A Stranger To the Water

Nine counties in West Virginia have been affected by a chemical spill on the Elk River; their water supply was poisoned as a result of the spill, which involved a toxic chemical used to cleanse coal.  (Oh, so that's what clean coal is!)  The chemical is dissipating as it makes its way downstream to the Kanawha River, then to the Ohio River, a testament to the planet's ability to heal itself.  But environmental degradation is nothing new in West Virginia.  This may be the most high-profile environmental disaster in West Virginia's history, because it's affected so many people - 300,000 in a state of 1.8 million residents - but it's hardly the first.  In fact, West Virginia's drinking water supply has been reduced by 25 percent since 1989 due to environmental degradation.  Mountaintop removal by coal companies has been going on for decades, fouling the landscape of the "Mountain State" and disregarding the natural beauty that draws tourists to West Virginia and prompted John Denver to celebrate it in song.  The state has been a center of such activity ever since it broke away from Virginia and achieved statehood in 1863; between 1870 and 1920, ten million acres of its virgin forest were harvested.

As journalist Ana Marie Cox explains in her excellent article comparing the George Washington Bridge scandal to the West Virginia story, the media are far more interested in a juicy Machiavellian political battle than an issue of lax regulation and corporate greed that should be presented in the context of questioning this country's values and our own behavior.  Ms. Cox points out that the bridge scandal, similarly, should make us ask not just what New Jersey governor Chris Christie's administration is doing by causing traffic jams in Bergen County, it also make us ask why we always have to travel everywhere by car.  (Because the federal government encourages it, and Republicans are always ready to stop mass transit projects before they get started; witness the Hudson River rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey canceled by . . . Chris Christie.)  Anyway, there's a reason why Ana Marie Cox gets to talk to Alex Wagner on MSNBC and I don't, so read her article after you've read my blog entry. :-)