Wow, I was under the impression that the Flint situation was primarily driven by bad policy put in place by people who didn't really know what they were doing, but it seems like there was a lot more nefarious action than that.
What they aren't saying is why Flint switched its supply: the Detroit system drastically raised its fees to Flint (the switch saved $19 million over the first 8 years alone), and Flint was broke as it is. The city council vote to switch was 7-1, with 6 Democrats voting "yes".
Many articles try to imply that the lead came from the new water supplier; in fact, it leached from lead pipes the existing system used as its water mains.
Yes, despite all these years of knowing the dangers of lead, neither Flint nor Detroit made any attempt to clear lead from their water delivery systems, and EPA rules allowed testing to be based on long periods of letting taps run to clear as many contaminants as possible first.
And switching back to Detroit water doesn't solve the lead problem in the mains, although it may be less acute.
Don't know much about the Flint situation. But if everything you said is true... Why... on Earth... would the supposedly competent State authorities who took over, switch the water supply???
My understanding is that the entire reason the state "hacks" were in charge is because they were supposed to be more competent and less corrupt than the local government. The more I discover about this situation, the more I see that this was never the case. Some places are just corrupt and inept from top to bottom.
Replacing inept liberals with conservatives is a good idea... in THEORY. The problem is... the conservatives, apparently, are even more inept. The people in Michigan really need to clean house. Their governor and his cronies would be a good start. But I don't think I would stop there.
All that said... I can't really be talking too badly about the Michigan and its people. I'm from a small town in Wisconsin. And here we are embroiled in Heaven only knows how many scandals. It's not just Steven Avery and suddenly missing money. Here we have things going on FAR more troubling than that. I mean... at least in Michigan you guys have leaders who, presumably, INADVERTENTLY poison your kids. Here... (Lincoln Hills)... the leaders and their cronies were using the little boys they'd incarcerate for sexual gratification ON PURPOSE. Fully aware, and with full intent.
Wisconsin's scandals are kind of the reason that I don't throw stones at other states. I just thought the particular case of Flint was so egregious as to be "Wisconsin-esque" for lack of a better word.
I wish I could say... "Well... at least we aren't Michigan." But even in Michigan they probably don't have anything approaching that level of barbarity.
I guess I'm not really sure what Detroit thought would happen.
When you raise the rates on a bankrupt city, what did they think Flint would do? Go deeper into debt from another city that's already bankrupt as well? Or cut a bunch of corners and make do with the old, outdated system? Even GM stopped using the river water since it was so corrosive.
I'm not pinning this on Detroit since there were a host of failures along the way, but the raising of the fees essentially started the ball rolling.
It's worth noting that 'Detroit' didn't necessarily make this decision as much as the state-appointed emergency manager there did.. It's ugly times for many nearly-bankrupt cities as they look for new revenue sources from desperately poor populations. These EMs have wide mandates to cut costs and raise revenue without any real oversight, it's an absolute crises of democracy.
This article is a recap of "a detailed Rolling Stone article" which says:
"The transfer from Detroit to Flint water was just another bottom-line move. Flint was switching over in 2017 to a new pipeline that would serve the middle of the state with water from Lake Huron. (The city council cast a symbolic 7-1 vote in favor of the new pipeline. The state would later try to use this as a protective fig leaf to claim the city had approved drinking river water.) Detroit's emergency manager asked the state to intervene in the switch, and when that failed, the utility told the city of Flint that its contract would be terminated in one year. The problem then was what to do between 2014 and 2017. Snyder's Flint emergency managers – four cycled in and out like scrubs in an AAU hoops game – chose the Flint River rather than renegotiating with the petulant Detroit water utility."
Everyone puts a spin on things but your twisting the facts around just as badly. For example you claimed they "saved $19 mil" when in reality, the switch had the "potential to save" based on estimated increases in water cost over the next 8 years. Also that's not what the vote was for. Basically everything you said has some truth to it with details changed/omitted to make the governor look better/dems look worse.
The lead leaching is primarily from household pipes.
The awful color of the Flint water that gets shown is from iron that has leached out of the mains.
The reason switching back to Detroit water doesn't solve anything is because the chemical scale that normally keeps much plumbing material from leaching into the water was disrupted by the improperly treated river water (they could have adjusted the PH during treatment) and has not yet reformed. The Detroit water supply is not itself full of lead or whatever.
