An environmental disaster like this is tragic, but in a way it's better when it happens in a publicly visible way like this instead of silently poisoning thousands of people over many years. Events like this are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the externalized costs of coal. A Harvard study estimated that coal mining and use inflicts a public health burden to the Appalachian region of roughly $75 billion per year: http://solar.gwu.edu/index_files/Resources_files/epstein_ful... (page 91). That's more than the entire GDP of West Virginia.