Health impacts, public perception, and plumbing system contamination caused by the 2014 Elk River chemical spill, West Virginia

The goal of this thesis research was to investigate the health impacts, public perception, drinking water quality, and chemical fate in plumbing systems following the 2014 Elk River chemical spill. To achieve this goal three separate studies were completed and are presented as three independent thesis chapters. Each chapter consists of an introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusion, references, and acknowledgement section. Chapter 1 has been published in part in a peer-review journal as an open access report.;Much of Chapter 1 has been published in the American Chemical Society's journal of Environmental Science & Technology Volume 49 Issue 2, pages 813-823. The publication is entitled Residential Tap Water Contamination Following the Freedom Industries Chemical Spill: Perceptions, Water Quality, and Health Impacts and is available as open-access. The objectives of this effort were to: (1) Investigate public perception and health impacts, (2) characterize tap water, and (3) determine the effectiveness of the plumbing system flushing protocol. Each of the authors provided significant contributions. Dr. Andrew Whelton, LaKia McMillan, Environmental Toxicology graduate student Matt Connell, Civil Engineering graduate students Keven Kelley and Jeff Gill, as well as Dr. Kevin White, Chair and Professor of Civil Engineering were all members of the rapid response research team that conducted on-site water sampling and surveys. All of these team members were responsible for the design of water testing methods and the survey. LaKia McMillan was primarily responsible for conducting water quality analysis of the water samples collected on-site and analyzing most of the water quality data. Dr. Rahul Gupta, MD, Executive Director of Kanawha Charleston Health Department provided syndromic surveillance and emergency department medical data. Drs. Rajarshi Dey, University of South Alabama Assistant Professor of Statistics, and Andrew Whelton also conducted statistical analysis and interpretation of the syndromic surveillance and emergency department medical records. Environmental Toxicology graduate student Caroline Novy determined the physiochemical characteristics of several ingredients in the spilled solvent at different temperatures by using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) SPARC chemical modeling software. Several undergraduate students helped obtain additional data reported in Chapter 1 and are described in the acknowledgement section of the chapter.;The goal of Chapter 2 was to better understand what actions should be conducted during rapid investigations to large-scale drinking water chemical contamination incidents. The objectives of Chapter 2 were to (1) identify lessons learned from the sampling and chemical analysis approaches utilized by the private, public, and university organizations involved in the Elk River chemical spill investigation, (2) using these results, propose a water contamination response framework, and (3) identify research needs for improving the investigation of water contamination incidents. Dr. Andrew Whelton obtained water testing records from West Virginia American Water, the state of West Virginia, West Virginia University, Barney Thompson PLLC, Downstream Strategies, and the United States Geological Survey. LaKia McMillan was primarily responsible for data analysis, interpretation, and document writing. Xiangning Huang contributed data and analysis from various petroleum spills in the United States, and revised the document as a co-author. Dr. Whelton provided feedback on all of these processes.;Chapter 3 describes an experiment designed determine if 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol (MCHM) [trans- and cis- isomers] sorb into plastic plumbing system pipes. LaKia McMillan designed and conducted these experiments. Drs. Andrew Whelton, Kevin White, and Alexandra Stenson, Associate Professor of Chemistry, provided feedback on experimental design and data analysis.