"And switching back to Detroit water doesn't solve the lead problem in the mains, although it may be less acute."
It does solve it. The Detroit water has lower chloride levels than the Flint River sourced water, so the lead in the service lines and solder won't leach above acceptable limits. There's lead in old mains and service lines everywhere in the country, particularly in lines put in place before the mid 20th century. And the cost to remove them in places like Flint is high because the frost line is so deep.
> The city council vote to switch was 7-1, with 6 Democrats voting "yes".
I don't know why you threw that bit in there but it's worth noting that the lone dissenting vote wanted to get ALL of the city's water from the Flint River, which wouldn't have helped anything. (and switching to 100% river water is what they ended up doing anyway, isn't it?)
> Many articles try to imply that the lead came from the new water supplier; in fact, it leached from lead pipes the existing system used as its water mains.
To be precise, the new, different chemistry of the water affected the existing lead pipes. The lead pipes were not leaching dangerous levels of lead prior to the switchover and there is no evidence they were in danger of doing so.
What they aren't saying is why Flint switched its supply: the Detroit system drastically raised its fees to Flint (the switch saved $19 million over the first 8 years alone), and Flint was broke as it is.
Detroit and Flint are both under management of the state government. So it strikes me that they are not really independent municipalities.
Many articles try to imply that the lead came from the new water supplier; in fact, it leached from lead pipes the existing system used as its water mains.
I haven't read any articles which say that. The consistent narrative has been that that the (drastically) increased lead levels by late 2014 resulted from an influx of corrosive agents into the municipal water system (perhaps exacerbated by a decision not to add anti-corrosive agents to counteract this effect).
I haven't read any source which claims the increased lead levels "came from the new water supplier." They all seem quite clear as to the basic cause-and-effect relationship, in fact.
The scary thing is some of the political hacks Snyder put in place in the DEQ are so used to being political hacks that it never occurred to them that deliberately biasing lead tests to come out low is, well, WRONG
the real distressing issue is that it is suspected that many cities are under reporting numbers inadvertently or purposefully through long term numbers games.
Governments are generally (but not always) staffed by people of questionable competence in the relevant fields, but once this incompetence is at risk of being revealed, the imperative is always to obfuscate.
Of all things to put in the hands of government, water seems among the worst. Of course, putting it in the hands of Nestle and other huge corporations is probably even worse. We need water anarchy.
Funny how well it works in most other places to put shared infrastructure in the hands of the public. Maybe this is not about principle, but about implementation?
It's largely about massive economic churn. The population of Flint shrunk by about 1/2 since 1960 (a good portion of the decrease has happened since 1990). The infrastructure and obligations entered into by a city of 175,000 are now being serviced by a city of 98,000. That would be hard to manage even if there were no mistakes made (and not fully funding pension programs at the time the employee is working is a massive mistake, leaving today's smaller population on the hook for yesterday's municipal services.).
Well, speaking as someone who has actually enforced the Clean Water Act while in service to the public as an officer in the Coast Guard, and having traveled the globe with an eye for maritime commerce and water quality as a whitewater enthusiast, I can say that the United States does a good job compared to most of the rest of the world.
'Shared infrastructure in the hands of the public' means government or regulated monopoly.
The local government, with greater pressure from local industry failed in this case, which in my reading, is an argument for greater federal control.
What other way to implement the granting of a special privilege, oversight and judgment, is there for something like water quality? Yelp?
Indeed. Any model can work. I think clean water is potentially more dangerous in the hands of private business who must make a profit, for the cost and safety issues born by forced customers. The case in Flint is, I hope, a relative anomaly.
I'm surprised Home Depot hasn't had a run on pitchforks and tiki torches.
We had water anarchy; it looked like huge polluters dumping into rivers and waterways, and the rest of us suffering (and still suffering, like the communities of Appalachia whose land will remain poisoned from past pollution for generations more). Notice how rivers don't generally catch on fire anymore since the Clean Water Act?
Sorry, what is your actual proposal and what does it do to prevent something like what's happening in Flint from happening, and/or how does it prevent large polluters from ruining sources of drinking water?
