Judge Asked to Unseal Spill-Related Records

A federal judge is being asked to make public hundreds of pages of documents in a lawsuit against a water company and a manufacturer that sold a chemical to a company involved in a massive spill. The Charleston Gazette reports a lawyer for residents on Thursday asked U.S. District Judge John Copenhaver to unseal the documents in order to help the public understand events leading up to the January 2014 spill. Last month Copenhaver allowed the lawsuit to continue against Eastman Chemical, West Virginia American Water and its parent company, American Water Works. Eastman produced the coal-cleaning agent that leaked from a Freedom Industries tank. The spill spurred a tap-water ban for 300,000 people for days.