"CHARLESTON, W.Va. —  Two years after thousands of gallons of a coal-cleaning agent leaked into the drinking water supply of 300,000 West Virginians, the sentencings of six officials at a chemical distributor this month will bring to a close criminal cases in the spill.

For residents who never met those men, the saga won't ever be forgotten.

It began when a licorice odor was noticed along the Elk River in Charleston the morning of Jan. 9, 2014. The smell was pinpointed to a leak of the coal-cleaning agent MCHM at a series of Freedom Industries tanks less than 2 miles upstream from West Virginia American Water's intake."

John Ra reports for the Associated Press January 31, 2016. [2]