By
January 10, 2014 5:30 pm - NewsBehavingBadly.com

AP764654225807-638x427This is what happens when a company’s chemicals pollute a major river that is a source of clean drinking water, forcing 300,000 people to look elsewhere:

Tension over the availability of clean water in the area seemed to be growing. At around 3:00pm, the Kanawha County police scanner lit up with reports of a shipment of water that was about to come in to a nearby Wal-Mart, asking for police presence while employees could restock.

“It was chaos, that’s what it was,” convenience store cashier Danny Cardwell told FoxNews.com.

Local officials have described MCHM as smelling like licorice and looking like “cooking oil floating on top of the water.” The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources said symptoms of MCHM exposure include “severe burning in throat, severe eye irritation, non-stop vomiting, trouble breathing or severe skin irritation such as skin blistering.”

Though the spill occurred Thursday morning, West Virginia American Water didn’t provide its customers with a warning until evening and, as Al Jazeera reported, several were angered by the lack of information, particularly regarding what should be done if they had already used or ingested the water.

D.B. Hirsch
D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.