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West Virginia chemical spill shines spotlight on loose regulation

danarhea

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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.
 
I have no problem with that type of regulation. What I do have a problem with is government regulations which prevent competition in the marketplace, and manipulate supply and demand.
 
Officials say there wasn't much regulation at the site

I think the author meant to say "there wasn't much enforcement". To somehow think that the EPA and regulations ceased to exist around a specific site is idiotic.
 
I think the author meant to say "there wasn't much enforcement". To somehow think that the EPA and regulations ceased to exist around a specific site is idiotic.

Yes, that is clearly the intention of the statement.

Although I'd personally characterize it as there has been no enforcement.
 
Yes, that is clearly the intention of the statement.

Although I'd personally characterize it as there has been no enforcement.

I tried to follow up with the article in depth to see what limited enforcement took place, and found that the article doesn't match the quote, so who knows who wrote it.
 
There already is a ton of regulation to protect the planet. The problem is enforcement, not a lack of regulation.
 
It was worse than having no potable water...you couldn't be exposed to it.

What it did do is show they had no backup plan. When FEMA has to show up to distribute water, there's a major deficiency.
 
IF one gets out in those markets they will find many chemical plant facilities are close or on large waterways. They will also find the EPA will people assigned to those areas where there are several in a small area. Calvert City, KY is one area that comes to mind. The polpulation is probably under 5k and there is something like 8-9 chemical companies there all close to the Tennessee River.
 
I have no problem with that type of regulation.

I have trouble believing that the majority of today's libertarians and conservatives believe that.

Otherwise, our waters, skies, food, and so many other basic commodities would be much safer for humans.
 
I have no problem with that type of regulation. What I do have a problem with is government regulations which prevent competition in the marketplace, and manipulate supply and demand.
Absolutely. A study published last year showed that American families may be 75 percent poorer than they should be, all due to an abundance of federal regulations. The economists looked at the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations from 1949 to 2011 and discovered a more than sixfold increase. The data indicate that if regulations had been frozen in 1949, families today would be earning an average of $330,000, rather than the current $53,000. Another conclusion ..... the GDP at the end of 2011 would have been $53.9 trillion, instead of $15.1 trillion.

It's an interesting read..

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jjseater/regulationandgrowth.pdf
 
Sorry, but I can't help you out there. What you believe is up to you.

Now that is vintage libertarianism.

Just remember, we're all in this world together, and what we do almost always affects others in some way. This chemical spill is a classic example of that.

BTW, while we're on this news topic: So much for "clean coal."
 
If loose regulations in West Virginia are to blame for this spill, then you must also blame the Democrat governorship of that state who have been in power for the past 13 years.
 
I think the author meant to say "there wasn't much enforcement". To somehow think that the EPA and regulations ceased to exist around a specific site is idiotic.

I strongly disagree. If you don't like regulations, and are in Congress, you gut the funding for it, and the regulations are effectively demolished. A case in point is the FDA, whose funds have been heavily gutted. The result? We get to eat fish that are raised on feces. Tilapia is pushed heavily in restaurant advertising now, but only 1.7 percent of tilapia is inspected, because the FDA no longer has the funds to properly inspect food. Most of our supply of tilapia comes from China, and tilapia ponds there have chicken coops above them. The chickens poop into the ponds, and that is what the tilapia eat. And that is essentially what WE eat, if we eat tilapia. As a result, the tilapia that comes to America from China has absolutely no nutritional value, and there is danger of E-coli contamination. You can say that the industry is regulated all you want to, but with the cutting of funds, it really isn't, despite what the rules say on paper.
 
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.

Regulation would have stopped this from happening? Guaranteed? That is quite a silly claim.
 
If loose regulations in West Virginia are to blame for this spill, then you must also blame the Democrat governorship of that state who have been in power for the past 13 years.

Of course! If you're a Republican, blame the Democrats, and vice versa. That will fix things.

Or, we could ask ourselves just who approved having tanks of toxic chemicals on a river and just upstream from a drinking water facility.

