When a massive chemical spill happens that contaminates the water supply and leaves over 300,00 people in West Virginia without water to drink, bathe or even brush their teeth – when a dangerous event that throws a whole area of the country into an existential crisis happens, one wants to believe that state and local officials in every part of the country are paying close attention to learn from this crisis to see to it that it be averted in their communities. I mean, there is no way that a corporation, Freedom Industries in this case, would be allowed to handle a toxic foaming agent used as part of the coal preparation processing unless their facility was in tiptop shape, unless the plant processing these toxic chemicals could have the adjective “good” ascribed to it.
Should it surprise us then, that Kanawha County Commissioner Kent Carper, speaking to VOA News declared, “the condition of the plant was not good. The danger was known to the previous owner, and the danger was known to the current owner.”
This is America, where choosing between corporate profits or the needs of the people are a simple choice, one that gets made over and over again: profits trump people.
In an area also knows as “Chemical valley” this is third major chemical accident in the region in the last five years, and as the toxic chemicals dilute themselves in the river and as more and more voices of authority tell people that their water is safe, those safety assessments will be made, according to Robert Reich’s recent article entitled Fear Is Why Workers in Red States Vote Against Their Economic Self-Interest, “partly because the government’s calculation for safe levels is based on a single study by the manufacturer of the toxic chemical, which was never published, and partly because the West Virginia American Water Company, which supplies the drinking water, is a for-profit corporation that may not want to highlight any lingering danger.”
The title and content of the Reich article implies that the political will of the people may actually align with the will of the toxic spewing corporations in this case because, well, it all boils down to Jobs.