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The discovery last week that a toxic chemical had spilled into the Elk River is the latest in the series of environmental disasters that have occurred in West Virginia in recent years. The immediate consequence of the spill is that 300,000 of the state’s residents are prevented from using tap water for drinking and bathing- for anything except flushing toilets. Schools have been forced to close; businesses are suffering because of the water-use restrictions. Tally it up: Damage to the environment, a threat to the population, and incalculable economic cost.

The idea that the water people drink is tainted is viscerally repugnant; but there is a issue here beyond the contamination of our water supply and it one that, in the abstract, relates to the financial crisis of 2008. I am referring to the absence of effective regulation. As with the banks in the 2000’s, there is apparently no cop on the beat. Just as the banks operated carte blanche and assumed imprudent risks, it seems clear that the industries that pose the greatest potential threat to the environment operate with a minimum of oversight. Freedom Industries, the owner of the storage tanks which were the source of the leak, is not subject to Department of Environmental Protection regulation because it stores chemicals and does not produce them. Statements from both government officials and citizens evince an ambivalence that is understandable in a state where the chemical and coal industries are the major sectors of the economy.

These are the situations that must, must be front and center when discussions of the degrees of government regulation of free market activities take place. Private interests will invariably argue for an unfettered hand to play in pursuing economic gain. It is the obligation of the rest of us- citizens and government- to ask ourselves this: What is the free market mechanism that protects us from having the single most precious commodity on Earth, water, poisoned in the name of avarice? And, while we’re asking, why is it that the public must, after dealing with the risks to their health and the useless despoiling of the world around them, assume the financial burden of cleaning up the mess?

Can I get a libertarian response to these questions?