Reading this is deja vu-ish. Thats probably because situations like this are on repeat all over the nation just waiting for some horrible mishap to capture the medias attention ... because if it bleeds, it leads. Unfortunately, if it doesnt keep bleeding itll stop leading. Neither of those options are in the publics best interest. The purpose of this paper shuffling wasn’t disclosed. Freedom’s operations along the Elk River did not receive much government oversight, according to records and local officials. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency leaves regulation of such chemical facilities primarily to the states. West Virginia doesn’t view that delegation of authority as reason to regulate aggressively, however. To the contrary, the state prides itself on being industry-friendly, and Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, a Democrat, routinely castigates what he calls federal overreaching. West Virginia doesn’t require inspection of storage tanks containing potentially dangerous coal-processing chemicals, according to Larry Zuspan, who runs the local emergency planning committee in Charleston. What made the Freedom tank farm on the city’s outskirts unusual, even for West Virginia, is that the regional utility operates the sole intake for the area’s public water system only a mile and a half downriver. businessweek/printer/articles/181095-who-runs-freedom-industries-west-virginias-chemical-spill-mystery
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 20:01:59 +0000
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