There’s quite a buzz going around West Virginia — and rightly so — about the front-page New York Times story, “Clean Water Laws Neglected, at a Cost.”
The edition of the Times featured a four-column-wide photo at the top of 1A showing a seven-year-old West Virginia boy’s damaged teeth, linked by his dentists on the polluted drinking water his family blames on the underground injection of coal slurry. The photo is here in the online edition of the story.
I was glad to see the Times make note of this fact about Ryan Massey, his mother Jennifer Hall-Massey and the family in question:
She and her husband, Charles, do not live in some remote corner of Appalachia. Charleston, the state capital, is less than 17 miles from her home.
Far too often, these kinds of coal-related stories paint the problems as something that’s happening in a far-away land, someplace none of us really needs to think about or be concerned with.
The Times story is part of a multi-part series the paper is doing about water quality issues. The previous story, Debating how much weed killer is safe in your water glass, was also written by reporter Charles Duhigg, and is worth giving a read.
Times staffers are some of the best computer-assisted reporters in the business, and that shows up in this story, with the nut graphs describing the national scope of lax enforcement of our nation’s clean water laws:
This pattern is not limited to West Virginia. Almost four decades ago, Congress passed the Clean Water Act to force polluters to disclose the toxins they dump into waterways and to give regulators the power to fine or jail offenders. States have passed pollution statutes of their own. But in recent years, violations of the Clean Water Act have risen steadily across the nation, an extensive review of water pollution records by The New York Times found.
In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.
However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene.
And the Times provided this nifty interactive graphic, a sidebar on how to research the safety of your own water supply, and state-by-state data and regulatory agency responses to the problems identified by the newspaper.
Of course, news of slurry injection’s impacts on the community of Prenter (where the Massey family lives) comes as no surprise to regular readers of the The Charleston Gazette, Coal Tattoo or the AP dispatches by Vicki Smith (See here, here, here, here and here for previous coverage).
But the Times outlined some pretty interesting stuff all the same:
In the eight miles surrounding Mrs. Hall-Massey’s home, coal companies have injected more than 1.9 billion gallons of coal slurry and sludge into the ground since 2004, according to a review of thousands of state records. Millions more gallons have been dumped into lagoons.
These underground injections have contained chemicals at concentrations that pose serious health risks, and thousands of injections have violated state regulations and the Safe Drinking Water Act, according to reports sent to the state by companies themselves.
For instance, three coal companies — Loadout, Remington Coal and Pine Ridge, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy, one of the largest coal companies in the world — reported to state officials that 93 percent of the waste they injected near this community had illegal concentrations of chemicals including arsenic, lead, chromium, beryllium or nickel.
Sometimes those concentrations exceeded legal limits by as much as 1,000 percent. Those chemicals have been shown to contribute to cancer, organ failures and other diseases.
But those companies were never fined or punished for those illegal injections, according to state records. They were never even warned that their activities had been noticed.
The Times included in its story on posted on its Web site a partial response from Randy Huffman, Gov. Joe Manchin’s environmental protection secretary. The most interesting part was this:
It is important to note that if the close scrutiny given to our state had been given to others, it is likely that similar issues would have been found.
In fact, a chart that was included in the print edition (I couldn’t find it online) showed that West Virginia ranked 10th in the nation in terms of enforcement actions issued per 100 facilities out of compliance, with 28.
Of course, that doesn’t tell the whole story … We know that the WVDEP went for four or five years — maybe more — without even looking at the monthly pollution discharge reports that coal companies file. WVDEP started doing so only after the federal EPA came into the state and won a record $20 million Clean Water Act settlement from Massey Energy. And since then, WVDEP has been entering into private settlements with coal operators, in a move environmental groups say is aimed at avoiding citizen lawsuits that might bring larger penalties and tougher compliance schedules.
The Times article also includes an interesting story about Huffman’s predecessor, Stephanie Timmermeyer, in which former WVDEP mining director Matt Crum alleges Timmermeyer fired her under orders from a state lawmaker with close ties to the coal industry after he tried to enforce the law:
Mining companies, worried about attracting Mr. Crum’s attention, began improving their waste disposal practices, executives from that period said. But they also began complaining to their friends in the state’s legislature, they recalled in interviews, and started a whisper campaign accusing Mr. Crum of vendettas against particular companies — though those same executives now admit they had no evidence for those claims.
In 2003, a new director, Stephanie Timmermeyer, was nominated to run the Department of Environmental Protection. One of West Virginia’s most powerful state lawmakers, Eustace Frederick, said she would be confirmed, but only if she agreed to fire Mr. Crum, according to several people who said they witnessed the conversation.
She was given the job and soon summoned Mr. Crum to her office. He was dismissed two weeks after his second child’s birth.
Finally, the story included this quote from Huffman:
The real test is, is our water clean? When the Clean Water Act was passed, this river that flows through our capital was very dirty. Thirty years later, it’s much cleaner because we’ve chosen priorities carefully.
Randy didn’t come out and quote the goal Congress set when it passed the Clean Water Act, so I’ll mention it here:
It is the national goal that the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985.
In 2007, the most recent year for which data is available, polluters discharged nearly 3 million pounds of toxic chemicals into West Virginia’s rivers and streams. And, according to WVDEP’s own data, only one-sixth of West Virginia’s waterways are clean enough to support their designated uses.
Clay Massey and Ryan Massey flank their mother Jennifer Massey, who holds a photo of her brother, Randall Van Hall Jr., who died of a brain tumor.
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The day was hailed as a great time for the people in the community called Prenter, though most residents are most looking forward to March 2010.
On Aug. 18 at 2 p.m., after years of complaints, fundraisers, volunteers and prayers — the people who live in Prenter celebrated a groundbreaking ceremony on the much-needed waterline extension to their area.
“It’s a great day for Boone County. It’s a great day for Big Coal River area,” Senator Ron Stollings, D-Boone, said to a round of applause from community members.
The Prenter water project, a
private-public partnership, has been a long-time coming.
“We’re sorry it has taken so long to get you this water,” Gov. Joe Manchin was heard telling several women residing in the Prenter area who had come out to hear the Governor speak about the waterline project.