Or, better yet, how many more tanks of toxic chemicals are located on or near waterways? Maybe the time to move them would be before there is another spill.
 
I strongly disagree. If you don't like regulations, and are in Congress, you gut the funding for it, and the regulations are effectively demolished. A case in point is the FDA, whose funds have been heavily gutted. The result? We get to eat fish that are raised on feces. Tilapia is pushed heavily in restaurant advertising now, but only 1.7 percent of tilapia is inspected, because the FDA no longer has the funds to properly inspect food. Most of our supply of tilapia comes from China, and tilapia ponds there have chicken coops above them. The chickens poop into the ponds, and that is what the tilapia eat. And that is essentially what WE eat, if we eat tilapia. As a result, the tilapia that comes to America from China has absolutely no nutritional value, and there is danger of E-coli contamination. You can say that the industry is regulated all you want to, but with the cutting of funds, it really isn't, despite what the rules say on paper.

What regulation wasn't enforced due to lack of funding? Your linked article doesn't even talk about regulation, nor does it show the title or quote you've linked, so I'm not sure where the "lack of regulation" or "lack of enforcement" claim came from.
 
There is a difference between regulating the market to rig it in order to decide winners and losers and regulating the market for the safety of its employees. Generally, Libertarians like to think "as long as it does not violate the rights or liberties of others it should not be regulated". Dumping unknown chemicals into a public area certainly falls under the category of taking away the liberty of others.
 
Dumping unknown chemicals into a public area certainly falls under the category of taking away the liberty of others.

It is currently legal to do this?
 
Of course! If you're a Republican, blame the Democrats, and vice versa. That will fix things.

Or, we could ask ourselves just who approved having tanks of toxic chemicals on a river and just upstream from a drinking water facility.

Or, better yet, how many more tanks of toxic chemicals are located on or near waterways? Maybe the time to move them would be before there is another spill.

It seems rather reckless to allow such chemicals stored where they could endanger waterways in the first place. Yet according to the article West Virginia's Environmental Protection Agency was well aware of the practice as they had been to the cite multiple times over the past few years. The governorship in West Virginia has been in control by Democrats for 13 years. It's the environmentalists that provided money, zeal and manpower to Democrats to get them elected. What is so ironic is the chemical that leaked into the river is used to treat coal to cut down on the ash by orders of the EPA as they have declared coal ash hazardous.
 
It seems rather reckless to allow such chemicals stored where they could endanger waterways in the first place. Yet according to the article West Virginia's Environmental Protection Agency was well aware of the practice as they had been to the cite multiple times over the past few years. The governorship in West Virginia has been in control by Democrats for 13 years. It's the environmentalists that provided money, zeal and manpower to Democrats to get them elected. What is so ironic is the chemical that leaked into the river is used to treat coal to cut down on the ash by orders of the EPA as they have declared coal ash hazardous.

Greetings, Vesper. Is now the time that we get to ask "Do you EPA people know what you're doing....please make up your minds!" :mrgreen: Unelected officials again making the rules that make the news....
 
Now that is vintage libertarianism.

Just remember, we're all in this world together, and what we do almost always affects others in some way. This chemical spill is a classic example of that.

BTW, while we're on this news topic: So much for "clean coal."

Clean Coal is an absurd term anyway. Even if we could burn it 100% cleanly, we still would be blowing entire mountains up to get it. Thats why I don't get the knee jerk reaction to natural gas fracking. Natural gas replaces coal, the worst case scenario in terms of environmental impacts for natural gas extraction has nothing on coal extraction. Getting off of coal would be the single best thing we could do for environmental protection.
 
I have trouble believing that the majority of today's libertarians and conservatives believe that.

Otherwise, our waters, skies, food, and so many other basic commodities would be much safer for humans.

It has to be in your face and indisputable like this before they'll even consider regulations most of the time. Most of them will not wake up until the damage to the Earth is obvious and horrifying (more so than it already is).
 
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