials from Freedom, a manufacturer of chemicals for the mining, steel, and cement industries, hadn’t commented since the spill, but a woman who answered the phone at the company said it would issue a statement later Friday.

The tank that leaked holds at least 40,000 gallons, said Tom Aluise, a state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman. “We’re confident that no more than 5,000 gallons escaped,” he said. “A certain amount of that got into the river. Some of that was contained.”

Officials say the orders were issued as a precaution, as they were still not sure exactly what hazard the spill posed to residents. It also was not immediately clear how much of the chemical spilled into the river and at what concentration.

“I don’t know if the water is not safe,” water company president Jeff McIntyre said. “Until we get out and flush the actual system and do more testing, we can’t say how long this (advisory) will last at this time.”

McIntyre said the chemical isn’t lethal in its strongest form. Kanawha County emergency officials said the chemical is called 4-methylcyclohexane methanol.

According to a fact sheet from Fisher Scientific, the chemical is harmful if swallowed — and could be so if inhaled — and causes eye and skin irritation.

The emergency declaration involves customers in all or parts of the counties of Kanawha, Boone, Cabell, Clay, Jackson, Lincoln, Logan, Putnam and Roane. State Department of Education spokeswoman Liza Cordeiro said schools in at least five of the counties will be closed.

The smell from the spill — similar to licorice or cough syrup — was especially strong at the Charleston Marriott hotel a few blocks from the Elk River, which flows into the Kanawha River in downtown Charleston. The Marriott shut off all water to rooms, and then turned it back on so guests could flush toilets. Each guest was given two 16.9-ounce bottles of spring water upon returning to the hotel.

About 50 miles away in the unaffected city of Huntington, a hotel offered free showers for those affected.

Even as the National Guard made plans to mobilize at an air base at Charleston’s Yeager Airport, many people — told to use water only for flushing toilets — weren’t waiting for outside help.

Once word got out about the governor’s declaration Thursday, customers stripped store shelves in many areas of items such as bottled water, paper cups and bowls. As many as 50 customers had lined up to buy water at a convenience store near the state Capitol in Charleston.

“It was chaos, that’s what it was,” cashier Danny Cardwell said.

State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey warned residents about price gouging on water, ice and other items, calling it “just plain wrong” to inflate prices and encouraging those who’ve seen such practices to report them to his office’s consumer protection division.

Though the governor noted that the water advisory extended to restaurants, hospitals, nursing homes and other establishments that use tap water, state public safety spokesman Lawrence Messina said Friday that he wasn’t aware of any hospitals closing and that medical centers “seemed to have adequate water supply, at least for the short term.”

At the Little India restaurant in Charleston, about 12 customers were asked to leave when bar manager Bill LaCourse learned about the shutdown notice.

Karlee Bolen, 16, of Charleston, said her family, including her parents, two sisters and brother, were considering the possibility of heading to her grandmother’s home in Braxton County, where tap water was unaffected, an hour to the northeast.

“I kind of want to shower and brush my teeth,” she said.
___
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press.

73 de KE4SKY
In
"Almost Heaven" West Virginia
USA
Reply
10 January 2014, 17:22,
#2
RE: Chemical Spill - Water System Contaminated
I already have 6 months worth of bottled water excluding the filters, sterlisers, etc. for treating water. Plus I intended to fill the bath etc. So only the bath, kettle, etc. water would be lost. We would be OK until they restore the water. Even longer if the contaminated water could be used for waste disposal.
Skean Dhude
-------------------------------
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. - Charles Darwin
Reply
4 February 2014, 22:32,
#3
RE: Chemical Spill - Water System Contaminated
Holy moly batman, wish I had the room for a 6 month supply, barely got 2wks. Have got the lifesaver jerrycans and spare filters, but from what I read and discussed with other preppers in the states the chemical couldn't be filtered or boiled, or so the authorities said. Off to the supermarket to get more water methinks.
Reply
5 February 2014, 01:55,
#4
RE: Chemical Spill - Water System Contaminated
With a 6 month family supply of bottled water you could restock the local supermarket. That must fill a decent sized room from floor to ceiling? and that's just probably for consumption purposes...
"How far back in time do you think our future will be?"
Reply
5 February 2014, 11:54,
#5
RE: Chemical Spill - Water System Contaminated
I have a spring that's flowing at least 3000 litres per hour, but have no way of testing the water, so if there was a fallout incident or perhaps a spill at a farm up in the hills it might be contaminated. I have thousands of litres stored from rain, off the barn roof, which will be uncontaminated as long as I know about the problem and don't flush them out at the wrong time.

I guess I should keep a note of which tanks have been stored for how long, so if it emerges that there was an event, say, two days ago, I'll know which water is safe and which to dump.
Reply
5 February 2014, 14:47,
#6
RE: Chemical Spill - Water System Contaminated
(5 February 2014, 01:55)Timelord Wrote: With a 6 month family supply of bottled water you could restock the local supermarket. That must fill a decent sized room from floor to ceiling? and that's just probably for consumption purposes...

The only way I could store 6 months worth of water would be in a swimming pool / pond. I can't even squeeze any more tins in at the moment!

Unless SD is storing dehydrated water
http://www.buydehydratedwater.com/
Wink Big Grin
Reply
5 February 2014, 15:42,
#7
RE: Chemical Spill - Water System Contaminated
Approx. 6 month's drinking water reserve here, maybe a bit more if we're careful.

Primary water supply is from aquifer.

Backup supply is either our well, which is also aquifer fed, or rainwater harvesting.

Fallout would rule out the rainwater option for a while, but would not immediately effect either primary nor well supplies.
72 de

Lightspeed
26-SUKer-17

26-TM-580


STATUS: Bugged-In at the Bug-Out
Reply
5 February 2014, 16:33,
#8
RE: Chemical Spill - Water System Contaminated
So if one doesn't have lots of water stored, is there literally no way that this chemical (or similar) can be removed from the water?
Reply
5 February 2014, 17:38,
#9
RE: Chemical Spill - Water System Contaminated
I don't think so BM, filtering and purifying would help but I don't think there is any way of removing all the chemicals outside of a huge water treatment plant.
Some people that prefer to be alone arent anti-social they just have no time for drama, stupidity and false people.
Reply
5 February 2014, 18:36,
#10
RE: Chemical Spill - Water System Contaminated
I live about 500 miles downriver from this spill. Our river communities had to shut down their filtration plants.

This chemical was so potent that it can not be filtered from the water, even by a utility water plant!

It would pollute the entire facility and require shutdown of the plant for extensive cleanup and replacement of the filters. Most American plants use a reverse osmosis process with very expensive filters.

As the spill floated down the Ohio River each city shut down their filtration plant and closed the intake valves until the pollutant passed their area.

Keep in mind that this is a River as wide as the Thames (in London) at its confluence in Pennsylvania, gets wider as it progresses, and it progresses for 900 miles! It then joins the Mississippi river for another 1000 mile run to the Gulf of Mexico.

This spill affected the water supply of about 75,000,000 people including the cities of Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis and New Orleans, each with more than a million residents, along with the countless small communities that draw water from the Ohio along the way.

If terrorists really wanted to make an impact.......
__________
Every person should view freedom of speech as an essential right.
Without it you can not tell who the idiots are.
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 5 Guest(s)