“Not one of us could have done it without you. This is the first time you all came together, to make this happen,” he said.
“My number one priority is
infrastructure; there should not be one person in West Virginia that we can reach with clean water that we should not be able to meet their needs. I have never heard from any of this county’s leadership that we can not get that done,” Manchin said.
“Chris Jarrett is the one who is going to help me change the face of West Virginia so that every family and child has safe and clean water and sanitation. That is our goal.”
“You should be proud of the leaders of this county,” Manchin said, praising the Boone County Commissioners.
“I is sinful that we haven’t had clean drinking water,” Manchin said, further stating that he has placed the Prenter water project on a fast track to completion.
“We want this done by March,” the Governor said.
Manchin commented that if the state of West Virginia had started infrastructure projects in the 1940s and 50s, the state would not be ahead in more ways than it is now.
“We all can’t do these types of projects by ourselves — we don’t have the resources, manpower, or money alone; when all of you come together and tell us it’s the highest priority.
“Prioritize what needs to be done,” he said.
In addition to meeting the basic needs of clean water and sanitation, Manchin said the Big Coal area’s future generation needs broadband and high speed internet access.
“If we’re going to turn this economy around, they have to be able to connect and do business anywhere,” he commented.
“I think this a model to the rest of the state,” Manchin said of the Prenter community’s grassroots private-public partnership efforts to meet the needs of the citizens. “We’ll follow it [the waterline extension project] and stay on top of it,” the Governor promised the people.
The March 2010 deadline represents a substantial completion date of the first phase of the project to serve the Prenter area. The project scope consists of 41,000 feet of 8-inch, 6-inch, and 2-inch water line pipe, 17 fire hydrants and 155 service connections.
Approximately 155 homes will receive quality water service and fire protection from this project. Customers to be served will pay rates identical to West Virginia American Water’s statewide water service rates.
“What a great time for the people in this area called Prenter,” Commissioner Athol Halstead told the crowd. “It’s been a long time coming, but working the paper work, it’s understandable. This is phase I of this project. Down the road, there might be other phases.”
The project’s $2,237,500 is funded from a HUD Small Cities Block Grant in the amount of $1,500,000; a contribution from the Boone County Commission of $300,00; and $437,500 from the West Virginia American Water Company.
“West Virginia American Water will operate and maintain the project facilities under the long-term operations and maintenance agreement with the Boone County Public Service District. West Virginia American Water assures quality water that meets all federal and state requirements,” County Commissioner Mickey Brown said.
The Boone County Commission, Boone County PSD, Office of the Governor, WV Development Office, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, WV American Water, are all working as a private-public partnership to complete the water project.
“Efforts to access clean, safe water are to be commend. Such project have proven to create jobs and stimulate economic growth in our community,” Senator Stollings said.
“Boone County sees a lot of money from coal severance tax. We’re in the black because of our energy taxes, and the Boone County Commission uses it wisely for infrastructure,” Stollings said.
“There are some health issues in this community,” the Senator and local physician said. “There will be no more new slurry injections from here on out,” Stolling said to a round of applause. Stollings praised the work of Prenter resident Maria Lambert, whose photo essays helped give a visual voice to the problems plaguing the area. “I appreciate that grassroots approach and it goes to show that the old adage, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, is correct,” he said.
“From what I understand, the water project is on a fast track; we want to put Boone County in the top four or five counties in the state to help transition away from a coal dependent county,” Stollings said. “We need to do that now.”
Representatives with the American Water Company told the Coal Valley News that hopefully, they will be able to connect some residents to the waterline before the March 2010 deadline – as the waterline is laid and tested, the homes can be hooked up, and hopefully many residents will have clean water by Christmas.
“Anytime you have a groundbreaking, you do it so that people know that something better than what you have today. Thank you for keeping faith,” Governor Manchin said, reiterating that the main object is to get clean water to the people at Prenter.
One such resident, Jennifer Massey, knows first-hand what it is like living without clean water. “We’ve had a lot of health problems in the community because of what we believe to be bad water. There have been a lot of medical problems like gall bladders needing removed, and cancer – a lot of people with tumors. My 29-year-old little brother died from a brain tumor.
Andrew Chojnacki, the contractor overseeing the construction of the waterline, told the Coal Valley News that construction will possibly start the first of September. “That’s when we’ll actually begin,” Chojnacki said.
“This is just a great day. Everyone who was involved in helping us get clean water is greatly appreciated. The County Commission and West Virginia American Water, and anyone who has helped, we appreciate. We also most appreciate the prayers of the people,” Lambert said.
The Coal Valley News recently reported that the water project had recently come to a halt because of a clause in one right-of-way agreement between the county PSD and the land company, Federal Coal.
“For some time now, we have been trying to work with Federal Coal to secure access to a 1,000 foot section of roadside,” Boone PSD Chairman Fred Riggleman had told Coal Valley News reporter Lawrence Keeney. “We have funding, the designs are ready, and we have easements for everywhere on the route up to that point. Essentially, this relatively small section of road is little more than ‘a ditchline’ parallel to the road.”
Federal Coal, according to officials, was insisting on a clause that says the company can order that a water line placed anywhere on their land be moved at anytime, and at the expense of the PSD. “In this 1,000 foot section of road, it would cause us to have to spend upwards of $50,000 to $100,000 to move the lines which is money we don’t have on hand to spend. In essence, if we cannot come to an agreement with the company, the 10 customers living on Federal Coal Property probably won’t get served by us,” Riggleman reported to the Coal Valley News.
“I have no information personally, on a problem with the Federal Land Company,” Manchin told the Coal Valley News when questioned August 18. The Governor said the State has never had a problem in the past working with a land company while working on an infrastructure project.
“I don’t anticipate one in the future. If there becomes a problem with a land company, we always have the option of eminent domain if we need it,” Manchin said. “And if there are any future problems, I want people to call me,” he said.
Toxic Waters
Ryan Massey, 7, shows his caps. Dentists near Charleston, W.Va., say pollutants in drinking water have damaged residents’ teeth. Nationwide, polluters have violated the Clean Water Act more than 500,000 times
Published: September 12, 2009
Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va.
