So I thought this was pretty big news.
People in West Virginia's drinking water was affected recently by a chemical spill from a nearby industrial chemical plant. The chemical 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol is used in the coal industry for cleaning coal and was accidentally released into the Elk River near West Virginia's capital, and is harmful if swallowed and can cause eye and skin irritation. The company responsible for the spill is Freedom Industries, an industrial chemical supplier. Reports had been received at the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection about a strange odor around the Freedom Industries site, where investigators eventually found a leaking storage unit.
Honestly, I first read about this story on Cracked, and the author of that article, David Christopher Bell, does a very good job of gathering together all the important pieces of information relating to the story. For instance, how the chemical in question, 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol (or MCHM for short) is basically a mystery chemical, with no information available on its health effects, or how the site of the spill hasn't been inspected since 1991, which is a longer time than I've been alive. The reason why basically boils down to how MCHM is classified; since there is no existing information on it's effects, it isn't classifies as a hazardous substance, which means that regular inspections are not required. If this were Europe, MCHM wouldn't even be stored due to the cautionary principle; nobody knows anything about it, so we should be extra careful with how we handle it.
Goal update:
-I've been very successful with switching my power strip on and off, and I've been keeping my heat off a lot as well. I feel like these behaviors are starting to become more of a habit, and less of an obligation that I need to remind myself to do. I've also begun to talk with my roommates about ways we can reduce our energy bill by keeping heat low and turning off power strips.
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