legislature is doing? Are there some hearings you could post about here?
At the least, since the state granted companies permission to operate (and pollution is literally part of their operation). is it able to make these residents 'whole' under law?
I'm aware different factions in the state want these firms there. And that toxic substances are used regularly in the manufacture of many things in every state.
That's the hard reality in every nation, be they first world or third world. Or, if you will, every first world nation has a sacrifice area with conditions that are third world. Most people just let that fact flitter off their peripheral vision if they don't have to live right up close to it.
Having grown up not far from refineries, it's accepted that the air quality will not be like a wind blown prairie, and accidents will occur. The air stinks as buildings, vehicles and the lungs of people are damaged by the chemicals.
If a person moves to an allegedly pristine rural area, thinking they have escaped, a quick google of EPA incidents in their zip code will show they have not. If they move to an urban area and live in a gated area where they intend to be protected from all ugliness, they are still contributing to it with all their purchases.
Remembering that might tend to reduce place of origin or regional bigotry. WV was not always polluted. Environmentalists have said that the mountain top removal is destroying the ecosystem that existed and provided life for millions of years in the drive to supply modern society needs. We are all guilty.
WV has had a brutal history:
MATEWAN - The Battle of Blair Mountain
The movie has since been removed from
youtube, but here is the description:
The story of the miners strggle for decent working conditions back in 1920. Culminating in the Matewan Massacre.
It has a Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Matewan&printable=yes
Alan Grayson posted the story. It is worth reading, the emboldening is mine. It makes me cry just reading it:
The Second Civil War
This weekend marks the anniversary of the most brutal confrontation in the history of the American labor movement, the Battle of Blair Mountain. For one week during 1921, armed, striking coal miners battled scabs, a private militia, police officers and the US Army. 100 people died, 1,000 were arrested, and one million shots were fired. It was the largest armed rebellion in America since the Civil War.
This is how it happened. In the Twenties, West Virginia coal miners lived in “company towns.” The mining companies owned all the property. They literally ran union organizers out of town – or killed them.
In 1912, in a strike at Paint Creek, the mining company forced the striking miners and their families out of their homes, to live in tents. Then they sent armed goons into that tent city, and opened fire on men, women and children there with a machine gun.
By 1920, the United Mine Workers had organized the northern mines in West Virginia, but they were barred from the southern mines. When southern miners tried to join the union, they were fired and evicted. To show who was boss, one mining company tried to place machine guns on the roofs of buildings in town...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/125177543#op
I was a union steward in my work, and we had a lot of classes taught on the history of labor, in addition to what we got in public schools. But we were never taught the details of Matewan.
Those who don't know, might want to consider having such a thing in their state, having the pressure of the full power of the United States, ruling them and telling them to endure those conditions for the advancement of the nation.
And the demand for coal has never stopped. We might say WV is now, and has always been, occupied by hostile forces that don't mean it any good. And in the current world, we are in a more brutal push for resources than the world has ever seen.
There is discussion, a link to photographs taken by a DUer and many other details at another thread here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101751767
Sorry, I almost made an OP, but the situation in WV touches me deeply. It can happen anywhere.
JMHO...
= new reply since forum marked as read
) and government is practically useless to the citizens in this case. 