Search data on more than 200,000 facilities around the nation permitted to discharge pollutants.
The New York Times surveyed violations of the Clean Water Act in every state, and the response by state regulators.
Unchecked Pollution
Articles in this series are examining the worsening pollution in American waters, and regulators’ response.
All Articles in the Series » Video Trailer for Next Installment
Jennifer Hall-Massey relies on drinking water that is brought in by truck and stored in barrels on her porch near Charleston, W.Va.
A water sample collected from a water heater by Patty Sebok, a neighbor of Jennifer Hall-Massey. Residents say such water is typical and has destroyed toilets, dishwashers and washing machines.
Clay Massey, 6, waits for his mother to put prescription ointment on painful scabs and rashes that she said were caused by polluted bath water.
In West Virginia, one of many lagoons that hold slurry, water used to remove impurities from coal. Such water can seep into local drinking supplies.
Share your thoughts on this article and read replies from Charles Duhigg, who is responding to readers’ comments.
In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater — polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals — caused painful rashes. Many of his brother’s teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.
Neighbors apply special lotions after showering because their skin burns. Tests show that their tap water contains arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system.
“How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?” said Mrs. Hall-Massey, a senior accountant at one of the state’s largest banks.
She and her husband, Charles, do not live in some remote corner of Appalachia. Charleston, the state capital, is less than 17 miles from her home.
“How is this still happening today?” she asked.
When Mrs. Hall-Massey and 264 neighbors sued nine nearby coal companies, accusing them of putting dangerous waste into local water supplies, their lawyer did not have to look far for evidence. As required by state law, some of the companies had disclosed in reports to regulators that they were pumping into the ground illegal concentrations of chemicals — the same pollutants that flowed from residents’ taps.
But state regulators never fined or punished those companies for breaking those pollution laws.
This pattern is not limited to West Virginia. Almost four decades ago, Congress passed the Clean Water Act to force polluters to disclose the toxins they dump into waterways and to give regulators the power to fine or jail offenders. States have passed pollution statutes of their own. But in recent years, violations of the Clean Water Act have risen steadily across the nation, an extensive review of water pollution records by The New York Times found.
In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.
However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene.
Because it is difficult to determine what causes diseases like cancer, it is impossible to know how many illnesses are the result of water pollution, or contaminants’ role in the health problems of specific individuals.
But concerns over these toxins are great enough that Congress and the E.P.A. regulate more than 100 pollutants through the Clean Water Act and strictly limit 91 chemicals or contaminants in tap water through the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Regulators themselves acknowledge lapses. The new E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, said in an interview that despite many successes since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, today the nation’s water does not meet public health goals, and enforcement of water pollution laws is unacceptably low. She added that strengthening water protections is among her top priorities. State regulators say they are doing their best with insufficient resources.
The Times obtained hundreds of thousands of water pollution records through Freedom of Information Act requests to every state and the E.P.A., and compiled a national database of water pollution violations that is more comprehensive than those maintained by states or the E.P.A. (For an interactive version, which can show violations in any community, visit www.nytimes.com/toxicwaters.)
In addition, The Times interviewed more than 250 state and federal regulators, water-system managers, environmental advocates and scientists.
That research shows that an estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet a federal health benchmark in other ways.
Those exposures include carcinogens in the tap water of major American cities and unsafe chemicals in drinking-water wells. Wells, which are not typically regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, are more likely to contain contaminants than municipal water systems.
Because most of today’s water pollution has no scent or taste, many people who consume dangerous chemicals do not realize it, even after they become sick, researchers say.
But an estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from drinking water contaminated with parasites, bacteria or viruses, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. That figure does not include illnesses caused by other chemicals and toxins.
In the nation’s largest dairy states, like Wisconsin and California, farmers have sprayed liquefied animal feces onto fields, where it has seeped into wells, causing severe infections. Tap water in parts of the Farm Belt, including cities in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Indiana, has contained pesticides at concentrations that some scientists have linked to birth defects and fertility problems.
In parts of New York, Rhode Island, Ohio, California and other states where sewer systems cannot accommodate heavy rains, untreated human waste has flowed into rivers and washed onto beaches. Drinking water in parts of New Jersey, New York, Arizona and Massachusetts shows some of the highest concentrations of tetrachloroethylene, a dry cleaning solvent that has been linked to kidney damage and cancer. (Specific types of water pollution across the United States will be examined in future Times articles.)
The Times’s research also shows that last year, 40 percent of the nation’s community water systems violated the Safe Drinking Water Act at least once, according to an analysis of E.P.A. data. Those violations ranged from failing to maintain proper paperwork to allowing carcinogens into tap water. More than 23 million people received drinking water from municipal systems that violated a health-based standard.
In some cases, people got sick right away. In other situations, pollutants like chemicals, inorganic toxins and heavy metals can accumulate in the body for years or decades before they cause problems. Some of the most frequently detected contaminants have been linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological disorders.
Records analyzed by The Times indicate that the Clean Water Act has been violated more than 506,000 times since 2004, by more than 23,000 companies and other facilities, according to reports submitted by polluters themselves. Companies sometimes test what they are dumping only once a quarter, so the actual number of days when they broke the law is often far higher. And some companies illegally avoid reporting their emissions, say officials, so infractions go unrecorded.
Environmental groups say the number of Clean Water Act violations has increased significantly in the last decade. Comprehensive data go back only five years but show that the number of facilities violating the Clean Water Act grew more than 16 percent from 2004 to 2007, the most recent year with complete data.
Polluters include small companies, like gas stations, dry cleaners, shopping malls and the Friendly Acres Mobile Home Park in Laporte, Ind., which acknowledged to regulators that it had dumped human waste into a nearby river for three years.
They also include large operations, like chemical factories, power plants, sewage treatment centers and one of the biggest zinc smelters, the Horsehead Corporation of Pennsylvania, which has dumped illegal concentrations of copper, lead, zinc, chlorine and selenium into the Ohio River. Those chemicals can contribute to mental retardation and cancer.
