Workers at Freedom Industries continue through the night to empty storage tanks of chemicals into tanker trucks at it's plant in Charleston, Va., Sunday, Jan. 12, 2014. A chemical spill at the company has deprived 300,000 West Virginians of clean tap water for four days.(AP Photo/Steve Helber)
January 13, 2014 - 1:08 AM
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Hundreds of thousands of people in West Virginia are waking up to a fifth straight day of having to wash, cook and brush their teeth with bottled water.
But officials are promising that the end of the ban on using tap water will be soon. The water was tainted last week when a chemical leaked from a plant into the Elk River. About 300,000 people were told not to use the water for anything except flushing their toilets.
Tests have shown levels of the licorice-smelling chemical were consistently below a toxic threshold, and in some samples, there was no trace of the chemical at all. As the tests continue Monday, there are still questions about how and why the leak occurred.
News from © The Associated Press, 2014