Three hundred thousand West Virginia residents were left without water for 6 days after 7,500 gallons of a coal cleaning chemical known as ‘Crude MCHM’ leaked into the Elk River. The spill took place a mile and a half upstream, from where parts of West Virginia get its drinking water. For more on this, we are joined by meteorologist Mark Thompson.

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David:  Mark  300,000 residents were told not to drink their tap water. Was this just a precautionary step?

Mark Thompson: Absolutely not. There’s actual video on YouTube of West Virginia residents getting water from the tap, and then literally setting it on fire. And by the way, boiling the tap water doesn’t make it any safer.

Elk River in West Virginia, the site of the recent chemical spill.

David: I would think boiling the tap water is even more dangerous. I’m not so sure you want it anywhere near a flame.

Mark Thompson: This is really serious; 700 people were reported sick. This stuff is also being found in the air, not just the water. This chemical release is widespread. The big thing about this chemical is that we don’t really know a lot about it. It was grandfathered into the original regulations governing toxic chemicals and their use.

David: This chemical, MCHM, which by the way is also my rap name, MCHM . . .

Mark Thompson: [laughs] I missed that album.

David: Yeah. MCHM is my rap name. Can I sue the manufacturers, just for copyright infringement? I’m kidding. This is . . .

Mark Thompson: Why not? They’ll be getting a lot of lawsuits in the meantime, why not add your name? The company is Liberty.

David: Okay. So this MCHM is used to clean coal?

Mark Thompson: That’s exactly right. It’s used to separate the stuff that’s usable fuel from the stuff’s that not.

David: Coal is dirty. We’re told natural gas is cleaner, but natural gas requires fracking, which involves pumping millions of gallons of chemicals into the ground. These chemicals are known carcinogens. The fracking industry assures us there’s nothing to worry about, because they do a ‘terrific job policing themselves.’ How good a job did the chemical industry in West Virginia do policing themselves?

Parts of West Virginia most impacted by the spill.

Mark Thompson: The chemical industry, the oil industry, the natural gas industry, none of them do a job at all, in terms of policing themselves. They use whatever chemicals they want for these toxic brews which separate the usable oil. And fracking, because you mentioned it, is an identical scenario to what’s going on right now in West Virginia. It’s a terrific parallel, because it’s another way in which chemicals we know nothing about are shot into the ground and then end up leaching into the tap water.

Sadly federal regulations are so relaxed, that the EPA doesn’t even require many of the fracking companies to reveal the substances that are mixed into the water that’s shot down to get that oil out of the ground.

David: Tell me about the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Mark Thompson: That is the main umbrella safety act designed to regulate the chemicals used, in all industry, really, but in this scenario in West Virginia. But it doesn’t even specify the use of this chemical, which is poisoning all these people. Meaning it first went into effect in the 70’s and MCHM was just grandfathered in with no vetting. So this ‘self-policing’ that’s suggested is a bankrupt notion. It doesn’t happen. There’s a toxic brew going down that is being watched and policed by no one.

David: MCHM was grandfathered in? Never vetted?

Mark Thompson: That’s correct.

300,000 residents were told not to drink their tap water, as well as wash their clothes or bathe in it.

David: Did the residents of West Virginia even know that that chemical was sitting there?

Mark Thompson:  Well, I think they’re two things they didn’t know. First of all, they didn’t know how dangerous MCHM is because there’s little or no safety data on it. And number two, did anyone ever say, ‘Oh, by the way, all of your water could be contaminated, should this ever get into the water supply.’ I mean, had residents known that, would they have been okay with it? If you know and must use this chemical, and I suggest that it shouldn’t be used at all, but if it must be used in this horribly dirty process of getting coal energy out of the ground and cleaned, well then at lease provide for safety measures such that those chemicals don’t contaminate water supplies.

David: Republicans repeatedly say they want to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency. If the Environmental Protection Agency were eliminated, who from the government would be looking into the effects of these chemicals?

Mark Thompson: Exactly. I mean, the Environmental Protection Agency has already been gutted, and Barrack Obama, even as a democrat, because you talk about the republicans, certainly both parties are dismantling those programs. And they’ve already done it quite effectively.

I mean, the Environmental Protection Agency is asleep at the switch. They have to provide evidence that the chemical can pose a risk to begin with, and they don’t have any safety data on it. So in other words, this chemical was grandfathered in. They are closing the barn door after the horses are out. This Toxic Substances Control Act has to be overhauled. It has to provide information about these chemicals that are used in so many different dirty energy operations, because you’re going to see more and more of this.

And by the way, you’re already seeing more and more of it.  Arkansas residents are still suffering from the situation involving that tar sands spill that happened over the summer. That just happened. Only a few weeks ago, in North Dakota, 400,000 gallons of crude oil spilled during that train crash. And after it spilled, it exploded. It sent a toxic plume into the sky. They had to evacuate 1,400 residents because of the health threat.

So this self-policing energy policy that we have, the presumption that any of these companies are going to self-police is ridiculous. And unfortunately, we’re seeing the disastrous results played out month after month.

David:  Mark Thompson, thank you for joining us.

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• Dennis Rodman checked himself into rehab Wednesday.
• Less than a week after returning home from his fourth trip to North Korea.
• Agent says Rodman will be in alcohol treatment facility for one month.
• Rodman and agent still refuse to apologize for “basketball diplomacy.”
• Sobriety may not be the only hurdle the 52-year-old basketball legend faces.
• Today’s guest Hayes Brown says charity Rodman claimed to be playing for  in North Korea may not even exist.