Some violations are relatively minor. But about 60 percent of the polluters were deemed in “significant noncompliance” — meaning their violations were the most serious kind, like dumping cancer-causing chemicals or failing to measure or report when they pollute.
Finally, the Times’s research shows that fewer than 3 percent of Clean Water Act violations resulted in fines or other significant punishments by state officials. And the E.P.A. has often declined to prosecute polluters or force states to strengthen their enforcement by threatening to withhold federal money or take away powers the agency has delegated to state officials.
Neither Friendly Acres Mobile Home Park nor Horsehead, for instance, was fined for Clean Water Act violations in the last eight years. A representative of Friendly Acres declined to comment. Indiana officials say they are investigating the mobile home park. A representative of Horsehead said the company had taken steps to control pollution and was negotiating with regulators to clean up its emissions.
Numerous state and federal lawmakers said they were unaware that pollution was so widespread.
“I don’t think anyone realized how bad things have become,” said Representative James L. Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat, when told of The Times’s findings. Mr. Oberstar is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has jurisdiction over many water-quality issues.
“The E.P.A. and states have completely dropped the ball,” he said. “Without oversight and enforcement, companies will use our lakes and rivers as dumping grounds — and that’s exactly what is apparently going on.”
The E.P.A. administrator, Ms. Jackson, whose appointment was confirmed in January, said in an interview that she intended to strengthen enforcement of the Clean Water Act and pressure states to apply the law.
“I’ve been saying since Day One I want to work on these water issues pretty broadly across the country,” she said. On Friday, the E.P.A. said that it was reviewing dozens of coal-mining permits in West Virginia and three other states to make sure they would not violate the Clean Water Act.
After E.P.A. officials received detailed questions from The New York Times in June, Ms. Jackson sent a memo to her enforcement deputy noting that the E.P.A. is “falling short of this administration’s expectations for the effectiveness of our clean water enforcement programs. Data available to E.P.A. shows that, in many parts of the country, the level of significant noncompliance with permitting requirements is unacceptably high and the level of enforcement activity is unacceptably low.”
State officials, for their part, attribute rising pollution rates to increased workloads and dwindling resources. In 46 states, local regulators have primary responsibility for crucial aspects of the Clean Water Act. Though the number of regulated facilities has more than doubled in the last 10 years, many state enforcement budgets have remained essentially flat when adjusted for inflation. In New York, for example, the number of regulated polluters has almost doubled to 19,000 in the last decade, but the number of inspections each year has remained about the same.
But stretched resources are only part of the reason polluters escape punishment. The Times’s investigation shows that in West Virginia and other states, powerful industries have often successfully lobbied to undermine effective regulation.
State officials also argue that water pollution statistics include minor infractions, like failing to file reports, which do not pose risks to human health, and that records collected by The Times failed to examine informal enforcement methods, like sending warning letters.
“We work enormously hard inspecting our coal mines, analyzing water samples, notifying companies of violations when we detect them,” said Randy Huffman, head of West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection. “When I look at how far we’ve come in protecting the state’s waters since we took responsibility for the Clean Water Act, I think we have a lot to be proud of.”
But unchecked pollution remains a problem in many states. West Virginia offers a revealing example of why so many companies escape punishment.
One Community’s Plight
The mountains surrounding the home of Mrs. Hall-Massey’s family and West Virginia’s nearby capital have long been mined for coal. And for years, the area enjoyed clean well water.
But starting about a decade ago, awful smells began coming from local taps. The water was sometimes gray, cloudy and oily. Bathtubs and washers developed rust-colored rings that scrubbing could not remove. When Mrs. Hall-Massey’s husband installed industrial water filters, they quickly turned black. Tests showed that their water contained toxic amounts of lead, manganese, barium and other metals that can contribute to organ failure or developmental problems.
Around that time, nearby coal companies had begun pumping industrial waste into the ground.
Mining companies often wash their coal to remove impurities. The leftover liquid — a black fluid containing dissolved minerals and chemicals, known as sludge or slurry — is often disposed of in vast lagoons or through injection into abandoned mines. The liquid in those lagoons and shafts can flow through cracks in the earth into water supplies. Companies must regularly send samples of the injected liquid to labs, which provide reports that are forwarded to state regulators.
In the eight miles surrounding Mrs. Hall-Massey’s home, coal companies have injected more than 1.9 billion gallons of coal slurry and sludge into the ground since 2004, according to a review of thousands of state records. Millions more gallons have been dumped into lagoons.
These underground injections have contained chemicals at concentrations that pose serious health risks, and thousands of injections have violated state regulations and the Safe Drinking Water Act, according to reports sent to the state by companies themselves.
For instance, three coal companies — Loadout, Remington Coal and Pine Ridge, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy, one of the largest coal companies in the world — reported to state officials that 93 percent of the waste they injected near this community had illegal concentrations of chemicals including arsenic, lead, chromium, beryllium or nickel.
Sometimes those concentrations exceeded legal limits by as much as 1,000 percent. Those chemicals have been shown to contribute to cancer, organ failures and other diseases.
But those companies were never fined or punished for those illegal injections, according to state records. They were never even warned that their activities had been noticed.
Remington Coal declined to comment. A representative of Loadout’s parent said the company had assigned its permit to another company, which ceased injecting in 2006. Peabody Energy, which spun off Pine Ridge in 2007, said that some data sent to regulators was inaccurate and that the company’s actions reflected best industry practices.
West Virginia officials, when asked about these violations, said regulators had accidentally overlooked many pollution records the companies submitted until after the statute of limitations had passed, so no action was taken. They also said their studies indicated that those injections could not have affected drinking water in the area and that other injections also had no detectable effect.
State officials noted that they had cited more than 4,200 water pollution violations at mine sites around the state since 2000, as well as conducted thousands of investigations. The state has initiated research about how mining affects water quality. After receiving questions from The Times, officials announced a statewide moratorium on issuing injection permits and told some companies that regulators were investigating their injections.
“Many of the issues you are examining are several years old, and many have been addressed,” West Virginia officials wrote in a statement. The state’s pollution program “has had its share of issues,” regulators wrote. However, “it is important to note that if the close scrutiny given to our state had been given to others, it is likely that similar issues would have been found.”