I think this is the best summary of the situation I've found
1) Flint’s elected leadership makes what is actually a solid, sound decision that will, in the long run, save the city millions of dollars and give it more control over its destiny – and, because it positions Flint as a wholesale supplier of water, possibly enhance revenues for them.
2) Detroit Water Board decides to be spoiled and pissy and leaves Flint with no good options for the two years before its pipeline is built.
3) Flint’s leadership and GOP-appointed EFM make a well-deliberated decision to draw water from the Flint River.
4) Flint’s water staff – the people in Flint who are the experts on this sort of thing – apparently aren’t up to the task. And the people they count on to oversee and help them …
5) The Michigan DEQ, is completely asleep at the switch. And once they discover their mistake, they lie about it and ask Flint to help them lie.
6) US EPA is aware of a problem, but apparently trusted the kids playing in the DEQ sandbox to fix things.
Most of the steps are understandable mistakes but Detroit's water board acted badly and I think some people in the Michigan DEQ need to face prosecution.
The narrative given by that article around Detroit's actions isn't very compelling to me. Just claiming that they "got pissy" and so forth doesn't make it so.
In fact, there appears to be some evidence to the contrary. There are articles which claim DWSD offered a substantially lower rate in order to retain Flint's business during negotiations [1] and that they agreed to waive the (sizable) re-activation fee [2] when Flint began to second guess their decision.
Besides, let's keep in mind that Detroit is also an aging, near bankrupt city with far more obligations than tax payers. Both Flint and Detroit have been (or were) taken over by governor appointed emergency managers. This is a tragedy and the appropriate heads should roll, but the blame should be assigned based on hard evidence.
Is anyone else saddened that it takes a personal mortgage by a passionate professor and his team to figure this out? And that even after they proved it, a GoFundMe campaign is the only way to recoup the funds?
With the agencies involved dragging their feet, was there no other way to get someone else involved? Is there a whistleblower fund like the SEC has: https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower that gives them a portion of the impact they had (10-30% for amounts over $1 MM in the SEC's case)?
The car factories in the area already knew the water was bad and could no longer use it for production lines because it was damaging paint.
It took this level of scientific study to confront the state government "deniers" that there was anything wrong, people had been showing them for months.
Why don't the car factories give some money to Virginia Tech then (or have commissioned the rigorous study themselves)? I'm assuming $150k is not a huge amount compared to shutting down an entire process at your factory (and especially if it financially impacts several businesses, not just one)?
Or along those lines, give them less of a massive write-off in taxes and allocate those taxes to properly funded daily testing of water around the city.
Or just use their taxes to keep paying for the Detroit water in the first place.
You think factories are in and around Flint because of the scenery? Or because of huge tax discounts?
I'm all for that - but in this case the government was asleep at the wheel. If that happens, is one of the only ways to (empirically) fight back the kindness of a single professor?
To keep this constructive, here are other options to have blown the whistle sooner (assuming the state and federal govts are not a willing party):
- Area residents call in the press with pictures, that forces the govt to change (which it didn't seem worked well here, even with those pictures)
- Find a single state representative (or several) who takes up the cause; get them to get some cash for an independent analysis
- A few area businesses get together when they start seeing financial issues from the water and fund an expert to come in (or area residents crowdfund for an expert with a GoFundMe-type campaign)
- Lawyers sensing a payday invest in an expert
- Call up the local university (or in this case, get the interest of a far off uni)
I'm hardly going to do a good brainstorm in an HN thread (especially without more reflection), but you get the idea. Assume the state and federal governments (executive branch) are not a willing party, what are a bunch of things you do to get an independent expert to run an empirically sound analysis sooner? (and without taking out a personal mortgage)
> but in this case the government was asleep at the wheel.
I like the ideas in your post. I think the above though is understated. The government was actually driving against traffic on a one way street. They didn't sleep, they plotted. What happened, suppressing lead data, was done specifically and on purpose.
Well, the GM engine plant had a small part of the property in another water district, so they just ran couple pipes and started buying the water from next door.
That's really not the problem that Flint had, it's quite possible to treat water so that it's potable and in fact the water leaving Flint's treatment plants was perfectly drinkable. The problem is that Flint hadn't operated it's own water supply for 40 years and the people in charge thought that having drinkable water leave their plant meant that their job was done. But really preventing the water from rusting the iron main pipes and dissolving lead from the distribution pipes requires another layers of work involving controlling pH and other stuff that wasn't being done.
