A week after West Virginians were told their water is safe to drink, another chemical that was included in the Freedom Industries cocktail has been identified that authorities didn’t test for before lifting the ban.
Mike Dorsey, director of homeland security and emergency response for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said he learned about the additional chemical’s presence in the tank that leaked at about 10 a.m. [Tuesday], just before a routine daily meeting with various agencies and Freedom Industries about the situation at the site.
Dorsey said Freedom Industries President Gary Southern asked to speak with him privately, told him about the chemical being in the tank, and handed him data sheets on the material, which Dorsey referred to as polyglycol ethers.
Has polyglycol ether, or PPH, entered the area water supply? If it did, what effect would it have if ingested? The short answer is no one knows.
Authorities have begun testing the water and there have been no studies on what effects ingesting PPH would have.
The water was not tested for the presence of PPH before lifting the ban on drinking it because authorities were not told of its presence until yesterday.