THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Not Dirty Harry lucky but just everyday living and expecting clean water from your tap lucky. According to the CDC, today is their lucky day.

Federal health officials have used the word “safe” to describe West Virginia’s tap water for the first time since the area's water supply was contaminated Jan. 9 by a large spill of a coal-processing chemical. Earlier this month, those same authorities would only call the water “appropriate for use.”

“Based on what we know, if the water is at nondetectable levels for MCHM, it is safe to drink, bathe in and clean with, and this would include for pregnant women,” said Barbara Reynolds, spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), referring to methylcyclohexanemethanol, the compound that made up the bulk of the toxic spill.

But the CDC's defining of the water as “safe” likely won’t quell fears for many around the state’s capital, Charleston, who still don’t trust what is flowing from their taps. A licorice odor, a telltale sign of MCHM that first alerted residents to the spill, still wafts from faucets for thousands across the state.

The water ban applied to hundreds of thousands in cities, towns and remote villages across nine counties in central West Virginia after the leak from a Freedom Industries chemical storage site along the Elk River.

“We also want to recognize that any faint MCHM-related smell could be off-putting and that proper flushing of water lines is important,” said Reynolds. “We continue to believe (there is) no adverse harm below 1 ppm (parts per million), and we said Feb. 5 that people could drink and use water.”

Only time will tell if the water is really safe and who wants to be the one that proves them wrong?