Trust Us, The Water Is Fine

Although I haven't watched any U.S. news channels in ages, I suspect the chemical spill in West Virginia is not getting as much time in the national spotlight as it deserves. It certainly isn't in the print media.

This situation is giving the local citizens a real-life opportunity to decide how much they trust their governments...local, state and federal. The water in most effected areas was declared safe to drink last week when the concentration of the MCHM chemical tested below the level of one part per million, the level declared to be safe by the CDC. But other public health officials say, in effect, that the CDC pulled that number out of its ass, that there simply isn't enough data on this chemical to determine a safe level.

After citizens were told their water was safe to drink, they found that their tap water still had a strong licorice smell, which is a characteristic of MCHM. So public health officials then told people to run their water inside and out and repeatedly flush their toilets for fifteen minutes, and their water would be good to drink. Other public health experts pointed out that this was an even more egregious instance of officials pulling numbers out of their individual and/or collective asses. Where did they come up with fifteen minutes? it was asked. But not answered.

Now the apparently-worthless Governor, Earl Ray Tomblin (Dem), has told people the use of water is "your decision." If people aren't comfortable drinking the water, he said, they should drink bottled water. The profundity of the man!! Anybody offering to help defer the cost of bottled water? Probably not.

By the way, even as officials were telling people the water was safe to drink, they were (and still are) telling pregnant women not to drink the water. It seems like that should raise some eyebrows. It seems typically american to protect the fetus while it is in the womb, and start slowly poisoning it once it is born.

Of course Freedom Industries (I still say yecch to that) has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and will be "reorganizing."

If this spill had been the result of an individual opening a valve on a storage tank, that individual would be headed for prison. If it is the result of negligence by the individuals at Freedom Industries (yecch), as it seems to have been, why aren't those individuals charged with a crime? Intent or the lact thereof is not relevant except, perhaps, at the time of sentencing. That used to happen. Now we just charge corporations and they consider fines as just another cost of doing business.

As someone said, I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one. Or in this case, when the state of West Virginia just puts one in jail.