In this final post on my series related to the January 9 chemical spill in West Virgina, I address wrongheaded claims that the spill also exposed Charleston residents to dangerous levels of formaldehyde.
A few weeks after the spill, West Virginia Environmental Quality Board Vice Chairman Scott Simonton alleged that final traces of crude MCHM are breaking down and exposing residents to dangerous levels of formaldehyde. “I can guarantee that citizens in this valley are, at least in some instances, breathing formaldehyde,” Simonton told legislators at a public hearing. Simonton said that he found formaldehyde in three water samples from a Charleston, West Virginia, restaurant. But West Virginia’s Bureau for Public Health Commissioner Dr. Letitia Tierney called these claims “totally unfounded,” as well as “misleading and irresponsible,” for good reason. Read more.