... in the tens of thousands:
http://switchboard.n...y_improvemen.html

WV Chemical Spill of MCHM - doing the math on drinking water safety
Posted January 19, 2014 in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice, Health and the Environment, U.S. Law and Policy

{Intro with specifics on MCHM levels--from the absurdly-scanty MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet)
--because THIS is one of the 62,000 chemicals grandfathered-in, in 1976!

[. . .]

The chemical 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol, or MCHM, is the main component of a mixture that is used to clean coal. MCHM was “grandfathered” in under the existing toxics law, called the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), with almost no toxicity data, and no data required. The law grandfathered some 62,000 chemicals when it came into force in 1976, and did not require that EPA test them for safety or ensure that they met a standard of safety. And the law made it extremely difficult for EPA to require companies to produce data for any of those 62,000 chemicals, which is why nearly 40 years later, so little information on health and environmental effects of most of the chemicals in commerce is available to the public. Those central problems of TSCA were laid bare when MCHM contaminated West Virginia’s drinking water, people turned to the government for answers, and none were available.

Crude MCHM, is described in more detail in its Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS here). But, the MSDS sheet has a lot of blank spaces. I think Daniel Horowitz said it best, in this Washington Post article:

Horowitz of the Chemical Safety Board said that the safety data sheet for the chemical “has a great many fields which say ‘no data available.’ ” Under the section titled “most important symptoms and effects, both acute and delayed,” Eastman’s form says “no data available.” Under toxicological effects of inhalation, “no data available.” It was the same for whether it causes cancer, affects reproduction or affects specific organs. “There is very little available testing data on its toxicity,” Horowitz said.

Since the spill, the National Library of Medicine Hazardous Substances Data Bank has information on the health risks from exposure to MCHM, identifying the chemical as a strong skin irritant and a moderate eye irritant. That information was only made available after the spill, in response to the public demand for information. Eastman Chemical Company has links to its toxicity studies on aquatic organisms, skin sensitization, and other relevant information and Q&A information. But, it’s all just the same few industry-sponsored studies. There is nothing on the potential for long-term health impacts or respiratory irritation. It seems that no one, including Eastman Chemical that makes and sells the chemical, has done any actual studies of potential long-term impacts such as potential reproductive, developmental, or cancer risks.

Why we need effective government regulation of toxic chemicals

[. . .]

Doubtless books have been written re the inadequacies of Govt -vs- chemical entrepreneurs, those Standards promulgated since 1976;
Have just begun to look for any ex-post-facto research efforts on the original [Don't Bother Your Pretty-little Heads] list of the 62,000.

(I do know that, in order to properly label chemicals which we needed to use, at a "National Laboratory"--in pre-web-days
--that it was no trivial matter to obtain sufficient-AND-properly analyzed data on some ~common solvents like trichlorethylene and trichloro-ethane variants.
(One of these is really NASTY, breathed in by homo-saps.)

Surely new compounds have exponentially-multiplied since this early [Don't Bother] List was somehow SOLD to our science-illiterate corporate-funded Reps.
(Does anyone imagine they are more sci-literate today than: 20/30 years ago?)

ie THEN and massively more-so TODAY: not just drinking water is the carrier for the excesses of sloppy corporate use/discard of n-000 noxious substances,
many which never existed in Nature.
And now: there won't be more than token funds to begin on the backlog, let-alone a Review of all chemical standards. Was DOW just mocking us all with,

Better Living Through Chemistry
Maybe worse than that: mocking from a comprehended flat-out Ignorance :-/
Can barely imagine how the triage might be set-up, let alone followed-up in any comprehensive way
--even if we had the $$ and the Will.
But I can imagine that there are hundreds who have run the thought-experiment, amidst those who are chemistry literate and also give-a-shit.


I used to ponder the laundry-list of chemicals employed in--from start-to-finish--the making of EACH "new car": MEK, TCE, awful ketones and many chloro-carbons etc.
AND: just exactly how the 'used' detritus was disposed-of? -vs- how that was prescribed.
'Flat, stale and unprofitable' are any such ruminations, especially as we have discovered New effects, needing attention as will assuredly drown-out
--any reviews of most of our past errors. Now All being integrated with the latest.

'The difference between HCN and HCl (L) ... is only two letters' ... close enough..

{{dark--swirly--mist}} back in chem class/experiment day: [all true]

Looking at usual oxygen generator, KClO₃ + catalyst.. (Potassium Chlorate)
Guy has it in an ignition tube (heavy-test-tube); I see little white POP!!s on surface, as he heats.

I say, semi-jocularly--only "semi-"--"Better watch it; that looks ready to expl______"
**BOOM**
.
.
.
Blood, from mouth; guy freaking out.. lead him to infirmary--some glass cut a gum! Not gonna Die.
NO safety goggles (either of us) ...
Glass all over; I got not a scratch.

Turns out that the stockroom guy had given him KClO₄ (Potassium Perchlorate!)
--which isn't a great Oxygen generator; it generates it, of course but ... All-At-Once.

Lucky, Lucky -- just like those folks drinking this Unknown-crap still strong enough to smell..
Unless it should turn out that ... they are Unlucky?
THIS.. in 2014, What we are getting is: !=smarter. And it shows every day.

Just.. back-in-days of stone knives/bearskins, well before nice cheap polycarbonate goggles and face-shields,
quantity-orders of safety-equip never got past bean-counters.

The KClO₃ was a known no-brainer re any surprises.
Am biased re 'Muy' natch; a seminal influence and also a friend til his demise a few years ago.
My (sometimes 'our') dicier investigations were done in one of two hoods with unknown-plastic doors.

('Course too.. if anything ever did go-wrong go-wrong, doubtless the underfunded Teacher would get the dead chicken hanging from door knob. As now.)

'Twas human/well.. 'student' error (same thing that got most of us 'here'?) reading the bloody-Label.