I'm Afraid of That Water: A Collaborative Ethnography of a West Virginia Water Crisis

264 Pages·2020·3.046 MB·English

by  Luke Eric Lassiter, Brian A. Hoey, Elizabeth Campbell

I’m Afraid of That Water

I’m
A
Afraid Collaborative
Ethnography
of a
of
West Virginia
Water Crisis
That
Water edited by
LUKE ERIC LASSITER
BRIAN A. HOEY
ELIZABETH CAMPBELL
in collaboration with coauthors
Laura Harbert Allen, Jim Hatfi eld,
Trish Hatfi eld, Emily Mayes, Joshua Mills,
Cat Pleska, Gabe Schwartzman, and Jay Thomas,
with an afterword by Angie Rosser
West Virginia University Press / Morgantown
Copyright © 2020 by West Virginia University Press
All rights reserved
First edition published 2020 by West Virginia University Press
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN
Cloth 978-1-949199-36-9
Paper 978-1-949199-37-6
Ebook 978-1-949199-38-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019044545
Book and cover design by Than Saffel / WVU Press
Cover image: An environmental enforcement boat patrols in front of the
chemical spill at Freedom Industries. Color-enhanced image from an original
photo by Foo Conner. Licensing: CC BY 2.0
For the Elk River
All royalties for this book are donated to
West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Charleston

Contents
Introduction 1
Elizabeth Campbell, Brian A. Hoey, and Luke Eric Lassiter
Part I
“I’m Afraid of That Water”: A West Virginia Disaster and Water Crisis
1. The Elk River Spill: On Water and Trust 17
Luke Eric Lassiter
2. Exploring the (Human) Nature of Disaster:
Meaning and Context 49
Brian A. Hoey
3. Toward a Collaborative Ethnography 76
Luke Eric Lassiter
4. Chemical Spill Encountered 86
Trish Hatfield
Part II
On Place: To Stay or Not to Stay
5. Blues BBQ 129
Jay Thomas
6. Citizen Response: On Leaving and Staying 134
Cat Pleska and Joshua Mills
7. In and Out of Appalachia 150
Emily Mayes
Interlude
Exploring the (Human) Nature of Disaster: Impact and Responses 159
Brian A. Hoey
vii
viii / Contents
Part III
On Making and Remaking Community
8. Activism and Community 187
Jim Hatfield
9. WVWaterHistory.com and
Producing Digital Resources on a Water Crisis 205
Gabe Schwartzman
10. What Does a Water Crisis Sound Like? 210
Laura Harbert Allen
11. Can We Trust the Water System Now? Some Updates 218
Jim Hatfield
Epilogue 227
Luke Eric Lassiter
Afterword 239
Angie Rosser
Acknowledgments 243
Contributors 245
Index 247
Introduction
Elizabeth Campbell, Brian A. Hoey, and Luke Eric Lassiter
Nothing was particularly distinctive about the ninth day of January 2014
in Charleston, West Virginia, except maybe the wild fluctuations of the sea-
son’s temperatures, which had been all over the place. It was 6 degrees on the
fourth of January, followed by 58 degrees on the fifth, then −3 degrees on
the seventh. On the ninth, temperatures were projected to settle back into
the more reasonable range of low 20s to high 40s. But that morning, those
who lived a few miles away from the Freedom Industries chemical storage
facility on the shore of the Elk River began to notice what those close by had
been living with for at least a few days: a strangely sweet smell in the air. By
the afternoon, the smell had made its way into the municipal water supply.
Just before six that evening, in front of a crowd of reporters and backed by
representatives from state and federal agencies as well as the water utility,
then-governor Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency and issued a
“do not use” order for residents of nine southern West Virginia counties—in-
cluding Kanawha, home of the state capital. No one was to use the water for
anything other than flushing toilets. It was a chilling warning: “Do not drink
it,” the governor sternly intoned. “Do not cook with it. Do not wash with it.
Do not take a bath in it.” Industrial chemicals had leaked—and were still
leaking—into the Elk River from Freedom’s “tank farm,” overwhelming the
region’s main water processing plant just downstream.
This book tells a particular set of stories about that chemical release and
its aftermath. We begin with one story collected by Elizabeth (Beth) Campbell
during the oral history phase of a project that would eventually unfold into
this book, and that would come to involve a team of oral history researchers,
writers, community activists, and academics. But more on that follows.
In late July 2014, I (Beth) was running late (as ever) and grabbed one of the
old Zoom H2 recorders on the way out the door. I was fairly certain I had
the one that worked, but I gave it a quick test when I got into the car. It did
work, fortunately, so I backed out of the driveway and made the short drive
1