More than 350 other companies and facilities in West Virginia have also violated the Clean Water Act in recent years, records show. Those infractions include releasing illegal concentrations of iron, manganese, aluminum and other chemicals into lakes and rivers.
As the water in Mrs. Hall-Massey’s community continued to worsen, residents began complaining of increased health problems. Gall bladder diseases, fertility problems, miscarriages and kidney and thyroid issues became common, according to interviews.
When Mrs. Hall-Massey’s family left on vacation, her sons’ rashes cleared up. When they returned, the rashes reappeared. Her dentist told her that chemicals appeared to be damaging her teeth and her son’s, she said. As the quality of her water worsened, Mrs. Hall-Massey’s once-healthy teeth needed many crowns. Her son brushed his teeth often, used a fluoride rinse twice a day and was not allowed to eat sweets. Even so, he continued getting cavities until the family stopped using tap water. By the time his younger brother’s teeth started coming in, the family was using bottled water to brush. He has not had dental problems.
Medical professionals in the area say residents show unusually high rates of health problems. A survey of more than 100 residents conducted by a nurse hired by Mrs. Hall-Massey’s lawyer indicated that as many as 30 percent of people in this area have had their gallbladders removed, and as many as half the residents have significant tooth enamel damage, chronic stomach problems and other illnesses. That research was confirmed through interviews with residents.
It is difficult to determine which companies, if any, are responsible for the contamination that made its way into tap water or to conclude which specific chemicals, if any, are responsible for particular health problems. Many coal companies say they did not pollute the area’s drinking water and chose injection sites that flowed away from nearby homes.
An independent study by a university researcher challenges some of those claims.
“I don’t know what else could be polluting these wells,” said Ben Stout, a biology professor at Wheeling Jesuit University who tested the water in this community and elsewhere in West Virginia. “The chemicals coming out of people’s taps are identical to the chemicals the coal companies are pumping into the ground.”
One night, Mrs. Hall-Massey’s 6-year-old son, Clay, asked to play in the tub. When he got out, his bright red rashes hurt so much he could not fall asleep. Soon, Mrs. Hall-Massey began complaining to state officials. They told her they did not know why her water was bad, she recalls, but doubted coal companies had done anything wrong. The family put their house on the market, but because of the water, buyers were not interested.
In December, Mrs. Hall-Massey and neighbors sued in county court, seeking compensation. That suit is pending. To resolve a related lawsuit filed about the same time, the community today gets regular deliveries of clean drinking water, stored in coolers or large blue barrels outside most homes. Construction began in August on a pipeline bringing fresh water to the community.
But for now most residents still use polluted water to bathe, shower and wash dishes.
“A parent’s only real job is to protect our children,” Mrs. Hall-Massey said. “But where was the government when we needed them to protect us from this stuff?”
Regulators ‘Overwhelmed’
Matthew Crum, a 43-year-old lawyer, wanted to protect people like Mrs. Hall-Massey. That is why he joined West Virginia’s environmental protection agency in 2001, when it became clear that the state’s and nation’s streams and rivers were becoming more polluted.
But he said he quickly learned that good intentions could not compete with intimidating politicians and a fearful bureaucracy.
Mr. Crum grew up during a golden age of environmental activism. He was in elementary school when Congress passed the Clean Water Act of 1972 in response to environmental disasters, including a fire on the polluted Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. The act’s goal was to eliminate most water pollution by 1985 and prohibit the “discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts.”
“There were a bunch of us that were raised with the example of the Clean Water Act as inspiration,” he said. “I wanted to be part of that fight.”
In the two decades after the act’s passage, the nation’s waters grew much healthier. The Cuyahoga River, West Virginia’s Kanawha River and hundreds of other beaches, streams and ponds were revitalized.
But in the late 1990s, some states’ enforcement of pollution laws began tapering off, according to regulators and environmentalists. Soon the E.P.A. started reporting that the nation’s rivers, lakes and estuaries were becoming dirtier again. Mr. Crum, after a stint in Washington with the Justice Department and the birth of his first child, joined West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection, where new leadership was committed to revitalizing the Clean Water Act.
He said his idealism was tested within two weeks, when he was called to a huge coal spill into a stream.
“I met our inspector at the spill site, and we had this really awkward conversation,” Mr. Crum recalled. “I said we should shut down the mine until everything was cleaned up. The inspector agreed, but he said if he issued that order, he was scared of getting demoted or transferred to the middle of nowhere. Everyone was terrified of doing their job.”
Mr. Crum temporarily shut the mine.
In the next two years, he shut many polluting mines until they changed their ways. His tough approach raised his profile around the state.
Mining companies, worried about attracting Mr. Crum’s attention, began improving their waste disposal practices, executives from that period said. But they also began complaining to their friends in the state’s legislature, they recalled in interviews, and started a whisper campaign accusing Mr. Crum of vendettas against particular companies — though those same executives now admit they had no evidence for those claims.
In 2003, a new director, Stephanie Timmermeyer, was nominated to run the Department of Environmental Protection. One of West Virginia’s most powerful state lawmakers, Eustace Frederick, said she would be confirmed, but only if she agreed to fire Mr. Crum, according to several people who said they witnessed the conversation.
She was given the job and soon summoned Mr. Crum to her office. He was dismissed two weeks after his second child’s birth.
Ms. Timmermeyer, who resigned in 2008, did not return calls. Mr. Frederick died last year.
Since then, hundreds of workplaces in West Virginia have violated pollution laws without paying fines. A half-dozen current and former employees, in interviews, said their enforcement efforts had been undermined by bureaucratic disorganization, a departmental preference to let polluters escape punishment if they promise to try harder, and a revolving door of regulators who leave for higher-paying jobs at the companies they once policed.
“We are outmanned and overwhelmed, and that’s exactly how industry wants us,” said one employee who requested anonymity for fear of being fired. “It’s been obvious for decades that we’re not on top of things, and coal companies have earned billions relying on that.”
In June, four environmental groups petitioned the E.P.A. to take over much of West Virginia’s handling of the Clean Water Act, citing a “nearly complete breakdown” in the state. The E.P.A. has asked state officials to respond and said it is investigating the petition.
