Last Call For Orange Water

Of course House Speaker John Boehner wasn't planning on bringing up any legislation that might strengthen water regulations after last week's massive West Virginia coal chemical spill that contaminated the water for 300,000 people.  Why, that's just silly.

"We have enough regulations on the books. What the administration ought to be doing is their jobs," Boehner said at a weekly press conference on Capitol Hill. 

While Boehner said that somebody ought to be held accountable for the failure in oversight, the Speaker explained his party was focused on eliminating "cumbersome, over-the-top" regulations that were "costing the American people jobs." 

The site's tanks, owned by Freedom Industries, don't fall under an inspection program and the chemicals stored there weren't considered hazardous enough to require permits before they leaked into the Elk River nearby.

Huh.  The administration should be "doing their jobs" huh.

The site of a West Virginia chemical spill that contaminated the water supply for 300,000 people operated largely outside government oversight, highlighting gaps in regulations and prompting questions on whether local communities have a firm grasp on potential threats to drinking water. 

The storage facility owned by Freedom Industries Inc. on the banks of the Elk River was subject to almost no state and local monitoring, interviews and records show. The industrial chemical that leaked into the river, 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, isn't closely tracked by federal programs. A state regulator had said earlier that, before last week's spill, environmental inspectors hadn't visited the site since 1991. On Monday, the state said it had located another inspection from 2002 related to a remediation project done by the site's previous owner.

It's almost like Republicans are doing everything they can to weaken regulations and to starve the agencies supposedly in charge of oversight so that they can't do their job.  After all, inspections of underground tanks full of dangerous polluting chemicals (being stored near a river that provides drinking water to hundreds of thousands) occurring more than once every 20-25 years or so is burdensome on our poor corporate masters.

As far as the folks in West Virginia who still can't drink the water, well, America and Freedom.

Meanwhile, here in Cincy...

Cincinnati plans to shut down intake valves along the Ohio River to protect the city's drinking water from a chemical spill in West Virginia. 

Mayor John Cranley announced Monday that the valves will be shut down for at least 20 hours beginning Tuesday night. Cranley says that will allow the water to pass the city without any chemicals entering the drinking supply. 

The city plans to use a reserve of 60 hours of treated water, built up specially following the West Virginia spill.

So yes, this affects more than just the people of West Virginia, but people in multiple states.  Like Southwestern Ohio.  You know, where John Bohner's district is.  Perhaps Orange Julius should give a damn, as this is affecting his own constituents who live and work in Cincinnati and Dayton and get their water from the Ohio River.