West Virginia Warned of Chemical Threat

Residents of a West Virginia region known as “chemical valley” face serious health risks from chemicals, and current pollution laws are inadequate to protect them, a federal report says.

Methyl isocyanate, manufactured by Union Carbide Corp. in Institute, W.Va., is “a major source of air pollutants” in that region, according to the report by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The chemical is the same one that killed more than 2,000 persons in Bhopal, India, after it spewed from a Union Carbide plant Dec. 3. The accident in India prompted U.S. officials to increase the monitoring of air quality in the Kanawha River Valley, whose 220,000 residents would be affected by emissions from Institute.

In its report, which the Associated Press obtained Friday, the EPA said chemicals produced at Union Carbide and other plants and those stored at toxic waste dumps in the area jeopardize the air and water quality of the valley.

“The presence of toxic substances in the environment pose actual and potential impacts on aquatic life in the Kanawha River,” the report said. “Toxic substances in the air pose potential health risk at some locations under adverse meteorological conditions.”

The report is a draft of a document that will be released officially in a few weeks.

The report already has come under fire by state officials, who said that the EPA study is based partly on outdated information and that some of the problems have been corrected.

“It doesn’t reflect anything different from what we already know,” said Carl Beard, the state Air Pollution Control Commission director.

The EPA study was based on data collected from 1977 to 1981. It notes substantial improvement in environmental conditions since a similar survey was taken in the area in 1977. But it says the chemicals still pose “significant health risks.”

The study focused on the nearly 200 chemical plants, hazardous waste sites and wastewater treatment facilities in the valley, which stretches 60 miles along the Kanawha River around Charleston.

The EPA study also says cyanide, cadmium, lead and phenolics in the Kanawha River “occasionally reach levels that could cause chronic or acute toxicity in aquatic life.”