Dennis Rodman has checked himself into rehab less than one week after returning from North Korea. Hayes Brown from ThinkProgress.org says Rodman may have misled us about the charity he was reportedly playing for

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Dennis Rodman makes his fourth trip to North Korea to play in what he calls a ‘charity basketball game’ raising money for North Korea’s deaf.  Not so, says Hayes Brown, who is a national security reporter for ThinkProgress.org. He joins us from Washington, D.C.

David: Today, you’re reporting over at ThinkProgress.org that Rodman’s agent and the sponsor of his trip know nothing about this charity for the deaf?

Hayes: That is correct. So, Rodman, when he first landed in North Korea, they told the Associated Press that the proceeds from this game, whatever those might be, will be going to a North Korean charity for the deaf. When I reached out to Paddy Power, the sponsor of the event, they directed me to Rodman’s agent. Then Rodman’s agents still didn’t give me any information about this charity.

Dennis Rodman checked into rehab last Wednesday, less than a week after returning home from North Korea.

David: Who is Paddy Power?

Hayes: Paddy Power is an Irish bookmaking website, actually. They’re online gambling, and they decided to sponsor this trip for Dennis Rodman and several former NBA players to go over and play a North Korean basketball team and get all the publicity that comes with it.

But I do know that Paddy Power is no longer interested in the Rodman name. It turns out, right before the New Year, they pulled their name from the sponsorship saying they don’t want to be associated with North Korea anymore. Instead, they are just paying for the trip due to the contractual obligations of the agreement they already agreed to with Rodman.

David: This is his fourth trip. Were the three previous trips for charity?

Hayes: None of them were for charity. The first one was with VICE magazine to go and do a cultural diplomacy sort of thing. At that point, he struck up a weird friendship with Kim Jong-Un, the leader of North Korea, and at that point, he decided to go back, to everyone’s surprise, and he met up with the dictator again. And then on his third trip, he was coaching the North Korean Olympic basketball team a little – I mean, it’s unclear exactly what he was doing at that stage. So on this fourth one, charity, that’s why it’s a little questionable.

David: How does North Korea treat its deaf?

Hayes: The parents of disabled children are forced to move from Pyongyang, the capital, because they want to present a perfect city. They’re sent off to isolation basically where they can’t be seen or heard from, and their medical infrastructure is in no way adequate to provide for the disabled.

David: We’re on Pacifica Radio. Pacifica’s mandate is to promote peaceful dialogue. Dennis Rodman going to North Korea falls under the purview of Pacifica’s mission statement. Isn’t this a good thing? Isn’t this the right thing to do for one of our own, to reach out to a potential enemy?

Hayes: You’d think so, if Kim Jong-Un had shown any sort of willingness to have peaceful dialogue, to give up its nuclear weapons, to treat humans with respect and dignity, none of which seemed to be the case. The prisons are still full, labor camps are still active, and there’s just still no sign of any sort of improvement on human rights from the North Koreans, one of the reasons why the claims of this being a charity game were met with such skepticism.

Rodman now says alcohol played a role in his calling the North Korean leader a friend.

David: Well, we know nothing about what’s going on in North Korea. There was a report that Kim Jong-Un last week fed his uncle to the dogs, and now we’re being told that just might be apocryphal.

Sending Dennis Rodman to North Korea, is it possible his real sponsor isn’t Paddy Power, but our intelligence agencies.

Hayes: I mean, anything is possible, but the U.S. government has been very vehement that Rodman has been acting as a private citizen. When questioned directly, they’ve said that they have not debriefed him on his trips. If they actually are the sponsor of Rodman going to North Korea, they are lying straight to the face of the media without blinking.

David: Yeah, because our intelligence agencies would never lie to us. The NSA…

Hayes: Paragons of honesty, those guys. But on this one, I’m pretty sure that Dennis Rodman is not the secret ambassador to North Korea.

David: It’s so bipolar, it just might work. I mean, it’s beyond crazy. No one would believe that Dennis Rodman was working for the NSA. But we know with certainty that North Korea is probably the worst of the worst, right?

According to our guest nobody is sure if Kim Jong Un is really running North Korea.

Hayes: I would agree with that. I mean, it’s not just the U.S. and its allies saying this. A United Nations investigator early this year said that he had not seen the sort of atrocities perpetrated in North Korea since the time of the Nazis. That’s not an American government official, that’s someone from the United Nations saying this. And we get all these horror stories out from the defectors who actually make it out, the ones who risk their lives to cross the border to leave North Korea.

David: How old is Kim Jong-Un?

Hayes: That’s a great question. No one is really sure. They think his birthday is Wednesday, but that’s a guess. So one of the things is that this game is supposedly kind of a birthday present for Kim the younger. I think he’s supposed to be in his late 20’s, like 28, maybe 29. That’s one of the things about North Korea, their isolation is so all-encompassing.

David: It would be great if the NSA could find out what’s going on in North Korea.

Hayes: They’re trying as hard as they can, but North Korea is just so hard to penetrate that it’s almost impossible to get information out, even with our top people on it.

David: Maybe they should take a break from spying on Americans and find out what’s going on in North Korea.

Hayes Brown covers national security issues for ThinkProgress.org.

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Should Americans be reaching out to the North Korean leadership? Join the conversation below.

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