My Open Letter to Natalie Tennant

On Thursday, January 9, 2014, residents of the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia learned that a chemical used to clean coal, 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (a.k.a., MCHM), had been spilled into the Elk River, upstream of a primary water supply.  The company responsible for the spill was Freedom Industries.  Many had suspected there was a problem all day in "Chemical Valley," as there was a notable licorice scent in the air, a scent we later learned was MCHM.  A strict "Do Not Use" order was sent from West Virginia American Water, effectively cutting water off for 300,000 people.  Schools were closed, restaurants and other businesses shut down, and medical procedures were postponed as we were told the water was only safe for flushing toilets.

I was unable to find an email address on the Secretary of State's website. I am publishing this letter openly and will share the link with her via Twitter.

Dear Madame Secretary:

I'm sure you do not remember me, but I have been an admirer of yours for years. I went to West Virginia University with you actually, and occasionally traveled with you during your tenure as the Mountaineer. I played with the basketball pep band, and I was immensely proud to see you serve as the first female mascot of our beloved Alma Mater. I continued to loosely follow you when you worked in broadcast journalism and when you began your political career. I've admired you and voted for you in the race for Secretary of State.

When you announced your candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated by Jay Rockefeller, I was hopeful. You have been a breath of fresh air, a departure from the "good ol' boy" politics that plague our state, and you seem committed to your principles. I looked forward to casting my ballot for you.

I live in the Kanawha Valley, on Charleston's West Side.  Like 300,000 of my fellow West Virginians, my water was contaminated with what we learned was something called Methylcyclohexanemethanol, a "foaming agent" used to clean coal. My water had the now-familiar licorice scent and I refrained from its use for weeks, finally using it to bathe and flush toilets, but not ingesting the water itself. To date, I am still using bottled water to drink, cook, and brush my teeth.

I do not work in the coal industry, though like many West Virginians, my family comes from coal.  My maternal grandparents lost their home during the Buffalo Creek Flood, my paternal grandfather lost a leg to the Winco Coal Company in the 1930s, and my father passed away just days ago from complications related to many ailments, including black lung disease.  He was a coal preparation plant foreman for many years, in fact, a "tipple boss."  I imagine he had regular contact with MCHM in the work that he did for several coal companies.

In the early days of the water crisis, you tweeted, "Today just showed again how when the worst hits West Virginia, the best in West Virginians come out. #ProudofWV #WVWaterCrisis."  I've heard this sort of thing my entire life.  West Virginians are a proud people, fiercely independent, etc., etc., etc., and they really shine the most during a crisis.

I will be frank: I think this is complete bullshit.

It's bullshit because it is a story that has been sold to us for over a century now, a story that tells us that it is our lot in life to suffer, to be the object rather than the subject, to be the victims rather than the actors in the story of our own lives. It's part of the Appalachian myth that imagines us as a band of noble Scots-Irish savages, with pure motives and a love of family and God above all things. It's sentimental and patronizing.

Nevertheless, I was willing to pass by this trite sentiment, expressed as it was when the crisis was fresh with us and when we were all seeking to encourage one another.

Then this week, President Obama delivered his State of the Union address.  I will be clear here, too: I'm not a great fan of the president. He's certainly not the worst executive we've had, but I take issue with much that his administration has done that has infringed upon our liberties. If you had spoken against his defense of the National Security Agency, federal persecution of whistleblowers like Bradley Manning, and the federal government's continuing use of cyber-security laws to imprison so-called "hacktivists," I would have applauded you. Loudly.

Instead, you said this: "If the president wants to promote opportunity, he needs to rethink his energy policies. The president is wrong on coal and I will fight him or anyone else who wants to take our coal jobs. At the height of our water crisis, no one could tell us how harmful the chemical was or what levels were safe. But the EPA has time to go after our coal jobs in West Virginia? That doesn't make sense."

In just a few sentences, you continued to propagate the nonsensical assertion that the president is waging a "War on Coal," and attacked the federal agency charged with regulating air and water. You did this in spite of knowing that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has primary responsibility for regulation of the state's water and that the EPA has been hamstrung in recent years by an anti-regulatory Congress, including four-fifths our own state's Congressional delegation.

I can only guess that you did this in hopes of increasing your chances of success in the race between the presumed Senate nominees: yourself and Ms. Capito. You know of our state's distrust of the federal government, their suspicion of our president, and the firmly held belief that without coal, West Virginia would cease to exist. Most importantly though, you pandered to potential fossil-fuel interests that you may need to bankroll your chances for a successful Senate race.

