The author lives in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
It was around 12:20 AM on Oct. 21, I had just gotten off a 10-hour shift, grabbed my evening meal and was heading back to my apartment when by chance I noticed what looked like a gas flame off in the distance. After persuading my ride, we decided to investigate a bit more. So, we got off 7th Street and began heading to the interstate. As we got closer, we saw was the biggest fire I had ever seen with a thick black column of smoke rising out from the plant as sirens whined away in the background.
At the time, I assumed it was some minor accident, that it would be put out, and I’d hear about it in the local news the next day and we headed home. What I then woke up to and lived through over the next week, was far different than anything I could imagine.
What had taken place at roughly 12:30 AM (according to official sources) was a former Ames tool plant owned by Intercontinental Export-Import Intl (IEI), a subsidiary of SirNaik, had caught on fire and was quickly engulfed in flames. The city of Parkersburg itself was thoroughly unprepared for this despite hosting 30 or more chemical sites in and around the city, four to five of which were IEI sites. Over 100 first responders from 40 different fire stations were on site, with some coming from Ohio in addition to Specialized Professional Services Inc. (an environmental emergency services company), to battle what many in Parkersburg began to call #Chemblaze or #ChemBlaze2017.
Despite sporadic rainfall and the relentless day-and-night efforts of the first responders, the blaze continued for nearly a week; the thick black column of smoke ever present, traveling from “ground zero” to working-class communities across the river on the north side of Parkersburg. Residents of towns 30 miles away reported the smell of burnt chemicals in the air.
A thick, inescapable chemical odor was constantly present throughout the week, forcing city and state officials to declare a state of emergency. Schools and local colleges were closed, residents were instructed to stay indoors, gas masks were distributed in Parkersburg, and neighboring Vienna. There was no escape from the fumes even indoors. Myself and others experienced nausea, eye irritation, headaches, and increased respiratory problems as long as six days after the fire when smoke was no longer even visible.
The local hospital WVU Camden Clark Medical Centre reported roughly 50-60 patients have been initially treated as a result of the Ames plant fire, many with hallmark symptoms of chemical pneumonitis. This figure is likely higher and only represents ER visits.
Reports cite that several first responders became visibly ill and had to be taken to hospital. Mental healthcare agencies initiated several protocols prohibiting clients from going outside unless for scheduled medical appointments.
While saying “everything is fine, it’s all safe,” the city also initiated a strict water boil protocol, urging residents to boil water to neutralize possible contaminants related to the fire. A local news site, newscenter.tv, received and partial list of the toxic materials contained in the IEI warehouse including PVC, nylon, formaldehyde, black carbon, titanium dioxide, anhydride TLV 0.1pm, PTFE (teflon), styrene-acrylonitrile, polybutylene terephtalete, acrylic, etc.
Three days into the disaster, a Wood County Commission meeting was held where a IEI representative Sunny Naik was present stating: “A disaster of this nature is something we have never encountered before. The (fire departments) have the most technical knowledge on a disaster of this sort. … We provided the MSDS [Material Safety Data Sheets] of the things in the building. We will take all responsibility for their insurance companies as the No. 1 priority will be cleaning up the site.”
Sounds reasonable enough, aside from the typical corporate spin of such crises. First, in regards to the MSDS, state officials revealed that absolutely NO inventories of those materials had been filed under the state and federal chemical right-to-know law that requires such disclosures for certain chemicals if stored in certain amounts.
Second, in 2012, a similar smaller fire had taken place at the exact same plant, but was quickly extinguished. Additionally, state environmental inspectors found numerous violations at the IEI warehouse earlier this year in addition to Department of Environmental Protection records filed 10 years prior indicating fire risk.
In response to the official IEI statement, Lawrence Messina director of communications for the West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety said no (as in zero) emergency and hazardous chemical inventory forms on the IEI facility were filed, stating: “My department includes Homeland Security Emergency Management which is the recipient of chemical inventory stockpile reports. We’re not aware of any reporting by this facility to Homeland Security under applicable federal law.”
In 2015, the WVDEP issued a consent order regarding IEI’s failure to file discharge monitoring reports dealing with water runoff from the property. According to DEP sources, IEI was fined $80,000 and forced to pay $20,000 of the fine. The DEP chief communications officer, Jake Glance stated “the rest of it [the fine] was contingent on them filing their DMRs with us, and they never did.”
Following an investigation in February, the DEP’s Division of Water and Waste Management said, “waste and pellets were still scattered around the site,” a diesel spill had not been fully cleaned up and storage drums left outside were deteriorating. Additionally, agency record show the company continued to incur violations for water pollution and had not submitted required monthly progress reports to the DEP. Investigators state “the site was improved from the last inspection, but some further work is still needed to remove remaining waste (wood, plastic, etc.) on the property.”
Going back to 2012, at the same IEI plant an electrical fire broke out and was quickly put out by local fire departments. Former City Fire Inspector Tim Flinn also stated that the “sprinkler system didn’t work.”
The former Ames True Temper Tool plant, now an IEI plastics warehouse, also had a contract with another local plant, DuPont to store its chemicals. Following the fire, DuPont officials have attempted to distance themselves from the crisis stating Dupont “does not have any direct affiliation with the warehouse” but that “the warehouse was storing plastic materials, some of which were purchased from DuPont.”
