Town hall meeting held by Brockovich because of chemical spill

CHARLESTON - A town hall meeting was held in Charleston Jan. 14 at the Charleston Municipal Auditorium by legal and environmental activist Erin Brockovich.

Brockovich said she wants to know how better to oversee facilities like Freedom Industries so that communities do not have to go through situations like the chemical spill again.

Brockovich lead a town hall meeting after approximately 5,000 West Virginians reached out to her through her website.

The people who reached out to her are customers of West Virginia-American Water, who have been without water since Jan. 9.

An estimated 7,500 gallons of crude MCHM, made up primarily of 4-methylcylohexane methane, leaked from a storage tank at Freedom Industries along the Elk River in Charleston, which caused the water contamination.

Brockovich said she and her team got in to Charleston on Sunday night and scrambled to get the meeting together.

"My job is to provide you with as much information and as much awareness as I can so that you can make the best decisions for you and your family," Brockovich said during the meeting. "That's what is most important to me."

Brockovich said the frustration is that the chemical spill even happened.

"It's significant because this is a municipality--300,000 people were impacted. We've never seen that before; we know very little about this chemical," Brockovich said.

Brockovich said her team is investigating the chemical spill.

For more information on how to receive updates from Brockovich, go to www.brockovich.com.