What Lies Upstream

Yes, sir.

Just pull down here.

West Virginia was in the midst

of the largest drinking water crisis in recent US history.

National news had been covering the chaos,

but no one knew why this had happened.

- President Obama approved a disaster declaration

for West Virginia.

Nine counties are dealing with a chemical spill

that contaminated the water supply.

- Roughly 300,000 people in West Virginia

have been without tap water.

The rush for water was immediate.

After that sold out, so did juice, soft drinks,

anything liquid, leaving customers scrambling for ice.

What are you gonna do

about showering or cleaning or bathing?

- Well, honey, you gonna melt this down.

That's what you gonna do.

Like you did back in them old days.

Put 'em in a little tub.

Put 'em in there, and just take a, you know,

like a birdbath.

700 people in the Charleston area

have called poison control centers.

The smell was so strong

that we had to actually cover our faces up.

- I think there should be a thorough investigation

of what happened and why this incident happened

at Freedom Industries.

- I'd say if they knew more about the chemical itself,

that's probably what's got so many people

scared to death now.

Nobody knows that much about it.

The water company people, you'd think they coulda figured

out what's safe, what's not safe, before they fired them

intakes up and polluted every water line

throughout the valley.

Yeah, you're coming up on it.

It's got a hole rusted through it.

See, they've got all this containment boom in here.

That's probably where it was breaking outta the wall.

You'd think these people woulda cared more

and do more visual inspections to prevent something

like this from ever happening.

They knew the water company was just down the road.

It'll probably take 'em months, but they'll cut all them

tanks up and haul it to scrap, make one big field out of it.

As long as it's settin' there,

the people is gonna remember it.

And that's the main thing.

They want it all to go away.

- We've had the daughter to the hospital.

She had a severe rash, and her neck started to swell,

and it doubled in size.

Is this your first trip to Charleston?

- I haven't been to Charleston before,

but I used to come to West Virginia when I was a kid.

We had family here, my uncle.

He passed away when I was 10.

I haven't been back here since, but I remember loving it.

He taught me how to shoot a bow and arrow,

and played in streams.

It was kind of a novelty, being from California.

We don't get a lot of water.

I still can't believe you guys lived so close

to Freedom Industries.

You mind if we go up there?

Sure, we can go, if you like.

Oh, there you go, there's the smell.

- Yeah, you smell that now, do ya?

Whoa.

This is a detergent for coal.

The chemical that leaked out.

But you know, this is really just a drop in the bucket

because we live in chemical valley.

You know, have you heard that term yet?

Oh shit, I totally forgot.

It seemed that within the chemical valley,

Freedom Industries was a relatively small company.

Their primary business was buying,

selling, and mixing chemicals.

They hadn't talked to any reporters

since their last press conference the

Our intent is to be totally--

Stay in front of the microphone.

- Oh, okay. - Look at us.

Okay.

Are there no systems in place

to alert you of a leak at your facility other than a smell?

At this moment in time,

I think that's all we have time for, so thanks for coming.

Thanks for your time.

- Woah, woah, woah. - We have more questions.

Hey, hey, hey.

It was a PR disaster, and it had a pronounced

effect on the people I spoke to in town.

So, if this was a whodunit mystery--

There's no whodunit.

Freedom Industries did it.

They are the sole culprit.

So if this happens again in the future,

we would say that that other company was the sole culprit?

Most certainly.

Who are you gonna blame?

- It's just unconscionable that Freedom Industry could not

have known about the leak, did not report the leak,

and did not know how much the leak had happened.

It's unconscionable to me.

My outrage and everybody else's outrage should be that.

The water company and state officials

waited more than six hours before informing the public.

But ultimately, they had little choice.

The smell demanded an explanation.

Regarding the Freedom Industry site,

we will not be making any comments.

Nor will it be permitting access to the site.

It didn't require an engineer to see

that the tanks and walls were falling apart.

But why was an industrial facility

even allowed to get this bad?

Was the story of Freedom Industries just a distraction?

- We have enough regulations on the books,

and what the administration oughta be doing

is actually doing their jobs.

Why wasn't this plant inspected since 1991?

I am entirely confident that there are ample regulations

already on the books to protect the health

and safety of the American people.

Somebody ought to be held accountable here.

- Well, a lot has been made over,

well, DEP, you haven't been to the site since '92

or maybe you've only been two times in the 2000s.

And right, wrong, or indifferent, simply visiting

those sites would not have prevented this problem.

The DEP, or Department of Environmental

Protection, regulates all of the industry in the state.

They're essentially the environmental policemen.

Randy Huffman, he's in charge of it,

and he plays a major role in this story.

Let's say, in the instance of Freedom,

you had gone and inspected the tanks.

What would that have revealed?

- We would've probably walked the site, looked for the

obvious, evidence of material leaking from the tanks,

visible holes in the secondary containment.

But there were visible holes.

I, I, I,

it's unfortunate, you know, assigning, trying,

the blame is on Freedom.

The blame is on the company for having tanks

that were not up to any kind of standard.

I mean, I'm reluctant to say this on camera.

I joked to somebody about this the other day.

It takes cigarettes 30 or 40 years to kill ya.

I can't imagine that, you know, a couple days of MCHM,

well, but, that's not even, I just say that in jest

because it's not fair for me to say.

I'm not a health professional.

- Hey, this is Dr. Gupta from the Health Department.

So, there is very limited information

on this chemical to begin with.

We're seeing people are suffering on the

I don't have a lot to offer them right now.

They have faith in me, and that's the reason

they are calling me.

You sent me an email about somebody calling

about their 97-year-old grandmother?

Dr. Gupta runs the local health department.

He also turns out to be the other

major player in this story.

For some reason, he was the only official

who seemed concerned that this chemical

might have negative health effects.

- I'm not keeping any registry at this point,

and the reason for that is that

we're not getting a lot of support from a lot of people.

Resistance from people who don't want

to know what's going on.

Obviously, the folks at state and federal level

are so strongly convinced that there are going

to be no long term impacts of this.

I have not yet found the evidence

on which they've based their, such strong convictions upon.

Spell your name for me and your correct title.

- Laura Jordan, L-A-U-R-A J-O-R-D-A-N.

External Affairs Manager for West Virginia American Water.

Is the water safe?

Yes.

The water is safe to drink.

- I want to issue a challenge to all the experts

and officials that are testing our water

and tellin' us it's safe.

Whatever they're tellin' us to do with the water,

you do it first, and I'll be happy to follow.

It still smells like licorice.

I just poured this this morning straight from the tap.

Even though the water still had an odor,

officials were saying it was saying it was safe for use.

- I want help for my daughter that's sick from this.