Ex-Exec Sentenced to 1 Month in West Virginia Chemical Spill

Source: Associated Press

Ex-Exec Sentenced to 1 Month in West Virginia Chemical Spill

By JOHN RAASSOCIATED PRESS
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Feb 17, 2016, 5:43 PM ET

An executive who appeared unsympathetic when he spoke to the public after a chemical spill sullied tap water for 300,000 people in West Virginia was sentenced to one month in federal prison Wednesday.

Ex-Freedom Industries President Gary Southern, who told reporters a day after the January 2014 spill that he had had a "long day" and tried to leave a news conference multiple times, also was fined $20,000 in U.S. District Court.

Southern, the last of six ex-Freedom Industries officials to be sentenced on pollution charges, told the court Wednesday that he accepted responsibility "for my shortcomings and oversights" and that he was "not the person that I was painted on television."

Southern was a co-founder of Freedom Industries and had direct oversight of the Elk River facility. He was Freedom Industries' chief operating officer starting in May 2009, a member of its board from March 2010 to October 2013 and became president when it was sold in December 2013.

The following month, a corroded Freedom tank in Charleston leaked thousands of gallons of coal-cleaning chemicals into the water supply for nine counties, spurring a ban on tap water for up to 10 days. Residents immediately cleared store shelves of bottled water, and many restaurants were forced to close or cut back services temporarily.

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