In a sane world, one would imagine that this could not be possible:
The 300,000 residents of nine West Virginia counties affected by last Thursday's chemical spill are slowly starting to get notice that they can turn on their taps again. But many are still wondering why they didn't have more information about the potential dangers in their own backyard.
As much as 7,500 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (also known as crude MCHM) spilled into the Elk River about a mile and a half upstream from where the West Virginia American Water utility draws its supply. The coal-cleaning chemical came from a storage facility owned by Freedom Industries and located in Charleston, the state capital.
Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, lives along the Elk River upstream from the spill. Even though she works on environmental issues and drives by the storage facility regularly, she said she had no idea that the tanks held chemicals. "They just look old and rusty," Rosser told The Huffington Post. "I just couldn't have imagined. If I knew, our organization certainly would have raised questions about this."
"But we are in the same boat as the rest of the public, the water company and apparently our governor," Rosser said. "No one seemed to be aware or care that this dangerous chemical was upstream from our largest drinking water intake in the state. It was a recipe for disaster."
That seems to be the resounding complaint in West Virginia: No one knew. The chemicals were disclosed in a filing to the state last year, reporting that the facility could hold anywhere between 11.4 million and 63.5 million pounds of 10 different chemicals on a given day, including up to 1 million pounds of MCHM. The forms were filed in compliance with the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, a 1986 federal law designed to make sure plans are in place in case of an accident. MCHM was listed on the Tier II reporting form as a "hazardous" materialunder the Environmental Protection Agency's classification system. But there doesn't seem to have been a plan in place in case of an accident, as the Charleston Gazette has reported, and the public didn't know the chemicals were there.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/15/west-virginia-chemical-spill_n_4598346.html
So to summarize dear readers - there were old, rusty storage tanks - tanks that could hold up to 63.5 million tons of all manner of toxic chemicals - situated on the banks of a main waterway, and only a mile and a half upstream from the state of West Virginia's largest drinking water intake. And yet there existed no emergency plan in the event of an accidental spill. And the public was completely in the dark about it.
Lovely no?
The Gadfly feels that every sane, rational, caring (sorry - that excludes you Teabaggers) American needs to take a moment out of their busy lives and ask themselves how they feel about the United States becoming just like these third world countries that the oil, gas and mining companies are eager to gain footholds in -- specifically because of a lack of regulations -- regulations which they whine about "eating profits" and stymieing their scorched earth methods of mining and exploration.
As it stands right now, the little bit of remaining regulatory oversight that we still do have in America, truly is the only thing that is keeping our country from becoming one giant toxic waste dump from sea to shining sea - and those few remaining regulations are under siege incessantly by the corporations and their bought and paid for stooges in the halls of state and federal government, as well as in the judiciary.
The third world countries that have no regulatory framework allow these multinational land rapers to literally dump the poisonous byproducts of their activities right into open sewer systems and onto unspoiled land without regard to the health and welfare of anyone unfortunate enough to live nearby. And it goes without saying that the real effects of the environmental and human carnage for which they are culpable for is typically concealed from public view.
In these third world countries, human life isn't worth the waste water that these corporations dump on to the lands and in the waterways. There is little regard for the humans living in these countries - which is why they are viewed as inanimate objects - obstacles if you will - to the corporate mission. Most of the populations where these vampires set up shop are so impoverished and so oppressed that no one speaks out, and in fact, there have been many instances where when people did speak out, the corporations just hire local thugs to employ threats of violence and even actual violence to shut them up.
Is this what we eventually want here in the United states - all in the name of free market capitalism? How many destroyed human lives are we willing to trade, and how ravaged are we willing to allow our environment and natural resources to become, in return for permitting these fossil-fuel industry corporations to continue doing their business? And for what? That if we bite our tongues, turn our eyes the other way and show them enough gratitude and grant them enough leeway from oversight, they might possibly look kindly down upon we poor serfs and provide us with a handful of shitty paying jobs, with shitty benefits, no job security and no pension?
So yes dear readers - take a moment to ponder the question - should we debauch our own environment to the point where our land and water is uninhabitable and undrinkable? Where our air is un-breathable? Should we offer up as blood sacrifice our children's and grandchildren's future quality of life just so that a few already obscenely wealthy shareholders are assured the maximum possible returns on their investment year after year and so that the CEO's, the executives and the Wall Street hedge funders can comfortably live like nobles and lords in their gated and heavily guarded enclaves, far from the places and people whom they have willingly and knowingly poisoned in their ever expanding quest to turn a profit?
If that sounds like a whole lot of heavy and dark shit to think about dear readers, you're goddamn right it is. And for all the best, albeit dire, reasons in the world.
----TFG
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