Like other prominent political voices in the state, you seem loathe to associate our recent water crisis with the dominance of the fossil fuel industry, in spite of the fact that both the chemical itself and the unregulated business environment created by the fossil fuel industry allowed this to happen. You continue to perpetuate a defense of an industry that has never treated West Virginians fairly, from the taking of mineral rights from unsuspecting farmers, to child labor, to unfair working conditions, to environmental hazards, right down to the lackadaisical safety attitudes at Upper Big Branch and the recent larceny by Patriot Coal.

There is no "War on Coal." According to the West Virginia Office of Mine Safety and Health, there were 119,568 coal jobs in 1950, leading to the production of 145,563,295 tons of coal. In 2012, there were 53,934 coal jobs, leading to the production of 129,538,515 tons of coal. In other words, we now use about half the work force to mine about a tenth less coal. What could be the explanation? Is it the fault of President Obama? That seems unlikely, since according to the WVOMSH there has been an increase in coal-related jobs during his presidency, though coal production itself has slowed.

The answer is simple: automation. It takes fewer people to mine more coal from the ground. This is not the fault of President Obama, it's the natural result of the market and the development of technology. Likewise, increasing use of alternative cleaner energy sources around the world may explain the slight decline in coal usage in recent years.

The fact of the matter is this: coal companies are taking billions of dollars of minerals from West Virginia ground each year and sending the profits mostly out of state, while employing fewer and fewer West Virginians.

There is more to West Virginia than coal and gas. Our people are our greatest natural resource and we could become a center for wind and solar energy, technology, or even the arts. This will not happen while our state's leaders offer corporate welfare to the fossil fuel industry. Our elected leaders are not able to ensure clean water and air for our children because of their pandering to coal money. We stand idly by while polluting industries are deregulated and given tax breaks, while our schools are prevented from teaching climate change lest our corporate overlords be angered, while our economic opportunities are increasingly narrowed, and while we listen to our leaders tell us just how good we are in times of crisis.

I am sick and goddamned tired of listening to it.

So it is with regret that I tell you I will not be voting for you in your campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Some have told me that I am "wasting my vote" to cast it for someone who goes against the coal industry. I'm guessing that your tenure as Secretary of State has taught you the same and you're playing the odds. This saddens me more than you can know. I had hopes that you would serve us well.

Warmest regards,

John A. Deskins
Charleston

Daddy

Here's one of my father's favorite jokes:

This hotel chambermaid gets on the elevator with her cart full of cleaning supplies. After the doors close, she realizes she has to pass gas and decides to take advantage of the empty elevator to do so. The smell is awful and she sprays pine scent to cover it. To her horror, the doors open before she arrives at her floor. A drunk enters the elevator and immediately grimaces, saying, "Whew!!!" "What's wrong?" the maid asks. The drunk answers, "Smells like someone shit a Christmas tree!"

My father, Don Louie Deskins, Sr., probably did not learn that joke in classes he took during the semester he attended the University of Virginia.

He told me once that he took a train from Man, West Virginia, to Charlottesville to go to school. They assembled the freshman class for orientation and were addressed by the student body president, who informed them that while they were attending "Mr. Jefferson's University," they would dress with a white collared-shirt and and necktie, not in denim and flannel, "like some hillbilly." He looked around to discover that all of his classmates wore white shirts with neckties; he alone was clothed in denim and flannel.

He could be a dandy, though, especially for a farm boy who had grown up in Mingo and Logan counties in West Virginia.  I borrowed a pink cashmere sweater that he had once worn in high school. He told me he had to whip several members of the football team to wear that sweater.

He was born during the Depression, the fifth of seven living children of Robert Lee Deskins and Bertha Tate. They were Junior, Harold, Jack, Eldon, Daddy, and his sisters Awayn and Niawana.

He was the descendent of colorful characters, to be sure. His maternal grandfather, Colonel Fawsburg Tate, who was not a colonel but had been named for one, had been sheriff of Knott County, KY, and may have murdered a man. He married his wife, Sarah Ann, and fled her father's wrath by living on a Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma. Daddy's mother, Bertha, named her two daughters for childhood friends from that time.

