Photo courtesy of the Marietta Times (Marietta Ohio)
The fire is the old Ames plant on the south side of Parkersburg, West Virginia (United States). It's been on fire for 3 days. We are in a state of emergency and all schools in the county are closed and people are advised to use masks or stay inside.
I didn't know until today; my home is a ways from town and I don't really watch the news. But today I was at the bus station in downtown Parkersburg waiting for the evening route to begin. I saw some notice about it on the door to the station waiting area and not too later I was approached by a city worker in a mask advising me I don't want to be outside as much as possible. I decided it was better to leave downtown as that was the area affected, and set off not waiting over an hour for the bus.
I didn't have more than change for the bus and the pharmacies were out of masks and I wasn't near anyone giving them out. I had a couple of bandanas though and tied them around my mouth when I started to smell smoke about a mile north of downtown which is when I got the idea to take the bandana out of my hair and use the other in my pocket.
When crossing from Parkersburg to Vienna I saw a huge amount of low smoke across the Ohio river above Belpre, Ohio very close to the ground, and even more blown northward. The rain today has made it worse by keeping the smoke low which has caused this, along with changing winds.
Despite my bandanas, by the time I was in northern Vienna it got so that through the two layers I could again smell something like burnt rubber and plastic.
The Ames plant, which has been closed for a while, was used by DuPont years ago for storage and now stuff like formaldehyde and Teflon has been burning for 3 days.
https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/...cle_962f0d04-ac14-521b-8a1a-0903fef7477f.html
Gov. Justice declares State of Emergency in West Virginia tool plant fire
MOST RECENT ARTICLE;
UPDATE: Gov. Justice declares State of Emergency for Wood County after warehouse fire
I'd post a bunch of photos but they are everywhere, from people's houses, from parking lots. Some from the other days are really bad. The articles have photos and I found a bunch on Facebook but I'm not sure if my friends want me to share their photos or not.
I managed to get a bunch of pictures of the smoke I saw drifting roughly northwards but I need to fiddle with my phone to get them on imgur since I don't have a cord with me. They may or may not be posted later depending on how good they came out.
Also of note, years ago DuPont left the area after the C8 scandal:
https://www.salon.com/2016/01/04/teflons_toxic_legacy_partner/
The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare
DuPont settles lawsuits over leak of chemical used to make Teflon
It seems DuPont even though gone has somehow caused even more problems. And to think there are corrupt politicians in West Virginia who want Trump to get rid of the EPA!!
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Edit: I forgot to mention, about C8, when the water was deemed unsafe, like last year? We had a don't drink advisory and the city handed out water until eventually we installed some kind of fancy filters for the affected areas (oddly Parkersburg's wells were deep enough to be safe, it was everywhere else that was affected).
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But hey it's not like we have enviormental disasters all the time!... wait...
Thousands Without Water After Spill in West Virginia
Elk River Chemical Spill | West Virginia Public Broadcasting
$151 Million Settlement Deal Reached Over West Virginia Water Poisoning
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Edit: The deemed the water "safe" in Charleston despite it coming out yellow and chemical filled for many people's homes... I think that was a state of emergency too. At the time a politician said the disaster was caused by too many regulations when in fact there was virtually no regulation which is how the spill happened.
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Gee, it's almost as if we need things like OSHA and the EPA and their dismantling has been hurting us. I'm tired of being poisoned!
There is serious grievances the people living here have but our politicians keep threatening we will have no jobs while making little effort to actually do anything. We are so deep in monopolies and corruption with ISPs to chemical production companies. It's like the company towns never left, just took another form. And don't get me started on the mountaintop removal in southern West Virginia...
Senator Mansion has to ****ing go. He's a member of the Democratic party but stands against everything Democrat. Against Net Neutrality, pro coal At least someone like Paula Jean are looking for ways to actually make new jobs that won't poison us. People in West Virginia get so fussy about coal, cause' like I said it's like the coal towns never left. But coal only accounts for like 2% of our state income and employs a VERY SMALL amount of people.
For anyone who doesn't know, the company towns (coal companies) owned your house, your furniture, and payed you in credits you could only use at the company store. It was basically legal fedualism and they would put kids in the mines too until people got lung cancer. Literal wars with gun fights were fought over all this crap between coal miners and company security at times but West Virginians don't like to talk about that.
Anyways my point is, I'm not surprised, but I'm angry. Crap keeps happening like this and with C8 it caused birth defects, thyroid disease and so many other health problems. Now we got burning formaldehyde in the air for 3 days. If it isn't one environmental disaster it's another.
It never ****ing ends.
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