Tests Said to Find Formaldehyde in West Virginia Tap Water

Tests on the water supply in Charleston, W. Va., a week after a chemical spill tainted the city's water system turned up traces of formaldehyde, suggesting that "There's a lot more we don't know" about the consequences of the spill, an environmental expert told a state legislative committee on Wednesday. Dr. Simonton, an environmental science professor at Marshall University, in Huntington, W. Va., said the formaldehyde was a product of the breakdown of the leaked coal-washing chemical, commonly known as MCHM. The secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, Randy C. Huffman, said the government did not know whether the formaldehyde was related to the chemical spill or whether it was an isolated instance linked to the restaurant where it was found. In a statement issued later on Wednesday, West Virginia's public health commissioner, Letitia Tierney, called Dr. Simonton's claims "Totally unfounded," saying formaldehyde is ubiquitous in daily life and produced by the body in small doses, and that it could not logically have originated with the spill. On Saturday, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin ordered the company responsible for the spill, Freedom Industries, to remove the cluster of aboveground storage tanks on the banks of the Elk River, where the spill occurred.
Source: NEW YORK TIMES


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