More Bad Water-and Bad Business and Bad Politics-in Appalachia

The days, weeks, and yes, the months are passing by and still the drinking water in southern West Virginia remains questionable. Schools were in session yesterday, though it was Presidents’ Day. Even still, students at Grandview Elementary School in North Charleston were sent home early after teachers at the school said that they smelled the licorice smell characteristic of the 4-methylcyclohexane methanol that was spilled into the Elk River, a source of drinking water for 300,000 West Virginians, back in January. Students at the school complained of headaches.

            West Virginians have poisoned water, but at least they have been warned off by the licorice smell. North Carolinians have no instant way to tell if their water is fouled. The toxic mercury, lead, selenium, and arsenic that wound up in their water as a result of the coal ash spill in the Dan River on the third of this month don’t readily give off tell-tale fumes when they have reached toxic levels in drinking water. So should they trust state regulators and business executives when they tell their state lawmakers that their water is safe to drink? Seriously, would you feel safe drinking the water that came out of the Dan River?

            And in a typical George W. Bush type of delaying tactic—the 43^rd president repeatedly said that legislation and action on global warming should commence once more research had been performed—North Carolina state legislators said that they lacked sufficient information to do anything and months would pass before solutions to the problem became clear to them.

            Tons and tons of toxic coal ash poured into one of your rivers. Coal ash has been around since people started burning the fossil fuel; folks have known about lead and arsenic being toxic for hundreds, even thousand of years; and you need a few more months to get clear on this topic?

            The New York Times has a pretty good take on things in North Carolina. As I touched on the cozy relationship between utilities and North Carolina regulators before, the NYT editorial board notes how the state protected Duke Energy in three lawsuits brought by environmental groups over the company’s coal ash storage facilities. In light of the disasters in West Virginia and North Carolina, the National Geographic asks appropriately if the water is good to drink in the rest of the country. After all, it is not only coal ash and 4-methylcyclohexane methanol to poison our rivers and streams. CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) can put things like coliform and e-coli in water. Click here and you’ll see the number of these meat factories that dot the land just in Ohio.

 

When you get a whole bunch of livestock in one place like this, the rain can create runoff problems big time photo naturalgrocers.com

And this story intrigued me. The Jewish community of Charleston has responded to the water crisis in their city, and yet they admit that their response is not as vibrant as what you might expect from a similar temple or synagogue in another city. It seems that no matter what, whether you attend a church, synagogue, mosque, living in the Mountain State saps folks of their sense of community.