West Virginia

This crisis was set up when county commissions sold their water systems to private investors. Then treatment plants were closed in outlying areas in favor of a single plant with a single source at the Elk River in West Virginia's Chemical Valley. That's how 300,000 people came to be without water in an area that has plentiful supplies that are more reliable and of better quality than the one chosen by West Virginia American Water.

Consider the Putnam County and Boone/Raliegh Public Service Districts, which are community owned and operated. There were no problems in either of their areas and that's the way it would have been everywhere except Kanawha County if our water systems hadn't been privatized.