This guest post is from Angie Rosser, Executive Director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and a fellow Steering Committee member of the Choose Clean Water Coalition. --Kate Gibbons, northeast Pennsylvania outreach coordinator, PennFuture
I'm one of 300,000 West Virginians
who learned their water had been contaminated by a chemical leak just upstream
from the state's largest drinking-water intake. Predictably, politicians and
the public are clamoring for heads to roll -- most notably, those of managers at
the Freedom Industries plant responsible for the leak.
Freedom Industries should be held
accountable, but that won't fix the problem. That's because the Elk River spill
wasn't an isolated accident. It was the inevitable consequence of weak
regulatory enforcement over many years, made possible by our collective failure
to uphold the values we profess.
We all say we value clean water, so
why do we accept pollution as the status quo, as a byproduct of everyday life?
In public opinion polls, Americans routinely and overwhelmingly say it's the
job of government to ensure clean water. And yet, we continue to let elected
officials off the hook when it comes to clean water laws.
In this light, the Elk River leak
could be the future of many American cities -- a future in which systems
failures cause local catastrophic events, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill to
clean up after polluters.
Since the earliest days of the
chemical industry, it has been a major part of West Virginia's economy. We live
every day with the potential for toxic leaks into our waterways, knowing the
consequences can be devastating. We shouldn't have to live this way.
Since the passage of the Clean Water
Act in 1972, industry has worked diligently to weaken the law's enforcement and
oversight.
As director of an organization that
advocates for clean water, I regularly witness the audacious influence of
industry as it cajoles lawmakers and regulators to lower production costs by
lowering the bar on public health. I review the same data as the politicians do
on the risks to public health posed by weakening clean-water standards. But
when it comes to environmental stewardship, data and facts are no match for
industry's sway over government.
At times like these, I see the irony
of politicians scapegoating a company whose pollution is enabled by
government's failure to adequately regulate. We've allowed them to foster a
culture of neglect instead of one of oversight and accountability.
The Mountain State enjoys an
abundance of water but, year after year, we have seen access to clean water
diminish. Our water has paid the price for our legacy of mining, gas drilling,
coal-burning power plants, and chemical production. We have seen the steady
chipping away of our water quality standards to help reduce costs to big coal.
We have seen the injustices of people's right to clean water usurped by
industries. Indeed, there are parts of West Virginia that will never have
access to clean water, where industrial pollution has caused irreparable harm
to water supplies.
I hope the West Virginia water
crisis reminds us about how dependent we are on clean rivers for our health and
security. Now is the time to take a critical look at how to better protect our
water sources. We can do this only by acknowledging that the Elk River spill is
not a story about an isolated leak. This is about the need for systemic changes
in industrial practices, and our national responsibility to establish and
enforce adequate protections.
We need to look at ourselves and
remember our values. We need to be true to our relationship with water by
expanding our expectations of elected leaders. And industries and consumers
need to accept the costs of safer, more environmentally sound production of
certain goods and services. That's the price of clean water.
Clean water is essential for life.
It is also essential for our national and global security. I hope that once the
immediate crisis is over, serious thought will go into meaningful reforms and
investment in protecting the rivers and streams that are our lifeline.
Angie Rosser is executive director of the
West Virginia Rivers Coalition in Charleston, a statewide nonprofit
organization focused on water quality issues. She lives on the Elk River upstream
from the spill. In 2013, she was part of a successful effort to secure
endangered species status for the Elk River Diamond Darter, a fish found only
in the Elk.
