Company invovled in West Virginia spill recently acquired by Pa. coal executive

• Marie Cusick
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Marie Cusick was the Harrisburg reporter for StateImpact Pennsylvania.

In a story today on the water contamination crisis in West Virginia, the Washington Post reports the company at the center of the spill, Freedom Industries, was recently acquired by Pennsylvania coal executive, Cliff Forrest.
At least 7,500 gallons of a foaming agent used in coal production, known as 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (or MCHM) poured into the Elk River last week, leaving more than 300,000 West Virginians without clean water.

From the Washington Post:

Forrest, through another firm he owns, paid roughly $20 million to acquire Freedom Industries and orchestrate its Dec. 31 merger with four tiny distribution, blending and storage firms that act as middle men between big chemical and big coal companies, according to a person close to the company but not authorized to speak for it. He added that Forrest just “had the misfortune of buying a plant just before all hell broke loose.” …
In December, Freedom Industries was acquired by a Stoystown, Pa.-based company called Chemstream, which also blends and sells chemicals to industrial customers, according to the person familiar with the company. The company’s Web site says it began as a distributor of chemicals for the mining industry.
Chemstream is owned by Forrest, according to the person. Forrest is president of Rosebud Mining, a Kittanning, Pa.-based company he founded in 1979 and which is now the third-largest underground coal producer in Pennsylvania with 1,400 employees in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Editor's Picks