Company with chemical-spill ties cited 8 times since Sept.

Associated Press

NITRO, W.Va.

A few towns over from the chemical plant that leaked a coal-cleaning mixture into the drinking water of 300,000 West Virginians last year, a new company run by some of the same people is being cited for similar environmental violations.

State regulators have written up the new firm, Lexycon LLC, eight times since September for pouring chemicals without a permit, lacking proper “last-resort” walls to contain spills and hosting tanker-trailers full of unknown chemicals, among other infractions, according to records reviewed by The Associated Press.

Some of the infractions at Lexycon still haven’t been addressed despite three site-wide inspections and dozens of smaller visits by regulators from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection since May, state reports show.

Inspectors even found the same little-known chemical that leaked from a Freedom Industries Inc. facility and tainted the water supply for West Virginia’s capital city, despite the Lexycon owner’s promise to a federal judge that his company wouldn’t touch the substance.

The pollution at Freedom’s Elk River operation triggered a tap-water ban that brought the region to a standstill for days, with residents unable to shower or use their faucets and restaurants and other businesses shuttered for lack of clean water. The spill also sparked criticism in Congress that existing environmental rules aren’t adequate, particularly in West Virginia, where the energy industry’s heavy presence always has come with the risk of disaster.

“I’ve noticed that when something goes wrong, you sell the company, you change the name,” said Maya Nye of People Concerned About Chemical Safety, an advocacy group in the state. “Then suddenly, it looks like a shiny new package, but the way things operate is very similar. It’s just kind of status quo.”

Two consultants who have worked with Lexycon are among six former Freedom officials charged last month over last January’s massive spill.

An FBI agent said in an affidavit that Freedom officials knew for a decade of the crack in the secondary containment wall that enabled the chemical to seep into the Elk River.

They also didn’t inspect leaky World War II-era tanks and shrugged off plans to decommission them, the agent said.