Friday, March 8, 2013

Weaker Standards For Selenium on the Horizon For West Virginia: House Passes Law Allowing For Weaker Standards Today


Well, it looks like West Virginia will be changing the standards for selenium in its rivers and streams. The West Virginia House of Representatives approved the legislation that would allow for weaker standards today. The bill has the votes in the State Senate, and Governor Earl Tomblin has said that he will sign the legislation.
            Even considering the state of politics in the Mountain State, it’s at least somewhat surprising that the bill received no opposition in the House, passing with a vote of 99 to 0. Isn’t there at least one representative in West Virginia who is not totally beholden to Big Coal? Not one representative to consider the health of his constituents or the life in the streams and rivers of his state?
            Of course the anti-environmental rhetoric that has been fueled by big business and the GOP crops up in this debacle and makes one’s head spin. The West Virginia House Judiciary Chairman, Tim Miley, said the bill should be passed “so that the coal industry is not crippled.” It's hard for me to think of an industry that has been able to eviscerate the United Mine Workers union and rip off the tops of hundreds of West Virginia’s mountains with impunity as being crippled.
            Miley referred to “punishing fines” on the coal industry for violations of existing selenium standards. Well, a fine is intended to be punishing. That the coal companies have been allowed to pay such small fines for serious violations of safety and pollution for too long is the real crime.

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