MercTech
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Joined: 7/4/2006
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I really had to wade to get past the FUDmonger journalists and get some actual information.
MSDS on the chemical spilled :
http://www.cpchem.com/msds/100000014163_SDS_US_EN.PDF
Note that this is a volatile organic with a specific gravity lower than water. Read that as it will float on water and evaporate at temperatures even blow freezing.
Standard procedure is to issue a "don't use" order until three consecutive samples a day apart show no contamination. That may be a while if water supplies are from the river that was contaminated and the run-off from the contaminated soil will keep re-introducing the chemicals to the river.
From a real world chemistry point of view, storing water in an open container for a day or two would allow the volatiles to evaporate. The stuff leaked is similar to toluene, a common volatile in oil based and Alkyd based paint.
BTW.... from what I've seen for cleanup, the soil would be dug up and spread out and checked for airborne volatile organics, VOCs is the jargon. When you get no more hits with portable meters, the soil is put back in the hole and it is called good.
Test wells would be put down and tested for VOCs to check groundwater... or, instead of new test wells they might send county health department around to check drinking water wells in a circle around the spill area.
The long term hazard would come from the chemicals trapped in soil where it wouldn't evaporate out and slowly leaching into groundwater. First step is to find extent of area effected. Then, contain so it doesn't spread and get a plan to get the stuff out of the soil.
That is what I can tell from the information given in the news broadcasts, published information on the chemical, and decades of experience cleaning up such messes.
The news stories re-affirm my suspicion that to be a journalist one has to have failed 9th grade science class though.
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unsafe water in West Virginia! - 
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