Freedom leaked some more, just not into the river, this time

Apparently in an attempt to close the barn door after the horses got out, the oft leaking Freedom chemical facility was preparing a diversion trench in order to capture the leaks before they reach the waterway. But in true freedom manner as rugged individualists they failed to map all the pipes leading to and from the tanks of chemicals. So the entrenching tool stuck this unmapped pipe causing a minimal amount of 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol to be released into the diversion trench.

The rupture happened around 19:00 EST Thursday evening before containment, according to the department’s director of emergency response and homeland security, Mike Dorsey.

"It wasn't so much of an incident," Dorsey said, the Charleston Gazette reported. "None of the stuff got into the river."

Dorsey described the amount of the coal-cleaning chemical MCHM - a moniker for 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol - that was involved as "a trickle."

"It was tens of gallons," Dorsey said, "not hundreds or thousands of gallons."

Cleanup crews from Diversified Services, a contractor for Freedom Industries, were in the process of enlarging the cutoff trench when the pipe was inadvertently hit. The affected pipe was not listed on a map of Freedom’s grounds, according to WCHS.

Perhaps having workers go over the property with metal detectors would be a good course of action in this situation. Since the owners of this property put in equipment but then neglected to record the location of this equipment.