Environment: Could It Happen in West Virginia?

Institute's residents reflect on life with "that stuff"

Residents of West Virginia's Kanawha Valley complain about the putrid smell that sometimes hangs over the area, comparing it to the odor of dead rats and rotten cabbage. But to many locals the sulfurous aromas spewing from a dozen plants spread along a 30-mile section known locally as Chemical Valley are still "the smell of meat and potatoes." That is because these factories pay the wages of 10,000 people in a state that suffers the highest unemployment rate in the nation (16%). Says Bob Harbert, 36,...