Similar problems exist in other states, where critics say regulators have often turned a blind eye to polluters. Regulators in five other states, in interviews, said they had been pressured by industry-friendly politicians to drop continuing pollution investigations.
“Unless the E.P.A. is pushing state regulators, a culture of transgression and apathy sets in,” said William K. Reilly, who led the E.P.A. under President George H. W. Bush.
In response, many state officials defend their efforts. A spokeswoman for West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection, for instance, said that between 2006 and 2008, the number of cease-operation orders issued by regulators was 10 percent higher than during Mr. Crum’s two-year tenure.
Mr. Huffman, the department’s head, said there is no political interference with current investigations. Department officials say they continue to improve the agency’s procedures, and note that regulators have assessed $14.7 million in state fines against more than 70 mining companies since 2006.
However, that is about equal to the revenue those businesses’ parent companies collect every 10 hours, according to financial reports. (To find out about every state’s enforcement record and read comments from regulators, visit www.nytimes.com/waterdata.)
“The real test is, is our water clean?” said Mr. Huffman. “When the Clean Water Act was passed, this river that flows through our capital was very dirty. Thirty years later, it’s much cleaner because we’ve chosen priorities carefully.”
Some regulators admit that polluters have fallen through the cracks. To genuinely improve enforcement, they say, the E.P.A. needs to lead.
“If you don’t have vigorous oversight by the feds, then everything just goes limp,” said Mr. Crum. “Regulators can’t afford to have some backbone unless they know Washington or the governor’s office will back them up.”
It took Mr. Crum a while to recover from his firing. He moved to Virginia to work at the Nature Conservancy, an environmental conservation group. Today, he is in private practice and works on the occasional environmental lawsuit.
“We’re moving backwards,” he said, “and it’s heartbreaking.”
Shortcomings of the E.P.A.
The memos are marked “DO NOT DISTRIBUTE.”
They were written this year by E.P.A. staff, the culmination of a five-year investigation of states’ enforcement of federal pollution laws. And in bland, bureaucratic terms, they describe a regulatory system — at the E.P.A. and among state agencies — that in many ways simply does not work.
For years, according to one memo, federal regulators knew that more than 30 states had major problems documenting which companies were violating pollution laws. Another notes that states’ “personnel lack direction, ability or training” to levy fines large enough to deter polluters.
But often, the memos say, the E.P.A. never corrected those problems even though they were widely acknowledged. The E.P.A. “may hesitate to push the states” out of “fear of risking their relationships,” one report reads. Another notes that E.P.A. offices lack “a consistent national oversight strategy.”
Some of those memos, part of an effort known as the State Review Framework, were obtained from agency employees who asked for anonymity, and others through Freedom of Information Act requests.
Enforcement lapses were particularly bad under the administration of President George W. Bush, employees say. “For the last eight years, my hands have been tied,” said one E.P.A. official who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. “We were told to take our clean water and clean air cases, put them in a box, and lock it shut. Everyone knew polluters were getting away with murder. But these polluters are some of the biggest campaign contributors in town, so no one really cared if they were dumping poisons into streams.”
The E.P.A. administrators during the last eight years — Christine Todd Whitman, Michael O. Leavitt and Stephen L. Johnson — all declined to comment.
When President Obama chose Ms. Jackson to head the E.P.A., many environmentalists and agency employees were encouraged. During his campaign, Mr. Obama promised to “reinvigorate the drinking water standards that have been weakened under the Bush administration and update them to address new threats.” He pledged to regulate water pollution from livestock operations and push for amendments to the Clean Water Act.
But some worry those promises will not be kept. Water issues have taken a back seat to other environmental concerns, like carbon emissions.
In an interview, Ms. Jackson noted that many of the nation’s waters were healthier today than when the Clean Water Act was passed and said she intended to enforce the law more vigorously. After receiving detailed questions from The Times, she put many of the State Review Framework documents on the agency’s Web site, and ordered more disclosure of the agency’s handling of water issues, increased enforcement and revamped technology so that facilities’ environmental records are more accessible.
“Do critics have a good and valid point when they say improvements need to be made? Absolutely,” Ms. Jackson said. “But I think we need to be careful not to do that by scaring the bejesus out of people into thinking that, boy, are things horrible. What it requires is attention, and I’m going to give it that attention.”
In statements, E.P.A. officials noted that from 2006 to 2008, the agency conducted 11,000 Clean Water Act and 21,000 Safe Drinking Water Act inspections, and referred 146 cases to the Department of Justice. During the 2007 to 2008 period, officials wrote, 92 percent of the population served by community water systems received water that had no reported health-based violations.
The Times’s reporting, the statements added, “does not distinguish between significant violations and minor violations,” and “as a result, the conclusions may present an unduly alarming picture.” They wrote that “much of the country’s water quality problems are caused by discharges from nonpoint sources of pollution, such as agricultural runoff, which cannot be corrected solely through enforcement.”
Ultimately, lawmakers and environmental activists say, the best solution is for Congress to hold the E.P.A. and states accountable for their failures.
The Clean Water Act, they add, should be expanded to police other types of pollution — like farm and livestock runoff — that are largely unregulated. And they say Congress should give state agencies more resources, in the same way that federal dollars helped overhaul the nation’s sewage systems in the 1970s.
Some say changes will not occur without public outrage.
“When we started regulating water pollution in the 1970s, there was a huge public outcry because you could see raw sewage flowing into the rivers,” said William D. Ruckelshaus, who served as the first head of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Richard M. Nixon, and then again under President Ronald Reagan.
“Today the violations are much more subtle — pesticides and chemicals you can’t see or smell that are even more dangerous,” he added. “And so a lot of the public pressure on regulatory agencies has ebbed away.”
The PhotoVoice Project was a huge success.
Online soon at www.wvphotovoice.org
For Photoshows in your area or with your organization or group please fell free to call the numbers listed below to set up an appointment. Group discussion is encouraged.
Maria Lambert 304-837-8255
Patty Sebok 304-837-3720
Happy to say the water delivery is going well.
