CHARLESTON — The chairman and CEO of The Hawthorn Group, a public affairs and public relations firm, said if the West Virginia water crisis taught companies anything, it was to always be ready for what others do.
John Ashford said he was struck by two things when the water crisis occurred.
"First, the company did a very good job at keeping the public informed," Ashford said in an interview with The West Virginia Record. "And, second, it confirmed my view that West Virginians are fundamentally decent and reasonable people."
Ashford said there wasn't an uprising after the crisis of people acting terribly.
"You didn't have rioting in the streets and you didn't have fronts against the company," Ashford said. "You didn't have lynching parties forming. People understood that an accident happened and the company was putting all the resources it had into fixing it as quickly as possible."
Ashford said he believed it also reflected the goodwill the company had built over the years as a reliable, affordable producer of water.
"But, what it tells you is that companies have to be ready for crises caused by external factors," Ashford said. "This wasn't a break in one of their pipes, they didn't mess up on the process of cleaning water and their source didn't dry up. They were running the water company perfectly fine when the chemical flowed into the river. You have got to be ready for what other people do."
The Hawthorn Group worked with West Virginia American Water during the water crisis.
The 2014 class-action lawsuit against West Virginia American Water claimed the water company failed to react or prepare for the spill when it occurred.
There are more than 230,000 residents and business owners included in the class action lawsuit.
Nine counties in West Virginia—almost 300,000 residents—were affected by the water contamination when the spill occurred in January 2014. A tank at Freedom Industries had leaked MCHM into the river.
Six of Freedom’s top officials plead guilty to criminal Clean Water Act violations related to the chemical spill.