In short, it has become evident that IEI’s claims of compliance are false. While no official answer has been given as to the exact cause of this particular fire, evidence demonstrates the likelihood of corporate negligence as the root cause — an all too familiar scenario for residents of Parkersburg and West Virginians in general.
This is an unfortunate pattern in West Virginian history as one of the most heavily exploited states as primarily a raw materials extraction site coupled with corporate repression of workers’ rights. In the early 1930s, the worst industrial accident in U.S. history happened when 750 workers drilling the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel died from silicosis. Workers were forced to break through the 99.4 percent pure silica in Fayette County, W.V. to construct a hydroelectric project. The workers exposed to the silica dust developed fibrous nodules on their lungs and ultimately many suffocated to death as a result.
In early 2014, up to 300,000 residents in Charleston, W. Va., were without access to clean water for several days after a major chemical spill. State environmental officials estimated as much as 7,500 gallons of a chemicals used to process coal (crude MCHM) spilled into the Elk River, a tributary of the Kanawha River.
Going back to August 11, 1985, in Charleston, W. Va., a small cloud of toxic chemicals escaped from a Union Carbide plant leaving 135 residents with eye, throat and lung irritation, 28 of whom were admitted to nearby hospitals. The chemical leak was initially identified as aldicarb oxime, later disclosed to be a mix of multiple toxic chemicals.
Aldicarb oxime is combined with methyl isocyanate, or MIC to produce aldicarb, a compound used in pesticides. The Institute plant manufactures aldicarb and ships it to another facility. Health officials at the time attempted to reassure the public that everything was fine and these chemicals were “non-toxic” despite numerous medical cases contradicting this narrative.
Coming back to Parkersburg, W.Va. as recently as February of this year, DuPont and Chemours, (a spinoff company which now owns and operates the Washington Works plant in Wood County), agreed to each pay $335.35 million to settle the 3,500 class-action lawsuits against DuPont over damages from illegal exposure to the chemical C8. Residents of Parkersburg had been reporting a whole cornucopia of medical problems, including kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, pregnancy induced hypertension including preeclampsia and hypercholesterolemia, and death.
Additionally, farmers also reported livestock effected by exposure to C8 including cows bleeding from orifices, vomiting blood, tumors, seizures, blindness, tremors, foaming at the mouth, and death. Upon dissecting the effected animals, farmers noted an abnormal bright green color and foul odor coming from their organs.
This exact company, starting in the 1980s through the 1990s, began to buy farmland and properties to convert to landfills assuring that what was going to be dumped as just ash, scrap metal and so on. After years of reports of the wide array of environmental and health issues facing the community, some sought legal recourse and began to uncover the root causes of their problems. Internal documents from DuPont’s legal counsel Bernard J. Reilly to his colleagues after lawyer Rob Billet began to uncover the source of the health crisis stated, “the shit is about to hit the fan in WV … the lawyer for the farmer finally realizes the surfactant [C8] issue … Fuck him.”
The recent incident is just one in a long 154-year history of corporate stranglehold of West Virginia state politics. Which leads us to good ole Jim Justice. Earlier this year, Justice joined Donald Trump at a rally in West Virginia to announce that he was switching his party affiliation from Democrat (read: pro-capitalist) to Republican (still pro-capitalist). Justice has been a strong supporter of Trump both during his presidential campaign and since he conned his way into the presidency. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump made several stops in West Virginia where he spoon fed workers false hopes of factories and mines reopening; dangling coal in front of our faces just like every other Tom, Dick and Harry politician that comes through our mountains.
West Virginian buying into these farcical narratives out of economic desperation, gave Trump 489,371 votes, a landslide victory of 68.5% of the state’s total votes. While Jim Justice made some statements about the Ames fire — albiet several days after its start — the Trump administration has made a total of ZERO comments (odd since he “loved” us during the election campaign), as have national media outlets in general. This, combined with the state’s delayed response to the disaster, as well as the city running out of funds and water to combat the fire, left many residents feeling abandoned.
Trump’s proposed 31 percent cut to the EPA budget, will greatly reduce the already meager resources allocated for emergency response incidents such as the Parkersburg fire, along with much state-level work performed by the agency. Regional EPA staff regularly respond to emergency calls from city and state officials during disasters such as this. The funds needed to respond to those calls, including from West Virginia officials, would no longer be available under Trump’s budget. This is what the Trump-Justice duo has in store for Parkersburg residents moving forward.
As of Oct. 30, a class action lawsuit had been filed in the Wood County Circuit Court by attorney Kathy A. Brown on behalf of Timothy Callihan and others. Defendants named in the suit are Surnaik Holdings of West Virginia LLC, SirNaik LLC, Polymer Alliance Services LLC, Green Sustainable Solutions LLC and Intercontinental Export Import Inc.
As for the true medical and environmental cost of this disaster, this remains to be seen. The long history of cover-ups, state pandering and corporate collusion, lack of environmental regulation, and zero social planning must be confronted by the residents of West Virginian and those in the multitude of so-called “sacrifice zones” around the country. Together we must demand corporate accountability and fight for a system that protects the environment and the people from corporate polluters.