Bertha loomed large in my father's imagination. Her husband had lost his leg after it was crushed between two coal cars when he worked at the company store for Winco Coal at Winco Block. He didn't lose it immediately, but eventually had to have it amputated. Such was his prowess with women, apparently, that he "took up" with a nurse at the hospital during his stay there. The story was told that Bertha dressed her children in their best clothes, packed their bags, and took them to the woman's house. "If you take my husband, these come with him," she said. The nurse declined the offer.

Lee, as he was called, died of a heart attack at the age of 41, when my father was just 10 years old.

Bertha did what any savvy woman of the period would have done, if she had mouths to feed. She remarried a man named Pat Moore who owned a furniture store in Man, West Virginia, and packed up the children who were still at home and moved from the farm in Mingo County.

My father loved music. I remember him singing always when I was a child: "Paper Doll," "In the Garden," "Why Don't You Love Me," and "The Little White Cloud That Sat Right Down and Cried," by Johnny Ray. He had joined the band when he began attending Man High School, first playing the alto horn (the "peck horn," they called it) and then a proper "French" horn. He told me he had never seen any instrument before then other than a fiddle or banjo, and the organ and piano at church. He recounted to me more than once playing the solo from a piece entitled "In a Persian Market." It came time for the concert and the boy who sat second chair behind my dad pretended he was playing, too. Daddy just quit playing and sat his instrument in his lap, letting everyone see who had really been playing the sounds they heard.

His mother had wanted him to go to school when he graduated, to become a doctor. The one semester at UVA was enough to disabuse his medical notions and he enrolled at West Virginia University to study mining engineering. Then came another war, this one in Korea, and Daddy enrolled in the Air Force. Yet instead of heading to Seoul, he was sent to Kaiserslautern, Germany, where he worked in radio and communications. He also capitalized on post-war German life, living off-base in a house he rented cheaply, hiring a German couple to cook and clean for him, dating German women, and going to Oktoberfest in Munich. He learned German, put on thirty pounds, was promoted (and perhaps demoted), and returned home.

He dated women back home, including one he was so serious about he became engaged to her. In fact, he was with this woman when he met Dora Leigh Bassham. She attended high school with his sister Niawana. He broke the engagement and began seeing the woman who eventually became my mother. The two went to Mother's senior prom one month and were married the next. She was 17; he was 25.

It was 1956 and they stayed married for the next 58 years, though God only knows how. My mother quit college when she got pregnant the first time and they raised five children together: Don, Jr., called "Dusty" by most of us; Mark; Sandy Jo; Sarah; and me. I'm the baby of the family, following my twin sister by five minutes. He used to tell people that he had five kids because he'd read that one in every six children born was Chinese, and he didn't want a Chinese baby. It's remarkable to me at times that the same two people raised all five of us. I love my siblings, but we all turned out differently. I half-expect to piss one or more of them off just by writing this.

My dad worked primarily in coal, eventually becoming a preparation plant foreman, a "tipple boss" in the common parlance, as in "he cusses like a tipple boss" (which Daddy did) and "he has an ass like a tipple boss" (which he did not). They moved from Logan County and refer to that exit as the children of Israel undoubtedly remembered the Exodus in the years that followed. They were awhile in Richwood and then landed in Herndon, in Wyoming County, where they lived when I was born.

They came to Raleigh County when my father took a job for Eastern Coal at Affinity. He built the house that I grew up in from the foundation up, taking my two older brothers each day after work and school to complete a portion of it. When the basement was finished, we all moved in, and the house became my father's project for the next 40 years. The kitchen was in the basement until just a few years ago, something that never struck me as odd but seemed to perplex others. He tiled one hall with slate he brought from work.

Once he moved to Raleigh County, he was loathe to leave, even for a short time. The phrase "a man's home is his castle," could well have been written about Daddy. He resented family for infrequent visits, yet rarely traveled to see them.

As a consequence, we took few vacations growing up. My father seemed to resent being bound by plans, even when he had made those plans himself. The two vacations I remember taking both began when he announced at dinner that we were to go pack: we would be leaving for the beach that night. We would arrive with no reservations and were likely to leave just as abruptly when he'd had his fill of the place.

Likewise, he was likely to promise trips to the swimming pool or shopping, only to change his mind as the day progressed. It was really maddening as a kid, but I understand that impulse more now.

To say my father was an imposing presence in the house would be a great understatement.

We never ate anything my father disliked, so the only time we had beef stroganoff, my mother's favorite meal, was when he was away.

