* * The EPA is (near-) dead; long live the EPA!

Here's a commentary I wrote for the Roanoke Times editorial page...

On January 9, people living near the Elk River’s confluence with the Kanawha in Charleston, West Virginia, began sensing a black licorice-like smell wafting from the river. Within hours, the entire region descended into crisis and remained there for days, as the municipal water for 300,000 was deemed unsafe to drink, bathe in, or wash dishes or clothing. An estimated 7500 gallons of a chemical compound, 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol, or MCHM, used in the process of washing coal to prepare it for burning was spilled.

Incidents such as this devastate a community. While there are as yet no fatalities known, the health dangers are tangible and the economic damage is severe and lasting.

Environmental disasters like this are the reason that under widespread public pressure, in 1970, a reluctant President Richard Nixon signed into law the most sweeping environmental legislation in our nation’s history. It included the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Under new regulatory requirements placed on corporations, municipalities, and the government itself, rivers began to run cleaner and fish stocks and other wildlife populations rebounded. The air over most major cities began to improve and skies cleared. Today, for many of us, the air and water are probably cleaner than in the last 150 years.

However, the situation in Charleston is a reminder of how vulnerable we are.

In the almost 45 years since the EPA was legislated into being, public opinion has shifted dramatically and ominously. The preservation of the environment has shifted from becoming a near-universal necessity to a scourge hanging over commerce and “progress”.

West Virginia’s Governor, Earl Ray Tomblin, before the spill, boasted he would, “never back down from the EPA because of its misguided policies on coal.”

Not to be outdone, Congressman Morgan Griffith, Southwest Virginia, wrote in his newsletter, “Each week, our region must absorb the devastating impacts of the Administration’s war on coal… Many in my area and in coal communities across the nation may wish for the complete elimination of the EPA...” The EPA has become his favorite whipping boy.

Wow! What sort of Orwellian hell-world have we molded for ourselves where protection of our environment is so grandly denigrated? How many of us yearn for polluted rivers or filthy air? How many additional, preventable cancers do we seek?

We need to step away from the vitriol and consider what really happened in West Virginia.

This spill is not an isolated event. Communities in the coal fields have been dealing with similar abuses for decades. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, upon learning there are 84,000 less-known chemicals currently in use said, “My God, you've got thousands and thousands of products that have come online that are totally, you know, unevaluated."

Even when MCHM is used properly, it afterwards is stored in immense tailing ponds or pumped underground where it can contaminate aquifers that feed local wells. The short-and long-term effects of these chemicals on humans and nature are being studied, but much is unknown.

The spill in West Virginia is indicative of a systemic problem and is the inevitable result of a new culture of acquiescence to industry, to the big corporations who willingly sacrifice wildlife, forests, and people in the name of profits. The prevailing meme goes like this, “Coal is vital to the economy. Environmental regulations restrict its mining, preparation, conveyance, and use. Therefore, we should reduce or eliminate environmental regulations.” Because jobs are scarce and people are desperate, employees are docile, fearful to do anything that pushes the companies out. In their desperation, voters are consistently voting against their own economic well-being and physical health.

Tragically, many have swallowed the poison (so to speak) that environmental protection is bad for the economy and EPA is the culprit. It’s a Faustian bargain, as there has never been an instance of environmental degradation that wasn’t ultimately cheaper and less painful to prevent than to remediate. The fact is environmental protection is good, nay essential, to a vibrant economy. Once you've ruined your environment, you have nothing, essentially forever.

The economic development authority of the Charleston metropolitan area might as well lock the door and go home, as no progressive, job-creating, modern company would ever think to locate there, knowing the damage that could be done by the next unregulated, careless chemical company.

Environmental protection is good for business, wildlife, people, and our future. We should be doubling the EPA budget, not slashing it. Long live the EPA!