West Virginia: Where the Water and Politics Are Both Hard to Swallow

In the big playpen for King Coal that is known as West Virginia the old pattern of political and governmental support for the coal industry continues, all the while residents and those concerned about the environment are disfranchised.

            This just in: Two weeks ago, West Virginia governor Earl Ray Tomblin unveiled proposed legislation in response to the chemical spill in the Elk River that had occurred earlier in  January. The day before, the governor had a meeting “with the stakeholders” according to an email from Jason Pizatella, governor Tomblin’s Deputy Chief of Staff.

            The only problem is that the meeting of “stakeholders” included business lawyers and industry lobbyists, and no one from the environmental community had been invited for their input to the proposed legislations.

            Don’t you think that is an oversight?

            Donald S. Garvin, the chief lobbyist for the West Virginia Environmental Council, said that his organization had not been included in the meeting concerning the proposed legislation. “Neither I nor anyone else I know of in the environmental community knew about that meeting,” he told Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette yesterday. Needless to say, the bill, which was later passed by the West Virginia Senate, now lists a number of different types of chemical storage tanks that would be exempt of environmental oversight.

            Considering the hand-in-glove relationship West Virginia's political leaders have with the coal companies, this shutout toward the environmental community is unsurprising. It is wholeheartedly wrong and almost virtually guarantees that the 4-methylcyclohexane methanol flowing into the Elk River will not remain the last such unfortunate disaster. If this bill passes, the safety of West Virginian’s water will remain tenuous and at the mercy of King Coal.

            Ken Ward has many more details of this story here.

Schools are still flushing their pipes almost a month after the spill in the Elk River and a lot of southern West Virginia and residents are still using bottled water.