Between The Lines - Andrew Whelton: Lack of Scientific Information Causes Public Confusion in West Virginia’s Toxic Water Spill (Week Ending April 4, 2014)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

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Lack of Accurate Scientific Information Causes Public Confusion in West Virginia's Recent Toxic Water Spill

Posted March 26, 2014

Interview with Andrew Whelton, assistant professor of civil engineering at South Alabama University, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

Shortly after the leak of MCHM, a chemical used in coal processing, into the water supply of 300,000 West Virginians on Jan. 9, Andrew Whelton, an assistant professor of civil engineering at South Alabama University, drove with a graduate student 900 miles to Charleston to advise residents on how to flush their water systems to minimize contact with the chemical. He went as a volunteer, but because of his early efforts, he and a colleague, Jeffrey Rosen, president of Corona Environmental Consulting, were awarded a $750,000 state of West Virginia grant for the West Virginia Testing Assessment Project, or WVTAP.

Whelton put together a global team of experts to study various aspects of the disaster. Most people affected by the toxic contamination were still not using tap water for drinking, though many were using it for other purposes in the weeks and months after the Do Not Use order was lifted several days after the initial spill.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus, who spent several days in and around Charleston in early March, spoke with Whelton about his study, which he called historic. Here, he talks about the problems that resulted from a lack of scientific information that led both the state and the water utility to declare the chemical non-detectable at a certain level, although Whelton and his team were able to detect MCHM at far lower levels as they conducted studies of the water quality in 80 homes spread throughout the affected area.

ANDREW WHELTON: And these individuals didn't just do literature searches or read books and magazines and such just to put the information together. They also conducted experiments. We shipped the contaminant that was spilled into the river; we were able to get the actual chemical that was sequestered after it was spilled and we shipped that across the country to California to begin immediate odor testing of it to determine at what level you can smell it in water. We shipped it to Lancaster, Penn. and Monrovia, Calif. where they started characterizing it. The WVTAP team has started looking at the byproducts of how the different drinking water system chemicals interact with these chemicals were spilled because one of the concerns that we had upfront was that we knew everyone was looking for crude MCHM, which is a mixture of at least eight compounds, but many of the efforts had been focused on 4-MCHM, which is one of those eight compounds, and we know from basic and environmental chemistry and engineering that chemicals transform sometimes, in water treatment plants, into unintended byproducts. That has never been talked about by state officials or federal officials, and that is something that the scientific community has been asking for all along. There are many, many people have been sending me emails asking why hasn't the government considered looking at other compounds that were produced, and we have done that.

BETWEEN THE LINES: So, Andrew Whelton, when you and your team report your findings, will you be able to say whether or not the water is safe? That's what everyone was waiting for when I was down there two weeks ago – they were waiting for the tests!

ANDREW WHELTON: What you're referring to is just a basic understanding that everybody has, including us: What are the chemical levels in the water – and are those acceptable – in terms of will they make me acutely sick or will they have chronic effects to not just me, but my children, my friend's baby, my elderly grandmother. I mean, these are the questions that people are asking, and they have every right to do so because I would be asking the same thing. The toxicology panel that the WV TAP program is convening will examine the available data to determine if the levels the state of West Virginia has instituted – the 10 parts per billion, or 10 ppb level for MCHM – are protective of public health. Next, they'll also look at the CDC's level of 1,000 parts per billion to see if that level was protective of public health. And I expect – I can't speak for the panel – but I expect they will make recommendations in terms of what other information should have been available to make certain determinations. Now, one of the major points that a lot of critics, including myself, make, was that at the very beginning a lot of the declarations that the water was safe to drink or that a certain level of chemical was acceptable, weren't really backed up with enough public scrutiny in terms of availability of knowledge and availability of data, and outside vetting. What we are doing is coming in through the expert panel and actually trying to determine if what happened in terms of what levels cause acute or chronic health effects, are valid.

What's important to recognize here – and I know, throughout this incident, everybody's been talking about parts per billion, PPB, or PPM [parts per million] – the fact of the matter is, the screening level that West Virginia set for its population is 10 parts per billion, and they did this because at the time, I do know, analytical laboratories could only get to 10 ppb, so they could only conclusively say that the chemical was present above 10 ppb. The odor results that Dr. Mike McGuire has come out with basically demonstrate that at very, very low levels you can still smell some type of odor in that water with crude MCHM in it, even if the water is determined safe to drink at 10 ppb.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Does that mean it really isn't safe, or people don't know?

ANDREW WHELTON: That's a great question. The odor is one component of it, mainly because throughout the incident, the state, as well as the utility, were declaring the chemical was not present – the chemical for MCHM was not present – at a certain level. So they'd say, it's non-detect at 10 ppb. Then the public would say, but my water smells like licorice and their response was, but it's non-detect at 10 ppb, or more recently, it's non-detect at 3 ppb. And somebody will say, but my water smells like licorice. Well, Dr. McGuire's work demonstrates that first of all, there's a messaging issue here, that just because you can't detect something doesn't mean it's not there, and it's not causing problems. which then raises by homeowners and somebody – me included – what's causing the odor and what concentration is it?

Find more information on the West Virginia chemical spill and lax regulation by visiting the West Virginia Testing Assessment Project at wvtapprogram.com.