He had smoked from age 8 and my childhood memories are filled with Kent cigarettes and King Edward cigars. I was burned by both on multiple occasions, quite unintentionally, while playing at his feet.

He taught us that education was the most important thing there was, but got angry that my mother bought so many books.

He wasn't great with money, though no one ever went hungry. His standard farewell when anyone left the house was, "Don't go off mad and hungry."  In my experience, children of the Depression tend toward ascetic frugality or extravagance, and my father was certainly of the latter camp. We drank Pepsi colas like they were water and we frequently ran shy on room under the Christmas tree, as it piled higher and higher with gifts. He would spend any extra money that came his way on steak and shrimp for everyone and he was generous, to a fault. There was real joy in his eyes over the years as he bought me saxophones and guitars and whatever else I came begging for. I'm not the only one who has needed and received his help as adult, either.

He worked second shift when I was small and then took a job in Pike County, Kentucky, that kept him away during the week. As a consequence, I didn't know him well as a small child and probably lived mostly in fear of him for a long time.

He could be a very angry man and his physical presence was intimidating. When I was bullied in junior high school, he thought nothing of calling the bully's dad and threatening to kick his ass. He also sent me to school with a "monkey fist" — a steel ball bearing wrapped in rope.

He took a great interest in my drug education program. He called me to the living room one day where he sat in his recliner. He told me I was likely to see "dope," his word for all drugs, at school. Then he asked, "You know I'd break your goddamn neck if I ever caught you doing that shit, don't you?" I never tested the veracity of this statement.

He was a lifelong Republican, though rarely showed favor toward any sitting politician. While he certainly was conservative, I think he was more of an iconoclast than anything. The state, and certainly southern West Virginia, has always voted Democrat, and a Republican in Logan County might as well have been a Whig or Know-Nothing. He owned guns, but thought that there should be limits on caliber and magazine sizes that were sold. He thought it should be illegal to burn the American flag, but was opposed to both invasions of Iraq. He watched Bill O'Reilly but thought creationism shouldn't be taught in school.

Daddy was one of the most irreligious people I know. He certainly wasn't an atheist. He'd grown up Methodist and "back-slidden," as they say. We spent a good deal of my childhood praying for Daddy to get saved, and he landed on the prayer lists of a dozen churches or more. I suppose all of Daniels Missionary Baptist Church knew he was going to Hell for about a ten-year period. He had a conversion experience of some sort when I was in high school, though the effects seemed to wear off in time. He'd been a Freemason, though was not active during my life, so I suppose he was a believer of some sort, probably of the Thomas-Jefferson/Egyptian-Illuminati/Benign-Hallmark-Greeting-Card-Deity type.

He did love the celebration of Christmas, primarily because he got to see his family.  When asked what he wanted, his standard reply was, "Seven smiling faces."  That number increased as the family grew.  He also read a poem every year called "Annie and Willie's Prayer," a story about a cold-hearted millionaire whose heart is changed at Christmas.  In recent years, there wasn't a dry eye in the house when he read it.

Part of his aversion to religion undoubtedly stemmed from his love of science, though in this, as in all areas, he has a rather mixed legacy. On the one hand, he firmly believed in a 13.7 billion-year-old universe and that human beings evolved from lower life forms. On the other, he held that aliens had built the pyramids and that the ancient civilization of Atlantis had been destroyed with a nuclear weapon. He would deny being superstitious, yet he refused to give or accept knives as gifts and would return a borrowed blade opened, so as not to severe a friendship.

If Daddy believed in sin, he thought the worst one was not working for a living. He despised those who failed to support their families and thought government entitlement was a plague in Appalachia. To my knowledge, he never missed a day at work. He valued himself largely — too much so, in fact — by the work he did.

He said he hated cats and shot at them with a BB gun, though he never seemed to hit one. He also kept a slingshot on the porch that he used to shoot at bluejays, but only because they chased away other birds. He claimed to hate the dogs we kept as pets, too, thought the first time I saw him crying while sober was when he had to put down our schnauzer, Pepper, after the animal was hit by a car.

He was a near-reckless driver.  I've ridden in the car with him when his speed exceeded 95 m.p.h. and seen him outrun police cars to avoid a ticket.  He managed to succeed in this until his old age began to diminish his eyesight, and he wasn't as good at spotting Smoky hidden in the bushes.

