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The reality is that the chemical is not a toxic substance/hazardous material. There’s no way to change the law unless you have the gazillions to start inspecting lots of other stuff nationwide. WV can’t pay people what they’re worth now. Good luck affording more of them.

While it was a mess, it wasn’t a catastrophe. If anything, I’d look at the water company who didn’t know the stuff had bypassed their carbon filters. That may be an issue nationwide. If I was a terrorist that would be my take away from the incident. The water treatment plant is the weak point.

Inspect everything you want as far as chemical storage, but until every water treatment plant is instrumented to know they’ve been attacked either deliberately or accidentaly, we’re vulnerable.

If anything, I’d look at the water company who didn’t know the stuff had bypassed their carbon filters.

Most water plants would be able to handle a chemical spill. Not all water plants even have carbon filters and most water plants are only secondary systems, not tertiary. Plus as you noted the chemical is not considered hazardous, so there is no reason the water plant would even be screening/filtering for it.

Activated carbon (AC) is generally used in water treatment for removing free chlorine and / or organic compounds. Removal of organics from potable water could be to prevent common organic acids such as humic or fulvic from reacting with chlorine to form trihalomethanes (a class of known carcinogens) or, to treat waste water to remove any number of organic compounds to make the water suitable for discharge. Similar to other types of water treatment, however, AC filtration is effective for some contaminants and not effective for others. AC filtration does not remove microbes, sodium, nitrates, fluoride, and hardness. Lead and other heavy metals are removed only by a very specific type of activated carbon water treatment and this would typically only be feasible for point-of-use household filters. Activated Carbon Filters

I'd challenge the “not toxic” designation. I don't buy into the suggestion that this material is benign or that the river is a sewer anyway, as another poster put it.

I mined coal in my younger years. We improved the land by surface mining the coal.

Conservatives shouldn't identify with despoiling the environment.