It is, the technology to cheaply filter water on a massive scale exists across the US and is employed by various levels of government very effectively.
Only one of the "US governments" failed at purification - that of the state of Michigan.
The problem with water treatment is that maintenance is quite expensive. The water company I worked for replaced all of its filters every other year and opened up as many fire hydrants as they could in the spring to try to flush the entire pipe system (while switching from chloramines to free chlorine during this period). Then again, said water system also has the benefit of operating a system which was constructed almost entirely in the late 20th century.
Considering that maintenance ultimately boils down to looking at things that are currently working and throwing them away so they don't stop working, it's easy for a manager looking to cut costs to decide to try to avoid ("defer") maintenance and gamble that things don't break down.
Providing quality water is a solved problem, but only if you can count on the humans involved.
Hell, seven people died in Canada when the local purification plant was run by a couple incompetent brothers [1].
"The Walkerton Public Utilities Commission operators engaged in a host of improper operating practices, including failing to use adequate doses of chlorine, failing to monitor chlorine residuals daily, making false entries about residuals in daily operating records, and misstating the locations at which microbiological samples were taken."
Definitely should do that at some random locations across counties everywhere in the country. My county has many ground water monitoring stations but I think that those only check for water levels (I have a well)... not sure what they do for county provided water but many times a year I hear about water quality problems from residents that have county water. The county then flush the system to remove sediments from the pipes and I hear no complaints for a few months (on the city's Facebook page)...
They claim the professor and his students did 6000 hrs of work testing samples (that's an especially round number), which they valued at an average of $27.74/hr even though everyone was a volunteer and no one was asking to be paid. This is how they came up with an estimate of a labor value of $166,487 for this voluntary work for which no students who did the work were paid or asked to be paid.
It is extremely misleading and deceptive here to say that the professor spent $147,000 because he did not spend $147,000 at all. He spent 11200+3180+50 = $14,430 and he received 32843+200+500+200 = $33,743 in grants and fees he charged for speaking, for a surplus of $19,313.
Furthermore, the money being raised is going into an account supervised by the lead. It is not being used to pay the people who did the work for their time. This is especially outrageous that he is collecting money for their volunteer work and keeping it for his own use.
If basis of your claims is same article that has been posted here. it says here:
> $180,917 in expenses for sampling, water tests, laboratory supplies, and more.
This is the out of pocket expense they are talking about. It doesn't even involve the hours spent. So unless you can disapprove that sampling costs for water tests didn't cost $166,487 - we have little reason to trust your claim.
Regardless, lets say even if that $166,487 indeed includes their hourly rates for which no one was asked to be paid, their claim is justified. Heck no one asked them to do this in first place.
There is time and place to be cynical but I don't think this is the one. I personally can't applaud them enough for work them have done.
Headline: "Professor Marc Edwards Spent $147,000..."
fine print: "...a net deficit of $147,174, which Edwards covered with his own discretionary research and personal funds..."
So...how much research money was within his discretionary budget? It's a bit of a stretch to call that "his own funds".
He is essentially using his own money to do what the local and state governments should have done. His discretionary funds could have been used to buy equipment for his lab in order to help him get research grants. Instead, they were spent to do water testing in a different city and in a different state. He isn't going to receive any research grants or meaningful scientific publications out of this, which is essentially the job of a university professor. That's why it is portrayed as such a sacrifice.
Through no fault of your own, I believe you are misreading this key paragraph:
> That’s a net deficit of $147,174, which Edwards covered with his own discretionary research and personal funds. The Flint Water Study team of 25 students and research scientists also estimated their total donated labor at more than 6,000 hours, which they valued at over $165,000 based on the hourly rates of the team members.
So it was an estimated $165k in free labor on top of the rest of the costs. You are confused because their lab costs were $166,487, which is a similar number.
It looks like you took the number closest to 165k in the spreadsheet (166487) and divided it by 6000 to get to your numbers.
