Trust, Once Lost, ....

... is hard to regain. Sadly, this is a headline that can be used again and again (I used it first almost exactly four years ago, here).

As I noted in Monday's post, things are slowly starting to return to normal in the Charleston, W.Va., area, as clean water flows from most local taps.

But here's the headline that caught my eye in today's New York Times, over an article by Trip Gabriel: "Return to Normal in Parts of West Virginia is Marred by Distrust." Ya think?

Gabriel quotes numerous local residents, and "few were convinced that all was well, and an outside environmental scientist questioned the standards authorities were using." This, despite assurances from the governor, state health officials, and the water company.

There was a touch of gallows humor in some of the comments, which I enjoyed, but also a real sense of the pain and frustration that ordinary residents are feeling.

It doesn't help that the manufacturer of the chemical responsible for the water shutdown, through a spokesperson, said that "it was cooperating with authorities, but declined to make studies of the chemical’s effects public, calling them proprietary."

If it were your water supply that had been affected, wouldn't you want to know? Me too.