Boone County Residents Demand Clean Water From State
By: Bobby Mitchell
On Thursday November 29th a meeting was held at the capitol to discuss the idea of distributing emergency drinking water to Boone County residents. Suffering from clear water contamination, the people from three communities in northeastern Boone County spoke to Secretary of Environmental Protection Stephanie Timmermyer, Ken Ellison, who administers funds from the Abandon Mine Lands, and Jim Patrillo, who appropriates funding for emergency water projects and provided assistance to affected folks in Mingo County.As people introduced themselves, we heard the stories of how people’s lives and bodies are being destroyed by the black water coming from their wells; the clusters of specifi c tumors, cancers, gall bladder disease, kidney problems and gastrointestinal diseases which affect every single household that was represented at the meeting. People replace hot water tanks and well pumps frequently because of the high corrosiveness of the water. It’s presumed that the water tables are contaminated by toxic coal slurry waste disposed of in old underground mine works, which leak when large surface mining blasts are set off. Maria Lambert, a resident of Sand Lick, said some blasts just about knocked her computer off her desk and blew off part of the motorized unit to her well pump.
Instead of plans of action, the group was met with loose commitments to temporary water with no dates and locations discussed. A lack of effort on the part of the state was surely seen here. After the urgent call to move on this issue from the people being abused daily by having to use this water, the response from these state representatives was calm and even arrogant. Patrillo explained that he “knows where people are coming from” but there just aren’t funds for this kind of thing. Reducing the worth of these people’s lives to a monetary value is disgusting. The people presented findings such as a cluster of brain tumors all within a baseball throw of where they are raising children. When all that they receive back is that “there are people who can look into it” and not “okay, we will be there in the morning,” there is a serious lack of accountability somewhere. If there was a chemical spill from a tanker truck anywhere on state roads there would be an immediate emergency response. But if the state regulators let industry place those chemicals in the groundwater systems and there isn’t anyone around to be responsible for the criminal act, “it’s a separate issue” as Timmermeyer said and they will have to look into it. Nobody suits and emergency response teams to evacuate small mountain communities that have waxy pink material or diesel fuel in their water—that’s an issue for the local office to respond to. Maybe the state motto should be changed to “previously open for business, now just passing the buck”.