West Virginia Chemical Spill leaves 300,000 without water

These fuckin guys...

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"Federal authorities, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, began investigating how the foaming agent escaped from the Freedom Industries plant and seeped into the Elk River. Just how much of the chemical leaked into the river was not yet known."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/11/261607496/hundreds-of-thousands-still-without-water-in-w-va?sc=17&f=1001

FRACK EVERYTHING IN SIGHT! QUICK BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE\

edit: actually should be frack everything *not* in sight

I drink and shower with bottled water.

^ Good for you, asshole.

"Freedom Industries"

Freedom Industries? Lol really?

"Freedom Industries"

Orwell's relevance is proven on like a hourly basis in this world.

pssh this never would have happened if the coal industry was deregulated!

  On 1/11/2014 at 11:11 PM, vamos scorcho said:

I drink and shower with bottled water.

And the bottled water thread gets new converts.

yay bottled wa-oh. nevermind.

That happened when we had the brisbane floods. At the time we were going for our normal shop and usually get lots of mineral water and big containers of pure still water, and we wer confronted by empty shelves like that. We did manage to get a fair bit though, and a snippy couple that was walking past my brother and i commented loudly about how we were panic buying, when in fact all we were doing was getting what we always get, sigh.

yeah sigh indeed, I'm sure those people who didn't get any water after you felt your pain, lol

I could'ave sworn West VA sent all their water to Colorado in exchange for painkillers.

^ Thanks for that comment, I ended up watching the Bill Moyers interview w/ Hedges last night because I haven't read "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt" and Hedges is clearly passionate about this subject. Might have to buy that book.

I actually just came here to post this, though:

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Freedom Industries, the company whose chemical spill is responsible for the contamination of much of the Kanawha Valley's water, has existed in its current form for less than two weeks.

On the last day of 2013, Freedom Industries, which distributes chemicals used in coal mining, merged with three other companies: Etowah River Terminal, Poca Blending and Crete Technologies, a Delaware company.

...Details are still scant about Farrell and the company's two founders, but some details about the men, Southern and Carl L. Kennedy II, are known.

Freedom Industries was founded in 1992 by Southern and Kennedy, according to filings with the West Virginia secretary of state.

Kennedy is still listed as "incorporator" on the secretary of state's website, but a woman who answered the phone at Freedom Industries said he left the company "years ago."

In 2005, federal prosecutors charged Kennedy with failing to pay more than $200,000 in income taxes, according to reports at the time. In 1987, he pleaded guilty to selling between 10 and 12 ounces of cocaine, according to reports.

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201401100119

same thing reported on businessweek:

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State records in West Virginia show that a man named Carl L. Kennedy II joined Gary Southern in forming the company years ago. A well-known restaurant owner and man-about-town in Charleston, according to the Gazette, Kennedy is a twice-convicted felon. The paper reported on Sunday that he pleaded guilty in federal court in West Virginia in 2005 to tax evasion and was sentenced to three years in prison, a penalty that was reduced after he agreed to wear a wire and make controlled cocaine buys in a separate investigation. Kennedy had some background in the cocaine field; in 1987 he “pleaded guilty to selling between 10 and 12 ounces of cocaine in connection with a scandal that toppled then-Charleston Mayor Mike Roark,” the Gazette explained.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-13/meet-freedom-industries-the-company-behind-the-west-virginia-spill

The top commenter on the businessweek article remarked,

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Who would've thought that a couple of failed cokehead sports bar owners were bad stewards of the environment?