Republican Deregulation Culture to Blame For Water Poisoning West Virginia Chemical Spill

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/01/13/republican-deregulation-blame-water-poisoning-west-virginia-chemical-spill.html

January, 13th, 2014

Among the long list of things Republicans hate, rules or directives made and maintained by the government to protect the health and safety of the population rank nearly as high as their hatred for women, taxes, equal rights, democracy and the U.S. Constitution.

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The idea that eliminating regulations will create jobs and end poverty is nearly as absurd as Marco Rubio’s assertion that marriage is the be all, end all solution for poverty borne of income inequality, low wages, and lack of jobs.

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Over the past five years the nation has seen the effects of deregulation, or regulation violations, firsthand whether it was the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, an explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas, a West Virginia mine explosion, and a chemical spill last Thursday that gave West Virginia residents another up-close-and-personal view of deregulation’s effects.

On Friday, officials said up to 5,000 gallons of an industrial chemical used in coal processing leaked from a ruptured chemical storage tank owned by Freedom Industries into the Elk River just upstream of the intake pipes used by the largest water utility in the state, West Virginia American Water. It turned out that the chemical spill was larger than originally estimated (7,500 gallons) and it has kept over 300,000 West Virginians without safe water for four days as of Sunday. On Saturday the president of West Virginia American Water Company said it would likely still be “several days” before tap water in the nine affected counties would be safe for anything besides flushing toilets.

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The ruptured chemical holding tank, and “inch wide holes in a retaining wall,” should have failed an inspection if one were conducted, but the Department of Environmental Protection officials said the owners of the tank that ruptured, Freedom Industries, are “exempt from inspections or permitting because the company only stores chemicals, and does not produce them.” The chemicals were produced by Georgia-Pacific, a subsidiary of Koch Industries. According to one county official, the ruptured tank was part of a decades-old Pennzoil refinery “dating back to the 1930s or 1940s,” and Charleston’s mayor believes the chemicals went through the holes in the retaining wall after leaking from the ruptured tank. It is highly probable that since the inch-wide holes in the retaining wall were big enough for anyone to see, Freedom Industries knew the 70 to 80 year-old tanks were in desperate need of replacement and did not want to spend the money to repair them because regulations did not require them to. The tragedy in West Virginia is precisely the deregulation and getting “government out of the way” Republicans are fighting for under the guise of ending poverty and creating jobs, but it underscores why regulations, particularly environmental regulations, need to be strengthened; not eliminated.

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Suffice it to say that where the health and safety of the population is concerned, Republicans never met a regulation they did not hate passionately and work tirelessly to eliminate and they are not about to change just because 300,000 West Virginians were left without water. They still call for gutting regulations after the Upper Big Branch mine explosion claimed 29 lives, the Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 workers, and the West Fertilizer explosion in Texas killed 15 and injured 160, so they will be unfazed over a preventable tragedy that only sent over 122 people to the hospital because they were giving speeches calling for the end of regulations the same day President Obama declared a federal emergency in West Virginia.