West Virginia county secures $500,000 settlement in lawsuit over chemical spill

A $500,000 settlement has been reached in a lawsuit over truck crash that sent a chemical into a West Virginia creek, according to a published report.

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The Kanawha County Commission will get half of that and will decide how to spend it in future meetings, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported. Commissioner Lance Wheeler said part of the total will go toward recouping taxpayer costs of litigation and testing.

The county sued a trucking company and the driver over the spill last year that dumped 3,000 gallons of the material into a tributary of Paint Creek, killing more than 30,000 fish. The chemical involved is a compound commonly used in cleaning detergents. The spill occurred on the West Virginia Turnpike near Pax.

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The commission plans to continue to test to make sure all the chemical is gone from the area, Wheeler said.