That might be weakly implied in the article, but the GoFundMe page says that the donated labor is in addition to the cash expenses (and the money is explicitly listed as out of pocket expenses):
>The deficit of $147,174 in out of pocket expenses has been covered by Professor Edwards’ discretionary research and personal funds. We also conservatively estimate that our total donated labor exceeds 3.0 person years (well over $165,000) of effort.
Did you not read the article or did you have some better source where you are getting your data?! Going by the article, the GoFundMe page and the project site itself it seems perfectly clear what money they spent, how they spent it, and also how much volunteer time was also donated.
I don't understand why you would launch a personal attack against Professor Edwards and his team by just making up numbers and trying to stir up controversy where there is none.
The volunteers are not expected to be paid. Their time was freely donated and it's clear in the GoFundMe where the funds are going and how they will be used.
Remember they switched to flint river to save a "whopping" $1 Million per year.
They are probably costing $1 Million per week now in bottled water.
Imagine what the special needs kids caused by this will cost taxpayers for the next several decades.
Even without the lead leeching issues, everyone knows the Flint river was an industrial dumping ground for decades and was very toxic - no amount of filtering would have made it safe for constant consumption.
> Remember they switched to flint river to save a "whopping" $1 Million per year.
It's starting to look like they were offered a deal from their previous water source that would have come in under the price of switching to Flint, so the decision making process was especially weird.
> Even without the lead leeching issues, everyone knows the Flint river was an industrial dumping ground for decades and was very toxic - no amount of filtering would have made it safe for constant consumption.
As I understand it, the science is that it would have been fine if they hadn't failed to add an anti-corrosive agent, against normal best practice. The lead did not come from the river; the lead came from water pipes being corroded by the water.
>"[It's a] trivial cost compared to the damage we prevented," Edwards said in an email to ATTN:. "Best investment we could have made into society."
In the world we live in, people only invest in themselves and society may or may not benefit as a consequence. This type of selflessness is rare and unsustainable.
Oh really, people only invest into themselves? In the case of the US, Americans pay $6.1 trillion annually in taxes between local + state + federal. Equal to one third of GDP. Those same Americans give vast sums to charity, with the US having practically invented modern philanthropy. Your premise doesn't hold up under any scrutiny.
This is sickening. How this could occur in 2016 needs to be studied and eliminated with prejudice. To think that government officials look at that orange water and think that's normal. It reminds of the Monsanto lobbyist that claimed that RoundUp is perfectly safe to drink, but then instantly refused to drink it when offered. I wish there was a special place in hell for people like that.
There are plenty of things that are safe to eat/drink that I wouldn't personally eat/drink. Hell, I order my pizzas without tomato sauce.
I'm not versed on RoundUp's safety, so I'll leave that for others to discuss. I'm just saying that sort of stunt doesn't provide any evidence in either direction.
> On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL. In this demonstration, he poured TEL over his hands, then placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose and inhaled its vapor for sixty seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems whatsoever. However, the State of New Jersey ordered the Bayway plant to be closed a few days later, and Jersey Standard was forbidden to manufacture TEL there again without state permission. Midgley would later have to take leave of absence from work after being diagnosed with lead poisoning.
Weird that nobody has mentioned this yet: The article claims that Prof. Edwards spent $147k from his discretionary research funds and personal funds. He's still a good guy and has probably used a non-trivial amount of his own money, but it's not like he had to pull all of it out of his bank account. Discretionary research funds are given to researchers as money for them to spend on whatever research they find interesting. It's kind of like 3M's 20% time. The article doesn't mention how much of the $147k came from his research money and how much came from his pocket book. Why? Because it's not as sensational to find out that this guy (who is a tenured professor at a big school) put up $125k of research money and $22k of his own. I don't know what the actual numbers are but I wouldn't be surprised if he put up less than $50k of his own money and had the vast majority come from research funds, considering his history (wikipedia claims he received a $450k grant in 2011 from the EPA to study lead and copper in the water).
Again, I'm not saying he's a fraud. He probably still put up a decent chunk himself. He did take out a mortgage on his house, but it doesn't mean that he put 100% of the value of his house towards this crisis. All I'm saying is don't get caught up in all the sensationalism.
>All I'm saying is don't get caught up in all the sensationalism.
I think it's pretty sensational that he did this, regardless of the exact details. It's all money he could have spent on something else, and instead he uncovered something critical to the lives of many.
