Eastman Settles West Virginia Spill Claims
US chemical producer Eastman has settled damage claims brought by residents of the US city of Charleston, West Virginia, dating back to a January 2014 spill of the coal-cleaning agent methylcyclohexyl methanol (MCHM) into local drinking water supplies. The settlement for an as yet undisclosed sum ends the Kingsport, Tennessee-based chemical producer’s part in the federal class-action suit, unless the district court fails to accept it.
The chemical manufactured by Eastman was accidently released from a storage tank at the now insolvent Freedom Industries into the Elk River about 1.5 miles upstream from the city water system's intake. Some 230,000 people and 7,000 businesses claim they were without access to clean tap water for several days, and that some workers forfeited wages as their businesses were forced to shut down.
A tentative settlement has now also been reached with water utility Virginia American Water, news reports from West Virginia said. This is also subject to court approval. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the financial value of the settlements with the two companies will be revealed when the settlements are final. Lawsuits filed at state are said to be proceeded more slowly than those handled at federal court level. The state cases are the only ones to name Freedom as a defendant.
In the suit against the water company, whose systems according to local reports provide drinking water to about 560,000 people in West Virginia, the plaintiffs charge Virginia American was unprepared for the spill. They allege also that Eastman failed to test the corrosive chemical MCHM as to its possible effects on human health or tanks and moreover did not provide advice on how to properly store it.
Shortly after the incident, Freedom filed for bankruptcy. An investigation by the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) later that year said lax inspections and a lack of proper maintenance at the company were at least partly to blame for the water pollution. CSB said it found no documentation of inspections by Freedom that would have identified corrosion in its leaky tank and also that the company lacked leak detection or prevention systems. West Virginia lawmakers have since imposed new inspection and containment requirements on above-ground storage tanks.
In February of this year, two former Freedom executives were sentenced to one month in federal prison on pollution charges and four others received probation. A separate trial will hear claims against them.