It was hard to know what to believe that he told you, not because he lied exactly, but because he was larger-than-life at times. Some of it was poor memory, some of it exaggeration, and some of it might be true.

He said our first ancestor with the Deskins' surname was an Indian baby who was called "Deer Skins," after being wrapped in such and left on a white family's doorstep.

He said he was named for Don Chafin, the villain of the Battle of Blair Mountain, and that Chafin had bought him a suit when he graduated high school. He said his middle named was taken from the song "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis," though the attending nurse misspelled it L-O-U-I-E on his birth certificate. He also said he was born at home because he wanted to be close to his mother.

He said he circumcised himself when he was a teenager.

He loved children and was uncanny with babies. When I brought my son Griffin Louis (spelled correctly this time and middle-named for both his grandfather and Louis Armstrong) home from the hospital, he was passed crying from one set of arms to another, but hushed the moment Daddy held him.

He was flawed, like all of us. Some of his flaws I can talk about and others I can't, partly because they are too hurtful to those left behind and partly because I do not know the statue of limitations on certain acts and don't wish to incriminate friends and family. I don't believe in sentimentalizing someone's life, but I'd prefer to stop at inflicting pain on the living.

He drank. At times he drank a lot. He wasn't an alcoholic, because he'd never been to one of those meetings. I've seen him wax nostalgically, spew vitriol, go driving, and abuse others while under the influence. He drank primarily cheap vodka, imagining that the smell was undetectable. He kept bottles under his recliner, in the garage, and behind the seat in his pick-up truck, but I probably only saw him take a drink two or three times in my life. I have seen him passed out in the floor, however, and I've also seen the blue lights of a police car in my parents' driveway.

He was a racist. Of every piece of my father's legacy, this one troubles me more than all the rest put together. He wasn't actively racist, I don't guess. He wasn't a Klansman or anything, though perhaps that was because he wasn't much of a joiner. He watched All in Family faithfully every week and failed to note the irony which the show intended. He even occasionally called himself "Archie Bunker." He used the word "nigger" casually, and the newsworthy misdeeds of any person of color were attributed to race.

Yet, I've never seen him be unkind to any African-American person. He was always warm and genuinely friendly to black friends of mine and never said an unkind word about them. I papered my bedroom walls with posters of black faces growing up, from Prince to John Coltrane, and he never protested. Perhaps he remembered hiding Nat Cole and B.B. King records from his own intolerant mother. He was also very supportive when I went to Africa during college and listened to me talk for long periods about the importance of the African experience in American music.

I've engaged in many long arguments with him about this topic and I'd like to be able to say that he was a changed man. He wasn't though. He was a complicated man who probably grew over the years in this area. It would be too easy to say he was a "product of his time." Racism exists at all times and that's just an excuse. Yet it was certainly not his defining trait.

If someone asked what that was, I'd say, "Being a Deskins." In our family, that's shorthand for thinking for yourself, being hard-headed, and doing your own thing in spite of public sentiment or the wishes of others.

When I was little, I remember Daddy telling me that if I was walking behind a group of a hundred people and the road split in two, and 99 went one way and one person went the other — follow that one person.

It hasn't always served me well, but I suppose I am likely to pass the same advice to my son. I'm certainly not "brave" in any conventional sense. I don't go thrill-seeking or volunteer for dangerous work. On the other hand, I'm not afraid of bucking convention, of being my own person, and of thinking for myself. I suppose that is Daddy's greatest legacy to me.

The first time he seemed small to me was just three years ago.

My mom had called my up and asked if I could drive him to Haymarket, Virginia. He'd purchased a wheelchair on eBay but the shipping would cost more than the chair itself. "What's wrong with his chair?" I asked. "Nothing. He just saw one that was like his on sale for $500 less on eBay." "Is he going to sell his?" "No, I don't think so." There are about eight powered wheelchairs at their house right now because of this logic.

The trip began very warmly. I was going through a difficult personal time and wasn't in the mood for any argument. I told my mom that if he said a word about my tattoos, I'd turn the car around and leave him in Raleigh County. Instead, he began recounting his own childhood, friends he'd known, and changes he'd seen in his life that he could never have anticipated. It was exactly the sort of thing I needed to hear to clear my mind and think about my own life.