If there are any problems please notify 304-837-8255 or 304-837-3720. Delivery guys are doing a great job.
We have been moving at least 1 barrel from homes (at their request) where people may have 2-3 but aren’t using that much water do to buying drinking water from the store or being suppied with Tyler Mt Water. We are placing the unused barrels at homes of people who do need and want them where we didn’t have enough to go around to everyone in the begining.
Residence are very much appreciative of the barrel water for cooking and/or pan bathing. For anyone who doesn’t like the taste, well I don’t either but if sure beats the alternative.
We have had resent instances of animals having cancer so please protect your health and then your pets.
We as a community would like to thank any and all persons that made donations, they are tax deductable, and for your prayers and concerns. People who have made other contributions, made phone calls, written letters, went to meeting and even hosted meeting.
Our hats go off to our communities.
Thanks Again.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Maryland native Shannon Bell worked in the Mountain State for several years before heading to Oregon for graduate school. The images of Southern West Virginia stayed in her mind and tugged at her heart, urging her to come back to West Virginia to capture these images in some form.
That form is Photovoice. In September 2008, Bell gave digital cameras to 40 women from five communities in Southern West Virginia and asked them to take pictures to tell the story of their communities.
Each group met monthly for eight months to share their photographs, discuss common themes, create “photo stories” (photographs with written narratives), and develop project ideas to address problems they identified. Bell participated in the meetings, giving the women guidelines to organize their photographs and stories.
“I’m just so moved by these stories,” Bell said. “The issues just dig deep into your heart.”
A selection of 100 photos and accompanying stories will be presented Wednesday through April 19 in an exhibit at the Clay Center. An opening reception will be held 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, and several of the photographers will be present.
Many of the women identified problems within their community, and the project empowered them to visit their lawmakers to discuss the problems as well as to offer solutions and suggestions for community development.
“It’s a neat way to communicate with policymakers,” Bell explained of the Photovoice project. “It’s empowering to the local people, as they got to say what their problems are instead of some outsider coming in and telling them.”
“Photographs elicit a visceral reaction,” Bell said. “The pictures impressed the legislators more than just facts and figures.”
Joanne Frame, 59, and her daughter-in-law Tammy learned that firsthand. They took photographs of the deteriorating roads in Boone County.
“I was always so backward and all, but this encouraged me to speak up. I wanted to show the beauty of Boone County but wanted to show things that weren’t so pretty, like the roads,” Frame said. The Frames set up appointments with Delegate Ralph Rodighiero and Sen. Ron Stollings.
“These photo stories and Joanne and Tammy’s visit made quite an impression on these two legislators,” Bell said. “The roads in that area had not been paved in over 25 years. The next day, as a temporary fix, the crews started patching the roads that Tammy, Joanne and others had photographed.” More permanent work is planned.
The new policy does not apply to existing mines, but to requests for new permits, a number estimated to be as high as 200.
The following day, Gov. Joe Manchin met with officials from the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the EPA and released the following statement:
“”I told them that we are looking for a balance between the environment and the economy, and they assured me that they will work with us to find that balance.
As a result of our discussion this morning, our state Department of Environmental Protection is bringing together the mining companies that have permits in question with the EPA officials.”
Then, on April 1, Gov. Manchin met with officials from the EPA, WVDEP, and the Army Corp of Engineers.
“As a result of our discussions today, the EPA will return within two weeks to meet with our DEP officers, the Corps and the companies in question to focus on a permit decision,” Gov. Manchin stated.
That meeting has not yet been scheduled, according to a spokesperson for the governor.
Three days following the EPA’s announcement that they would reassert their longstanding legal authority under the Clean Water Act to review mining permit applications, an announcement was made that the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey was releasing its findings on a national study of the water quality of private U.S. wells.
The U.S. Geological Survey concluded from a 13-year study (1991-2004) that more than 20 percent of private domestic wells sampled nationwide contain at least one contaminant at levels of potential health concern.
The study found that about 43 million people, or 15 percent of the nation’s population, use drinking water from private wells.
These drinking wells are not regulated by the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
USGS scientists sampled about 2,100 private wells in 48 states and found that the contaminants most frequently measured at concentrations of potential health concern were inorganic contaminants, including radon and arsenic.
“The results of this study are important because they show that a large number of people may be unknowingly affected,” Matt Larsen, USGS Associate Director for Water, said.
“Greater attention to the quality of drinking water from private wells and continued public education are important steps toward the goal of protecting public health,” he said.
According to officials at the West Virginia office of USGS, data for the national study was collected from wells in southern West Virginia and a separate report was issued at the time of the water quality testing.
This 2000 report, “Ground Water Quality in the Appalachian Plateaus, Kanawha River Basin, West Virginia,” found that levels of sulfate exceeded the USEPA standards in two of the 30 wells sampled.
It also found that 13% of the wells contained more than the permissible maximum contaminant level of arsenic in public drinking water supplies and noted, “arsenic in ground water commonly results from natural minerals in rock units, which can differ at a local scale.
The proposed standards reflect the previously unknown potential of arsenic to cause several cancers and other diseases.”
Radon was also found in concentrations exceeding the proposed USEPA standards in 50% of the wells sampled.
The study clearly states that the effects of co-occurrence of contaminants was not addressed but should be considered when evaluating water quality of an individual well.
At the time that the data was collected, West Virginia did not require domestic wells to be grouted, although they do require a concrete pad be installed around the casing at the surface.
The scientists conducting these studies state that the findings “suggest that proper grouting and sealing of the wells can reduce bacterial contamination,” though only 57% of the wells sampled were grouted.
While many might not see why this information should concern residents who do not rely on well water, the USGS report clearly states that “ground water flow in the Appalachian Plateaus is not fully understood” and that “further study is needed to determine the age of ground water in these systems.”
From 1997 to 2005, the USGS sampled the ground water in 170 wells in West Virginia for dissolved gases, including methane.
Methane was found in 131 of 170 wells and was present in concentrations greater than 28 mg/L in 13 of those wells.
At this high level of concentration, the U.S. Department of the Interior and Office of Surface Mining advises well owners to immediately contact their local county health department to obtain assistance and guidance in venting the wellhead.
