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(MORE: Keeping Kids and Chemicals Apart)










The Elk River leads to the Ohio River, which leads to the Mississippi River, which leads to the Gulf of Mexico, which leads to te Atlantic Ocean, which goes everywhere.


U.S. Navy lab at Norfolk, VA, reports safe level for West Virginia MCHM at 0.057 PPM. That is diluted in water.

First off, that is not detectable by smell or taste. Second, WV has no official setup for testing samples. There is not a dime going there as of this afternoon. Third, as should be obvious with a public program that stresses "flushing pipes" there is no understanding among WV public officials of what is required to shut off water at a house, empty a residential pipe system, then refill when clean water is available. And then test.

They have forgotten Minimata, Japan, and the catastrophe of the 1960s and 1970s. They have forgotten W.E. Smith's photographs. They do not know Tomoko Uemura. Her spirit, blind and deaf and torn inside, is stirring in her jar.


Excellent article by Bryan Walsh on chemical safety in America.  " ...when new chemicals are introduced, the EPA has only a 90-day window to review it and tell the manufacturer how it will be regulated. 90 days isn’t much time, especially with hundreds of new chemicals being introduced each year. If the EPA doesn’t act in time, companies are free to use the chemical. In the U.S., industrial chemicals are innocent until proven guilty—and few cases go to trial."    Now, contrast that shocking bit of information with the amount of time, money and research that goes into getting a new drug into the marketplace and one will begin to understand the total lack of regulation in the chemical industry in America.  Basically, it is like saying if you want to claim a chemical has "healing" powers then you have to prove it but if you want to sell a chemical that may have "killing" powers.... go ahead.

Read more: West Virginia Chemical Spill: Danger to People Unknown |


People should remember John Boehner's comment that we have enough regulations on the books now.  We don't need anymore, he said.  Well, he and  tea party conservatives vote every time to do away with regulations besides stopping any new ones that the administration wants.  Also they cut funding to these agencies so they can't hire inspectors.  The people suffer as a result these industries don't self regulate and don't do any more than they can get by with.  You have to have strong laws and enforce them religiously.


The use of ever greater numbers of highly toxic and long-lived chemicals is having a long-term detrimental impact on the environment.  As shown here, many newborns are already contaminated with relatively high levels of carcinogenic chemicals that have obviously passed through the placental barrier:

What is of even greater concern is the fact that the use of many of these chemicals was discontinued years ago.


Fareed Zakaria in his article in "Time""The New Oil and Gas Boom" writes:"The Oscar-nominated documentary GasLand suggests that unlocked gas could burst out of people's taps, allegedly because of fracking. These charges are important, but they need more thorough investigation. Gas could end up in water pipes for a variety of reasons unrelated to fracking."

In February 2012, Joshua Fox, director of the Oscar-nominated "Gasland" documentary about the environmental dangers of hydraulic fracturing, a controversial method used in the mining industry, was arrested trying to film a hearing of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Science on the use of that method. Capitol police later charged him with "illegal entry" on the ground that he was not accredited to the House. Lawmakers had previously denied the ABC and Fox TV channels their right to film the hearings.

The Oscar-nominated documentary «GasLand»