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Perennial environmental priorities like boosting funding for gas and oil well remediation and establishing community solar in West Virginia failed in the state's 2024 regular legislative session. West Virginia environmentalists did celebrate blocking legislation they opposed that would have barred use of community air monitoring data in third-party lawsuits.
A decade later, environmental health advocates fear that with the licorice-like stench from the spilled chemicals at Freedom Industries that contaminated drinking water for 300,000 in West Virginia no longer piercing nostrils throughout the Kanawha Valley, water protection could slip further through the cracks.
The 2014 Elk River chemical leak showed West Virginians they'd have to fight hard for basic environmental health protections. 10 years after the water crisis, advocacy continues.
The West Virginia Rivers Coalition and other advocacy groups are presenting a free event at the Culture Center to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 2014 Elk River chemical spill that contaminated the drinking water supply of 300,000 residents.