You should try and see how easy (as in NOT at all) it is for a researcher to get research funds. Once (s)he gets them it is like new lease on life. Without such funds you have very slim chances on progressing.
So, I would say it is a big deal that he committed his research funds to do this.
It is curious as in why only his personal money would make his effort valiant!
I don't know what the actual numbers are but I wouldn't be surprised if he put up less than $50k of his own money and had the vast majority come from research funds, considering his history (wikipedia claims he received a $450k grant in 2011 from the EPA to study lead and copper in the water).
Whether or not he put $2k or $50k is not what we should be discussing but rather, the moral imperative to bring this important matter to the forefront to save thousands of lives..
This post is disconcerting and epitome of HN Critical thinking gone mad. So, how much is fine, is it OK to spend 10K, 20K or 50K, 100K from personal funds? The research money most likely is covering the Research Lab costs. The RAs of the lab put the money from their pockets. HN crowd has attracted this thankless-savant grade find the hole in the story types, no good deed goes unpunished.
Several replies? Only one person addresses discretionary research funds. Every other commenter quotes the article but is focused on the subject of that thread (mistaking volunteer hours for money spent). MaggieL wrote:
> So...how much research money was within his discretionary budget?
I wasn't going to reply, but couldn't pass this one up. Inaccurate characterizations might be a pet peeve of yours, but apparently that doesn't prevent hypocrisy.
The fact that he took out a mortgage on his personal home for this is enough to convince the rest of us that he went way above and beyond in order to carry out the research. Calm the cynicism.
I met Marc Edwards in 2010. when I did a summer program at Virginia Tech. One of the most passionate people you'll ever meet. The big news then was water contamination in D.C. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_contamination_in_Washingt...), another project that Edwards spent much of his personal funds on. Fortunately then, his work earned him a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2007, helping him to pay back his debt.
I hope he wins something similar for his work here. It's outrageous that he had to take out a mortgage on his home in order to be able to complete this project. I don't know the man but I have much respect for him.
This situation is horrifying. And if we're thinking of costs - those have only begun. I shudder to think the longterm health effects this will have for years to come.
The problem is, in a world, where profits are the most important thing and everything else is secondary, human life does not count -- even when human health is destroyed, it can be good -- to increase the profit margins of some corporations.
Side question: how expensive is it to get your water tested? I live in an older house, and all this talk has made me concerned about what's coming from my pipes, since they are > 100 yrs old.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 163 ms ] threadWhat they aren't saying is why Flint switched its supply: the Detroit system drastically raised its fees to Flint (the switch saved $19 million over the first 8 years alone), and Flint was broke as it is. The city council vote to switch was 7-1, with 6 Democrats voting "yes".
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2013/03/flint_city...
Many articles try to imply that the lead came from the new water supplier; in fact, it leached from lead pipes the existing system used as its water mains.
Yes, despite all these years of knowing the dangers of lead, neither Flint nor Detroit made any attempt to clear lead from their water delivery systems, and EPA rules allowed testing to be based on long periods of letting taps run to clear as many contaminants as possible first.
And switching back to Detroit water doesn't solve the lead problem in the mains, although it may be less acute.
My understanding is that the entire reason the state "hacks" were in charge is because they were supposed to be more competent and less corrupt than the local government. The more I discover about this situation, the more I see that this was never the case. Some places are just corrupt and inept from top to bottom.
Replacing inept liberals with conservatives is a good idea... in THEORY. The problem is... the conservatives, apparently, are even more inept. The people in Michigan really need to clean house. Their governor and his cronies would be a good start. But I don't think I would stop there.
All that said... I can't really be talking too badly about the Michigan and its people. I'm from a small town in Wisconsin. And here we are embroiled in Heaven only knows how many scandals. It's not just Steven Avery and suddenly missing money. Here we have things going on FAR more troubling than that. I mean... at least in Michigan you guys have leaders who, presumably, INADVERTENTLY poison your kids. Here... (Lincoln Hills)... the leaders and their cronies were using the little boys they'd incarcerate for sexual gratification ON PURPOSE. Fully aware, and with full intent.
