Not to take away from the broader point (I think the EPA and like organisations are very important), but would Workman not have recourse through other means (e.g. under nuisance)?
Recourse after the fact will move some amount of dollars from one bank account to another, but it won't restore destroyed environments and ruined health. Life is hard to replace, money isn't.
We have a vast history of negative experience - your experiment was performed historically, and failed. Regulations didn't just appear - they arrived often because of often vast weaknesses or failures in our systems; whether moral, ethical, physical, or judicial. I lived then and things had gotten bad and individuals suing (for nuisance) was not practical - it literally took the power of a government to force change upon those both innocent and guilty.
Legal recourse for a small homeowner against a large corporation is/was not a likely solution. BigCo has so many lawyers just for this type of contingency, and the homeowner lacks the financial resources to fight. Erin Brockovich was a real person, but her story was made into a movie because it was so rare.