What makes this prosecution particularly senseless is that the Safe Drinking Water Act was adopted to prevent the pollution of water supplies, yet the evidence at trial convincingly demonstrated (and the trial judge so held) that the water King injected into his irrigation wells contained absolutely no contaminants.

FORBES: U.S. v. King: It��s Time for Some Prosecutorial Restraint

But the real fury was soon aimed at the central government, accused not just of early decisions that had spread the pollution much more widely than need be, but of having neither the will nor the equipment to prevent the oil reaching land, nor the real complaint to clean up when it did.

ECONOMIST: The Prestige oil spill