Wisconsin's scandals are kind of the reason that I don't throw stones at other states. I just thought the particular case of Flint was so egregious as to be "Wisconsin-esque" for lack of a better word. I wish I could say... "Well... at least we aren't Michigan." But even in Michigan they probably don't have anything approaching that level of barbarity.
The appointed emergency manager was solely responsible for completely switching to the river water.
When you raise the rates on a bankrupt city, what did they think Flint would do? Go deeper into debt from another city that's already bankrupt as well? Or cut a bunch of corners and make do with the old, outdated system? Even GM stopped using the river water since it was so corrosive.
I'm not pinning this on Detroit since there were a host of failures along the way, but the raising of the fees essentially started the ball rolling.
"The transfer from Detroit to Flint water was just another bottom-line move. Flint was switching over in 2017 to a new pipeline that would serve the middle of the state with water from Lake Huron. (The city council cast a symbolic 7-1 vote in favor of the new pipeline. The state would later try to use this as a protective fig leaf to claim the city had approved drinking river water.) Detroit's emergency manager asked the state to intervene in the switch, and when that failed, the utility told the city of Flint that its contract would be terminated in one year. The problem then was what to do between 2014 and 2017. Snyder's Flint emergency managers – four cycled in and out like scrubs in an AAU hoops game – chose the Flint River rather than renegotiating with the petulant Detroit water utility."
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/who-poisoned-flint...
PS TIL when you copy-paste from rollingstone.com, it automatically adds the credit to the quote! Worth trying just to see it in action :)
The awful color of the Flint water that gets shown is from iron that has leached out of the mains.
The reason switching back to Detroit water doesn't solve anything is because the chemical scale that normally keeps much plumbing material from leaching into the water was disrupted by the improperly treated river water (they could have adjusted the PH during treatment) and has not yet reformed. The Detroit water supply is not itself full of lead or whatever.
It does solve it. The Detroit water has lower chloride levels than the Flint River sourced water, so the lead in the service lines and solder won't leach above acceptable limits. There's lead in old mains and service lines everywhere in the country, particularly in lines put in place before the mid 20th century. And the cost to remove them in places like Flint is high because the frost line is so deep.
I don't know why you threw that bit in there but it's worth noting that the lone dissenting vote wanted to get ALL of the city's water from the Flint River, which wouldn't have helped anything. (and switching to 100% river water is what they ended up doing anyway, isn't it?)
> Many articles try to imply that the lead came from the new water supplier; in fact, it leached from lead pipes the existing system used as its water mains.
To be precise, the new, different chemistry of the water affected the existing lead pipes. The lead pipes were not leaching dangerous levels of lead prior to the switchover and there is no evidence they were in danger of doing so.
Detroit and Flint are both under management of the state government. So it strikes me that they are not really independent municipalities.
I haven't read any articles which say that. The consistent narrative has been that that the (drastically) increased lead levels by late 2014 resulted from an influx of corrosive agents into the municipal water system (perhaps exacerbated by a decision not to add anti-corrosive agents to counteract this effect).
I haven't read any source which claims the increased lead levels "came from the new water supplier." They all seem quite clear as to the basic cause-and-effect relationship, in fact.
Of all things to put in the hands of government, water seems among the worst. Of course, putting it in the hands of Nestle and other huge corporations is probably even worse. We need water anarchy.
'Shared infrastructure in the hands of the public' means government or regulated monopoly.
The local government, with greater pressure from local industry failed in this case, which in my reading, is an argument for greater federal control.
What other way to implement the granting of a special privilege, oversight and judgment, is there for something like water quality? Yelp?
I'm surprised Home Depot hasn't had a run on pitchforks and tiki torches.
You use the word "funny" in a way that suggests it's a coincidence, but let me introduce a different explanation:
In a landmass controlled by imperialistic government, as the USA is today, "public" and "government" have little discernible overlap.
That may explain why public services (I'm thinking especially of health care) work so well in present-day Europe but not in the USA.
If there's one thing that we can all agree is a moral infraction, it's polluting the life blood.
1) Flint’s elected leadership makes what is actually a solid, sound decision that will, in the long run, save the city millions of dollars and give it more control over its destiny – and, because it positions Flint as a wholesale supplier of water, possibly enhance revenues for them.
2) Detroit Water Board decides to be spoiled and pissy and leaves Flint with no good options for the two years before its pipeline is built.