Then about an hour in, he said, "One thing we'd never have imagined was that we'd have a Muslim for president." Ugh. That quickly, all the warm-fuzzies evaporated. I told him that President Obama wasn't a Muslim, he was a Christian, and that it didn't matter anyway, because the Constitution didn't say we couldn't have a Muslim president, and since when did he get religious anyway, and if he was religious he would know that Augustine distinguished between the "city of man" and the "city of God" and that Luther wrote it was better to be ruled by "an honest Turk than a dishonest Christian." Daddy countered by quoting Fox News. It was a long drive.

We picked up the chair at an elderly woman's condo. She lived alone, no one came to see her, her kids lived far away, and she needed the money. She was doing alright, but it was a sad place anyway.

On the way home, Daddy asked to stop at a restroom. I pulled over at the first rest area, parking in the handicap spot. He surveyed it and said, "Let's go to the next." I was puzzled. "Why?" "Because I can't make it to the door without the wheelchair." The distance was about 200 feet.

In that moment, I realized just how frail this man was that I had feared all my life.

I used to joke with friends that Daddy was too mean to die.  I was wrong.

Don Louie Deskins, Sr., died peacefully in his sleep on January 27, 2014 around 1 AM.  

He smoked, drank, worked in the mines, and lived an all-around hard life. He had suffered three heart attacks and had quadruple bypass surgery. He spent his last few years using a wheelchair and an oxygen tank.

I am now 41, the same age his father was when he passed away and the same age Daddy was when I was born. I've now become a father at 41 and Daddy was twice 41 — 82. I'm not sure of the significance of all that numerology, but it reminds me that we are all connected, for better or worse, and that we all belong to one another in some way.

My father was a very complex person. He was a bigot and he was big-hearted. He was tender and he was hard as nails. He was coarse and he was worldly. He was rational and he was illogical. He was mean-spirited and he was generous. He was strong and he was weak.

Whatever legacy he has lives on most in the family he has left behind. We love you, Daddy, very much, and will miss you.

10 Questions West Virginians Should Be Asking About the Water Crisis

On Thursday, January 9, 2014, residents of the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia learned that a chemical used to clean coal, 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (a.k.a., MCHM), had been spilled into the Elk River, upstream of a primary water supply.  The company responsible for the spill was Freedom Industries.  Many had suspected there was a problem all day in "Chemical Valley," as there was a notable licorice scent in the air, a scent we later learned was MCHM.  A strict "Do Not Use" order was sent from West Virginia American Water, effectively cutting water off for 300,000 people.  Schools were closed, restaurants and other businesses shut down, and medical procedures were postponed as we were told the water was only safe for flushing toilets.

In my opinion, every West Virginian should be asking our leadership these questions:

1. Why are MCHM and other chemical agents produced in the Kanawha Valley unregulated by state or federal code?  After multiple chemical spills in the valley, why has the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act not been reformed to protect us from these substances?
2. Why is virtually nothing known about the toxicity of MCHM?  How can we be sure that 1 ppm is a safe level for use?  Who provided that information?  What tests were conducted?
3. Why has Tomblin's DEP (and Manchin's before him) not been strengthened to protect our water sources?  How is it possible that this plant was last inspected in 1991?
4. Why has Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's sole action been to warn against water price-gouging?  Why has he not acted against Freedom Industries on behalf of West Virginia citizens?
5. Why is it that Senator Joe Manchin, Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, and Governor Earl Ray Tomblin felt the need to immediately spin the disaster as not in any way related to coal?  How does that even make sense, given the fact that MCHM is used in the cleaning of coal?
6. Why do Sen. Manchin and Rep. Capito continue to attack the regulatory power of the EPA, even in light of these events?
7. Why do 300,000 people in a rural state like West Virginia rely on a single water source?  Is it related to the fact that local water tables have been polluted by coal slurry?  
8. How has the privatization of our water affected the water quality, and can we expect this trend to continue?
9. Why was Freedom Industries allowed to file chapter 11 protection and be repurchased by the same owners under the guise of Mountaineer Funding, LLC, a newly-created entity that did not exist until the date of the filing?
10. What did any of West Virginia's elected leaders do prior to January 9th to prevent this crisis from happening?

My Letter to Congress

On Thursday, January 9, 2014, residents of the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia learned that a chemical used to clean coal, 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (a.k.a., MCHM), had been spilled into the Elk River, upstream of a primary water supply.  The company responsible for the spill was Freedom Industries.  Many had suspected there was a problem all day in "Chemical Valley," as there was a notable licorice scent in the air, a scent we later learned was MCHM.  A strict "Do Not Use" order was sent from West Virginia American Water, effectively cutting water off for 300,000 people.  Schools were closed, restaurants and other businesses shut down, and medical procedures were postponed as we were told the water was only safe for flushing toilets.

