Here in Charleston, West Virginia, we are an official federal disaster area. A coal-cleaning chemical spill into the Elk River has contaminated the water supply for much of nine counties, including the state capital, where I live. We are warned not to drink, cook with, wash dishes with, do laundry with, or bathe in our tap water. All restaurants, coffee shops (yes, even Starbucks), and many other businesses are closed. It’s scary in a dreamlike way, as I suppose all real disasters are.

Like many people, I’m furious at the chemical company that let the toxic chemical leak into the river, the water company that stalled about reporting the contamination, and especially the politicians who have sold this state’s citizens out, year after dreary year, to big extractive industries, meanwhile complaining about the EPA and calling President Obama a “job-killer.”

Deadly pollution is nothing new in West Virginia. For years…