Letter to Eastman Chemical Company Chief Executive Officer Mark Costa - Release Studies on Effects of MCHM

Letter

Today Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman and Environment and the Economy Subcommittee Ranking Member Paul D. Tonko sent a letter to Eastman Chemical Company Chief Executive Officer Mark J. Costa to request that Eastman release studies on the potential health and environmental effects of exposure to and releases of MCHM. West Virginia state officials investigating last week's toxic chemical spill have little information about the potential health effects from exposure to or ingestion of the chemical. However, just last night the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services issued a new advisory recommending that pregnant women drink bottled water until there are no longer detectable levels of MCHM in the water distribution system.

In the letter the members write, "Given this chain of events and the dearth of scientific study of MCHM, West Virginians are justifiably concerned about whether their water is truly safe for consumption and use. The public, including independent scientists, deserve to have access to the studies that government officials are using to establish and modify these safety thresholds."

The full text of the letter is available below.

January 16, 2014

Mr. Mark J. Costa
Chief Executive Officer
Eastman Chemical Company
PO Box 431
Kingsport, Tennessee 37662

Dear Mr. Costa:

For more than a week, residents of nine counties in West Virginia have lacked access to clean drinking water as a result of a spill of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM), which is manufactured by your company. The public has received little information about the potential acute and long-term health effects of exposure to this chemical. We are writing to request that you immediately provide us with copies of any and all studies about the potential health and environmental effects of exposure to and releases of MCHM and to make appropriately redacted copies available to the public. If you have not already done so, we request that you make this information available to the relevant officials responding to this emergency in West Virginia.

On January 9, West Virginia officials quickly issued a stop-use warning to water customers after discovering that storage tanks owned by Freedom Industries had leaked MCHM into the Elk River, a major source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people. But these officials were soon confronted with a lack of information about MCHM. The Material Safety Data Sheet for MCHM provides no information about the potential acute or long-term health effects from exposure to or ingestion of the chemical.

On January 11, two days after the spill was discovered, the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services announced a level of crude MCHM that officials believe is safe for human consumption--one part per million. The agency explained that this figure is based on the only health study of the chemical scientists could find: a 1990 study by Eastman that was not published in a peer-reviewed journal. Since that time, some have raised concerns about the methodology used to develop this safe exposure level.

Just last night, on January 15, the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services issued a new "Water Advisory for Pregnant Women" recommending that pregnant women drink bottled water until there are no longer detectable levels of MCHM in the water distribution system. The advisory included a letter from the Centers for Disease Control, stating that since making the initial calculations establishing the one part per million safety threshold, "scientists have obtained additional animal studies about MCHM."

Given this chain of events and the dearth of scientific study of MCHM, West Virginians are justifiably concerned about whether their water is truly safe for consumption and use. The public, including independent scientists, deserve to have access to the studies that government officials are using to establish and modify these safety thresholds.

We request that you (a) provide us with unredacted copies of any and all studies on the potential effects of MCHM on health and the environment; (b) immediately release these studies to the public, with appropriate redactions for confidential business information (CBI); and (c) provide us with a written explanation for any such redactions for CBI. We ask that you do this by close of business Friday, January 17, 2014.

We appreciate your immediate attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Ranking Member

Paul D. Tonko
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy

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