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Charleston, West Virginia (CNN) -- It sounds like a dangerous combination: massive tanks holding chemicals near a major water supply.
That was the setup in West Virginia last week when a chemical spill contaminated a river supplying water to hundreds of thousands of people. Officials say there wasn't much regulation at the site where the spill occurred and that little is known about the chemical that leaked.
Now, state officials say they're considering increasing oversight.
A town of 300,000 people without potable drinking water for days is a pretty major screwup. Although I do have a somewhat strong Libertarian streak in many areas, government regulation is not one of them. We need regulation. Why? Because of the human nature that drives many companies to dangerously cut corners in order to make a buck. In fairness to Freedom Industries, the owner of this facility, they had just bought the property a few months before this happened. However, although the facility had been inspected as recently as 2012, that tank that leaked the pollutants into this town's water supply had not been inspected since 1991. That is unacceptable. Although there is a lot to be said for Libertarianism, the same cannot be said of the extremist Randist and Anarcho-Capitalist branches of it, which advocate no regulation at all. This spill is the poster boy for why we DO need government regulation.
Article is here.