(CNN) — [Breaking news update, posted at 3 p.m. ET]
Freedom Industries, the company that owns the property from which a chemical leak originated, contaminating water for more than 300,000 people in West Virginia, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, said Matt Hayes, clerk for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
[Previous version, posted at 2:21 p.m. ET]
More West Virginians told that tap water is safe to use
(CNN) — West Virginia authorities announced Friday that thousands more water customers have been given the green light to resume using tap water after a spill that contaminated supplies and put water safety in the national spotlight.
Trucks of water are rolling in to Charleston, West Virginia.
Homeland Security delivered on Saturday, January 11, 2013, 16 tractor trailer trucks of bottled water to counties affected by a chemical that leaked into their drinking water.That led state authorities to urge people not to drink or bathe in their tap water.
Some 300,000 West Virginia residents, in nine counties, in the southwest section of the state have been affected.
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The end of the “do not use” order for residents in the West Virginia communities of Eskdale, Leewood, Ohley and Elkview means more than 220,000 of the approximately 300,000 people originally affected by the incident have been cleared to resume using tap water.
That number was further increased Friday afternoon, when all customers in the Kanawha Valley district were given the all-clear.
That’s up from about 213,000 on Thursday.
The chemical, 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, got into water supplies after it leaked out of a storage tank and poured into the Elk River near an intake for a West Virginia American Water Co. treatment plant.
Officials detected the 7,000-gallon leak eight days ago, on January 9. More than 7,000 gallons of the chemical, which is used to clean coal, leaked into the river, according to officials.
Water officials say the amount of the chemical in the water has fallen to well under 1 part per million, the level deemed safe for consumption by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A later advisory suggested that pregnant women should continue to avoid drinking the water.
But concern lingers among many affected by the spill, some of whom say they will not drink the water out of fear that scientists know too little about the long-term effects of the chemical, which is not routinely tested for in water supplies.
“If a pregnant woman can’t drink this … no, we’re not feeling safe here in West Virginia,” Charleston resident Jacqueline Bevan said Thursday.
