MCHM was leaked into our water supply back in January and it is
still in the system. The longest I have gone without smelling it is
about 2 weeks and then that dreaded licorice smell makes it into my dish
water or my shower. There was one point where it had gone long enough
that I was starting to cook with it but the smell came back as strong as
ever so I stopped doing that.
They no longer distribute free
water but there is plenty of bottled water to buy. Every store you go
into has pallets of gallons of water and cases of water stacked to the
ceiling and every buggy leaving the store generally has a case or two
thrown in with the other groceries.
There are a few charitable
groups that still give out water periodically and I try to take
advantage of these giveaways whenever possible. WV Clean Water Hub has
done an outstanding job at getting water to those outlying rural areas
in West Virginia. They have more problems than we do in Charleston
because they are at the end of the water lines and the chemical seems to
pool there instead of running through the system. They do take
charitable donations if anyone wants to donate. They have a web page
and a facebook page. The got me over the hump this month. I had
reached the point I was going to have to use the water because I didn't
have the money to buy more and they had a giveaway in Charleston (right
next to the governor's mansion). They gave me 7 gallons of water
including one distilled that I need for my oxygen machine.
The
state is paying for outside labs at 3 colleges to do research on the
water and the chemical MCHM. People don't trust the results of the
state tests because they keep telling us the chemical is at "nondetect"
levels and we can still smell it. They do say that just because you can
smell it doesn't mean it will hurt you. It's kind of like the chlorine
in the water. You can smell it at levels that aren't actually
effective. But the smell is "sickening" to say the least. I never
noticed how much licorice and diesel smell alike until this all started.
The
water company is starting the process of changing filters this week.
The MCHM has become trapped in the filters so that even though no more
is going into the water company it is still coming out. It's funny to
me that 2 days before the 2 research groups were to make their findings
public that the water company said that we shouldn't be surprised if
more MCHM was in our pipes. Up until then all they would say is it was
at "nondetect" levels. They continued to dismiss school after school
because of water problems "unrelated" to the spill. School personnel
who complained of the smell and students were labled as people who were
just trying to get out of work. They even sent in "rapid response
teams" to these schools who would report that the water was safe within
hours each and every time.
The big push to force us to believe the
water was safe happened earlier this month. State and City officials
are worried about tourism in the state. Afterall who wants to visit a
state touted for it's mountain beauty when you can't drink the water? I
will say that the areas known for WV tourism are COMPLETELY UNAFFECTED
by MCHM. They are not in our water system. However the city of
Charleston is trying to "figure out"why tourism is down in our
city....duh!
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