Forget The Water -- Just Drink Moonshine!

As you know, a storage tank at Freedom Industries near Charleston, WV recently leaked a whole bunch of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM).  Ever heard of that?  Me neither.  It's a fluid used to "clean" coal.  The toxic chemical spilled into the Elk River, which flows into the Ohio River, which flows into the Mississippi River, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico.  That's a pretty sizable watershed.  (And they said I was napping in geography class.)

A company spokesman said that MCHM had a "low level of toxicity" and would "cause no harm to fish."  Good news if you're a fish!  Hundreds of thousands of people, however, were left with unusable water for almost a week. And Freedom Industries promptly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  Let Freedom ring! 

Things like this happen when storage tanks are age-old and rarely inspected or maintained.  That's because the Toxic Substances Control Act doesn't require it.  The Act is 40 years old, was weak to begin with and has never been updated because states like West Virginia and Louisiana are in bed with the petrochemical industry, and together they constantly agitate for the rollback/non-enforcement of environmental regulations.

But a nasty, fucked-up water supply for half a million people will tend to draw some attention.  By golly, something must be done!  Suddenly there are renewed efforts on Capitol Hill to finally update the old Toxic Substances law.

Unfortunately, the drummer boys for the new legislation are petro-stooges Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and their modernized would-be bill has been written by the American Chemistry Council.  (And the new Henhouse Security Act was written by the National Friends of Foxes.)

Everything's for sale, so, as they say, follow the money.  Laws professing to control toxic chemicals which are written by lobbyists for toxic chemical manufacturers will control very little.  And business will go on, more or less as usual.  Apparently, that's all that counts.

I guess I must be one of those crazy, job-killing "let's-not-poison-the-river" liberals!  In the state of West Virginia, I'm about as popular as a black President.