“The accumulation of methane gas in an enclosed area may cause an explosive environment in which an ignition source such as an electrical outlet, pilot light, match, or even a well pump could trigger a violent explosion,” the report states.
The report also mentions that methane in ground water is not explosive, but when water containing dissolved methane comes into contact with air, the methane quickly escapes from the ground water into the atmosphere and if not properly vented, is a cause for concern.
Private well owners, who generally are responsible for testing the quality of their well water and treating, if necessary, can contact local and State health agencies for guidance and information about well maintenance, water quality and testing options, and in-home water treatment devices.
The current Clean Water Act only addresses surface water and does not tackle the increasing concerns of contaminated ground water.
Yesterday, FRONTLINE hosted a special sneak peak preview of the upcoming documentary, “Posioned Waters” along with a panel discussion with Obama’s EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, and Nixon’s EPA Administrator, Bill Ruckelshaus, on effective policies for protecting America’s waterways.
According to FRONTLINE’s Diane Buxton, the documentary touches briefly on West Virginia, but focuses on how, more than three decades after the Clean Water Act, iconic American waterways like the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound are still in perilous condition and facing new sources of contamination.
“Poisoned Waters” airs Tuesday, April 21, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. on PBS.
Good Work.
Are you ready for more? :) Glen Collins
We have almost enough to buy more. Thanks to the fund raising efforts of all those involved.
Hopefully we will be setting about 100 real soon !!!
Mathew Louis-Rosenburg
Mat & Glen were the work horses behind setting the barrels and raising money for the project.
A big thanks to Patty for all the hard work she has done, a driving force behind the project.
Our community members have also been very much involved with donations.
Those of you who missed the exhibit, missed some wonderful talent in picture taking as well as story telling. You will get a second chance to see the wonderful work these ladies have produced at the Clay Center on April 17th, 2009 at 6:00pm. They would welcome your presence, as well as input on the ideas for improving their communities. Invitations went out to local and state officials as well as the press. Thank You to all those who attended. Hope you took away more than you came with.
Gallery Coming Soon
March 28, 2009“A lot of people in our area are sick due to the effects of drinking the water,” because of unhealthy levels of manganese, lead, arsenic and iron, said Rollo, a teacher at Sherman Elementary School.
“A lot of the kids who live in the Prenter area and go to school here are affected by the water,” she said.
Rollo was one of several residents to speak to two-dozen volunteers from the Community Lutheran Partners and Lutheran Youth Organization.
They arrived from the Eastern Panhandle, the Morgantown-Clarksburg area and Huntington to distribute 2,000 one-gallon jugs of drinking water. The Lutheran volunteers included adults, high school and middle school students, and a group of Shepherd University students.
Community residents told the volunteers that cancer, kidney disease, gallbladder problems, tooth enamel loss, infertility and skin irritations are among health issues that occur with alarming frequency in the Prenter area - one of the few sections of Boone County not yet connected to city water.
“The only thing we all have in common is that we all drink the same well water,” said Billy Arden of the Sand Lick section of Prenter.
Arden said he is one of six people in the Sand Lick area to develop a brain tumor in recent years. His turned out to be benign and was removed, but three other residents have died from malignant tumors.
“The national average for brain tumor incidences is one for every 100,000 people,” said Jennifer Massey, a Sand Lick resident, whose brother was one of those who died. “We’ve had six within an area of 10 homes.”
The Prenter area residents said well water problems began to increase dramatically several years ago, after area mines began injecting coal slurry into the ground.
“All the shots that are set off with hilltop mining in the area have been breaking up the rock strata, letting the sludge get into the groundwater,” said Arden.
Well water now stains sinks, tubs and shower stalls orange, causes gelatinous sludge to form in toilet tanks, and often bears an unpleasant odor.
“When I come back from a week of deer hunting in Randolph County, the water in my toilet has gone from clear to black,” said Arden.
Wheeling Jesuit University biology professor Ben Stout, who has been involved with the testing of well water from Prenter, said in December that the water has been “degraded to the point where it is obviously not fit for bathing, much less cooking and drinking.”
Before realizing that the water was unsafe to drink, community residents “have been unknowingly exposed to high levels of metals that have well-known human consequences,” Stout said.
Massey said state health officials have agreed to look at a community-produced survey of medical problems in the Prenter area with an eye toward launching a study of their own to determine what role contaminated water may have played in elevated incidences of disease.
Boone County Commissioner Mickey Brown thanked the Lutheran volunteers for their efforts in behalf of the people of Prenter, “who direly need safe water.”
The Boone County Commission has kick-started a project to extend municipal drinking water lines from Seth into most of the Prenter area by fronting cash to start construction before grant money arrives.
“You should have city water by the end of this year,” he told Prenter area residents attending Saturday’s program.
After the meeting, the volunteers trucked cases of gallon water jugs into the Prenter area, and then carried the water door to door, distributing 10 jugs per family.
“Thank you so much,” said Rhonda McCormick, as Shepherd student Casey Maxwell and Dana Gustafson of Bridgeport High lifted water jugs over her fence. “This will really help with my cooking.”
McCormick said her 22-year-old son, Joshua, has developed kidney cancer and has had one kidney removed, and she is dealing with thyroid cysts. She said she suspects those health issues can be traced to contaminated well water.
“It’s like something out of ‘Erin Brockovich,’” said McCormick, referring to the movie starring Julia Roberts, in which residents of a small California town began developing health problems after its water supply was contaminated by pollution from a natural gas compressor station.
“But I never thought the Erin Brockovich story would happen here.”
After the deliveries were complete, the volunteers gathered at St. Timothy’s Lutheran Church in Charleston to reflect on the day and unwind.
“I think we helped them, at least for a little while,” said volunteer Kelly Cunningham of Huntington. “They were very welcoming. It feels good to be helping someone.”
“The fact that their situation seems normal to them is something that struck me,” said adult volunteer Mark Burd of Bridgeport. “And it’s kind of sad that no authority group has come out and said, ‘hey, we’ve got a problem here. Let’s fix it.’”
Reach Rick Steelhammer at
or 304-348-5169
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