Over 200 West Virginians Hospital-Treated For Poisoning, Koch Victims

As of Monday morning, 231 people had gone to West Virginia hospitals for poisoning related to contaminated water from a coal industry distributor’s chemical leak, according to officials. It is unknown how many people have actually been poisoned and how many have gone to clinics.

How many other West Virginians have gone to their doctor instead of hospitals for poisoning? How long will Koch brother’s coal be king in West Virginia? How much suffering will it take for the public to demand safe, clean, healthy energy technology that is available today, right now?

Human and Erath rights defenders, including Robert Kennedy Jr., have protested West Virginia’s poisonous coal mining for years.

Number of poisoned people unknown

Thousands of people had used the poisoned water before knowing anything about the water crisis and the emergency declared.

“They don’t even know what the health risks are,” Stacy Kirk of Culloden told CNN affiliate WSAZ. “We had bathed, cooked and everything right before the news came on (with the water warning).”

Residents presented at hospitals with skin irritation, throat problems, chest and stomach ailments, Dr. Rahul Gupta of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department said over the weekend.

Fourteen people have been hospitalized, according to Karen Bowling, secretary of the state’s Department of Health and Human Resources on Sunday.

Independent toxicologists’ mantra during the peak of BP’s Gulf of Mexico catastrophe was, “There is no safe level of poison.”

While calls to poison control centers have declined, according to Bowling, residents remain anxious. They say they are not being adequately told what the present health risks are, echoing what Gulf Coast residents have said for almost four years.

Differences between then along the Gulf and now in West Virginia is that the public is being told to not use the water and emergency workers are providing water. Gulf Coast residents were provided neither.

The website of the office of Governor Tomblin has an explicit warning:

“West Virginians in the affected service areas are urged NOT to use tap water for drinking, cooking, washing or bathing. … Right now, our priorities are our hospitals, nursing homes, and schools. I’ve been working with our National Guard and Office of Emergency Services in an effort to provide.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the West Virginia state water company have been trucking in bottled water. Police, firefighters and National Guard troops have been helping to distribute that water around Charleston.

There are now 77 water distribution centers and the addresses have been published on Governor Tomblin’s website,http://www.governor.wv.gov/Pages/State-of-Emergency.aspx.

Koch’s Coal is king in West Virginia

The emergency basically stems from the 1% icon, Koch Industries.

A tank in Charleston belonging to Freedom Industries, a chemical distributor for Koch Industries, leaking 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol into the environment, including Elk River.

The chemical is used for coal washing processes. West Virginia is coal country.

Injustices surrounding West Virginia coal industries involve more than poisoning.

Last springin Charleston, 6,000 to 10,000 union members and supporters marched from the West Virginia’s Charleston Civic Center to Laidley Tower to protest a bankruptcy deal for Patriot Coal company, that stripped retirees and their dependents of pensions and benefits. 

Patriot Coal produces and markets coal in the eastern United States, with operations and coal reserves in Appalachia and the Illinois Basin. 

The company emerged from its bankrupcy. It’s pro-coal ad signs deck West Virginia roads.

Secretive nonprofits affiliated with oil and coal companies, mainly nonprofits supported by Koch Industries, have hit President Barack Obama hard for what they call his “war on coal.”

For example, only one of those not for profits, the American Energy Alliance reported that one of its ads alone, “Stand with Coal,” cost over a half-million dollars and ran two weeks in coal-producing Ohio and Virginia. (Read Daily Disclosure: Koch-funded groups attack Obama for ‘war on coal’)

Lawsuit money cannot restore health after wrecked by non-renewable energy

Over 20 lawsuits had already been filed Monday. 

While lawsuits cannot restore health, Koch-funded ads help convince the public of the myth that coal is “clean energy” and Americasn cannot live without it.

A Charleston judge ordered the company at the source of the leak, Freedom Industries, and West Virginia American, the largest investor-owned water utility in the state, to preserve all relevant documents and physical evidence Monday.