Amy Gahran's Profile

In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.

However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene.

The Times included in its story on posted on its Web site a partial response from Randy Huffman, Gov. Joe Manchin’s environmental protection secretary. The most interesting part was this:

It is important to note that if the close scrutiny given to our state had been given to others, it is likely that similar issues would have been found.

In fact, a chart that was included in the print edition (I couldn’t find it online) showed that West Virginia ranked 10th in the nation in terms of enforcement actions issued per 100 facilities out of compliance, with 28.

Though generally recognized today as being one of the city's most distinctive buildings, in the early 1980s, the Floral Depot was under threat of demolition because it stood in the way of a proposed shopping center. The building's owners at the time objected to landmark status proposed by preservationists, and succeeded in having the matter permanently shelved.

Though it may seem unlikely that city leaders would allow a developer to pull down the depot building, under the rules proposed for review at Tuesday's meeting, it could conceivably happen.