This is my letter to my representative in the U.S. House, Shelley Moore Capito, regarding the event.


Dear Ms. Capito:

I am one of your constituents currently on my fifth day without water in the Kanawha Valley. I am employed by a small family-owned music store, also without water, and work as a performing musician. I'm also a recent homeowner, having purchased a house on Charleston's West Side. I had planned to move my family into the residence this coming week, but this water emergency has delayed that.

I am sure you are aware of the considerable inconvenience the lack of water has caused your consituency: no drinking water, no showers, no water to do laundry, and all the rest. More troubling is the massive economic impact. There are thousands of food service workers, bartenders, hair stylists, tattooers, and others who will go without wages. In my own field, there are dozens of musicians I know who have lost gigs because the bars, restaurants, hotels, and private parties who employ them could not open. As is so often the case, disasters like this most impact those who are least able to absorb it. The worst hit, of course, are the elderly and infirm who are shut-in and unable to make it to water distribution sites.

Much has been made by our political leaders and the news media of how wonderful West Virginians are in a crisis. When faced with gross corporate irresponsibility, our leaders turn to these myths of the noble poor to quieten communal discord. Neighbor helping neighbor, relying on faith and family, sharing with one another . . . these are all wonderful things. Yet one begins to suspect that these stories are told to keep us from asking hard questions, questions like, "How is it possible that MCHM is an unregulated chemical?" and "Why don't we know and understand the toxicity of this substance?" and "Why is a chemical like this stored so close to a primary water source for thousands of West Virginians?" and "What have our leaders done to ensure we have clean water for ourselves and our children?"

I believe I know at least a portion of the answer to these questions.

I grew up in southern West Virginia and come from a family of West Virginians. My father and many others in my family have worked in the coal industry. One of my grandfathers lost a leg while working for Winco Coal Company. The other lost his house in Amherstdale during the Buffalo Creek Flood. For as long as I remember, friends and family have always said, "Coal feeds us," and, "Coal pays the bills." Coal keeps the lights on, right?

It's not just coal, of course. The gas industry has a similar grip on much of our state. Fossil-fuel and related industries have a hold on the imaginations of West Virginians -- and a hold on our elected leaders, too. No one is elected to state or federal office who isn't beholden to industry leaders. This, of course, is why you issued a press release, just hours before the chemical leak became public, reiterating your fighting stance against the EPA. Although the release was about greenhouse-gas emissions, it was ironic to say the least.

Clean water (and clean air) seem at the very heart of why we have any sort of government at all. If these are not the "blessings of liberty," it is difficult to imagine what are. If the average person -- not to mention the very weakest members of our society -- cannot be protected from industries who would sacrifice our health for profits, then what is the purpose of our government?

I would ask several things of you as my representative in Congress, some specific and some more general.

First, I would ask you to work for the reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act. One of the reasons there was so little information about MCHM is that it was grandfathered in by the original act in 1976. As it is now, we are relying on information provided by the developer of the chemical, trusting that it is accurate. This is unacceptable. I would ask that you not only require more strict regulation of MCHM, but of all potentially harmful substances. It is mere luck that the chemical that Freedom Industries leaked was not deadly. The possibilities are frightening.

Second, I would ask that you stop seeking to strip the EPA of its regulatory power. It is this agency that we rely on as Americans to help ensure clean water and air. As much as we may depend on the coal and gas industries in our state, that means nothing if we do not have air to breathe and water to drink.

Third, I would ask that you desist from contributing to the toxic political culture of our state. Big Coal and Big Gas OWN our politicians, both Democrat and Republican. Before worrying if you will offend a corporate contributor to your election campaign, I would ask that you think of the elderly shut-in who has poisoned water this week. Before you attack the EPA, please think about my two-month old son who will grow up in a world with alarming changes in climate and weather as a result of our carbon emissions -- something innumerable scientists have proven, even if those in Congress don't believe it.

West Virginians may be a noble people. I know too many of them to argue otherwise. But I also know that they can be goddamn ANGRY people when their friends and family are attacked, as they have been by Freedom Industries. I implore you to work for change in the way we prevent these disasters.


Thank you for your consideration.