The West Virginia Water Crisis Isn't a Fluke

The West Virginia water crisis is almost over. Gov. Earl Tomblin today lifted the ban on tap water for some parts of the state, saying that officials wanted to bring the system back on slowly to avoid a flood of excessive demand. But environmental activist Angie Rosser at the Epoch Times isn't ready to put the incident behind her. She's one of the people who've been without running water for the past five days, and she thinks it "wasn't an isolated incident."

"The Elk River spill could be the future of many American cities," she writes, because the kind of regulatory failings that caused it occur all over. Politicians are eager to scapegoat Freedom Industries, but that's hypocritical given the "audacious influence" she's seen the chemical industry exert on politicians, overcoming solid data about public health risks. Hopefully, this crisis is a wake-up call. "We all say we value clean water," she reasons, "so why do we accept pollution as the status quo?" Click for Rosser's full column.