INTERESTING TIMES

That's a lot of people who can't shower in or cook with the water coming from the faucet. The solution to this pollution is said to be dilution, same as ever, which means people have to wait until enough good water has run through the system to wash out the chemical. The wildlife get no such warning. The symptoms are nausea and vomiting. I haven't found anything about longterm toxicity yet.

Events like this are manageable for populations wealthy enough to purchase bottled water or travel to cleaner digs. For impoverished folks and for the creatures and plants of the land, this is a true crisis.

The leak was a foaming agent used to wash coal, and it went from a 48,000 gallon storage tank straight into the Elk River. The primary component in the foaming agent that leaked is the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (CH3C6H10CH2OH). It has been patented as an air freshener and has a slightly minty odor (another good reason not to use air fresheners). It is used in ~20-25% of coal plans, mainly for "coking coal" which is used for metallurgical purposes, but not for making coal burned to make electricity ("steam coal") which is the lion's share of total coal produced.

The biz owning the leaky tank is called Freedom Industries, and it distributes mining reagents for WV, VA, PA, OH, MD, MN, KY, and MI. In 2008, Freedom Industries was specially selected by Georgia-Pacific Chemicals as a distributor of G-P's Talon brand mining reagents for the states already mentioned. Georgia-Pacific Chemicals is, of course, a subsidiary of Georgia-Pacific, which was acquired by Koch Industries in 2005. Koch is big biz, and should be penalized to assure that they will take better precautions in all their plants in the future.



SOURCES
Fresh Brains sent me this link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/11/west-virginia-chemical-sp_n_4582100.html
National Geographic on the same leak:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140110-4-methylcyclohexane-methanol-chemical-spill-west-virginia-science/
Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/11/1268990/-Freedom-Industries-Has-Ties-to-Koch-Brothers
Koch Industries
http://www.kochind.com/

Karen Parker on EOs and AromaTherapy
she has spent 35 years studying herbal medicine
was cosmetologist, did color-->chemical sensitivity and asthma worsened
now studying Chinese medicine at NCNM
went into EO industry
currently Oregon rep for Simplers http://www.simplers.com/
can't tolerate all EOs
teaches advanced classes outside NCNM
offering class in Nov or Dec at Watershed clinic
( notes )

Over the last few years I have suggested this product to quite a few people, because it works. Now I find out that the FDA has pulled it from the market because it can kill your sense of smell. Zicam is intranasal zinc administered with a swab or squirt. You absorb the zinc through your mucosal membrane, and it helps you fight viruses. Absorption of zinc through the gastrointestinal system is not very good. Having a steady stream of zinc in your bloodstream is supposedly beneficial when fighting a cold or flu bug. I don't have references for all this, but I can tell you that I have never had another cold since discovering the stuff, and I can still smell.
( more )

How do you get the smell of mothballs out of something plastic?
Thanks.
( Wikipedia on health effects of napthalene, the main ingredient in older mothballs )