3) Flint’s leadership and GOP-appointed EFM make a well-deliberated decision to draw water from the Flint River.
4) Flint’s water staff – the people in Flint who are the experts on this sort of thing – apparently aren’t up to the task. And the people they count on to oversee and help them …
5) The Michigan DEQ, is completely asleep at the switch. And once they discover their mistake, they lie about it and ask Flint to help them lie.
6) US EPA is aware of a problem, but apparently trusted the kids playing in the DEQ sandbox to fix things.
http://gregbranchwords.com/2016/01/17/the-real-tragedy-in-fl...
Most of the steps are understandable mistakes but Detroit's water board acted badly and I think some people in the Michigan DEQ need to face prosecution.
In fact, there appears to be some evidence to the contrary. There are articles which claim DWSD offered a substantially lower rate in order to retain Flint's business during negotiations [1] and that they agreed to waive the (sizable) re-activation fee [2] when Flint began to second guess their decision.
Besides, let's keep in mind that Detroit is also an aging, near bankrupt city with far more obligations than tax payers. Both Flint and Detroit have been (or were) taken over by governor appointed emergency managers. This is a tragedy and the appropriate heads should roll, but the blame should be assigned based on hard evidence.
[1] http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2016/01/23/gov-snyder-lied-fli...
[2] http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2015/10/mayor_city...
My guess is many former industrial regions in the US will have heavily contaminated water.
With the agencies involved dragging their feet, was there no other way to get someone else involved? Is there a whistleblower fund like the SEC has: https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower that gives them a portion of the impact they had (10-30% for amounts over $1 MM in the SEC's case)?
It took this level of scientific study to confront the state government "deniers" that there was anything wrong, people had been showing them for months.
Or just use their taxes to keep paying for the Detroit water in the first place.
You think factories are in and around Flint because of the scenery? Or because of huge tax discounts?
To keep this constructive, here are other options to have blown the whistle sooner (assuming the state and federal govts are not a willing party):
- Area residents call in the press with pictures, that forces the govt to change (which it didn't seem worked well here, even with those pictures)
- Find a single state representative (or several) who takes up the cause; get them to get some cash for an independent analysis
- A few area businesses get together when they start seeing financial issues from the water and fund an expert to come in (or area residents crowdfund for an expert with a GoFundMe-type campaign)
- Lawyers sensing a payday invest in an expert
- Call up the local university (or in this case, get the interest of a far off uni)
I'm hardly going to do a good brainstorm in an HN thread (especially without more reflection), but you get the idea. Assume the state and federal governments (executive branch) are not a willing party, what are a bunch of things you do to get an independent expert to run an empirically sound analysis sooner? (and without taking out a personal mortgage)
I like the ideas in your post. I think the above though is understated. The government was actually driving against traffic on a one way street. They didn't sleep, they plotted. What happened, suppressing lead data, was done specifically and on purpose.
http://michiganradio.org/post/how-people-flint-were-stripped...
Link should be shared more.
Only one of the "US governments" failed at purification - that of the state of Michigan.
Considering that maintenance ultimately boils down to looking at things that are currently working and throwing them away so they don't stop working, it's easy for a manager looking to cut costs to decide to try to avoid ("defer") maintenance and gamble that things don't break down.
Hell, seven people died in Canada when the local purification plant was run by a couple incompetent brothers [1].
"The Walkerton Public Utilities Commission operators engaged in a host of improper operating practices, including failing to use adequate doses of chlorine, failing to monitor chlorine residuals daily, making false entries about residuals in daily operating records, and misstating the locations at which microbiological samples were taken."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak
It is extremely misleading and deceptive here to say that the professor spent $147,000 because he did not spend $147,000 at all. He spent 11200+3180+50 = $14,430 and he received 32843+200+500+200 = $33,743 in grants and fees he charged for speaking, for a surplus of $19,313.
Furthermore, the money being raised is going into an account supervised by the lead. It is not being used to pay the people who did the work for their time. This is especially outrageous that he is collecting money for their volunteer work and keeping it for his own use.
The $166,487 is actual costs incurred, not the volunteers estimated labor
> $180,917 in expenses for sampling, water tests, laboratory supplies, and more.
This is the out of pocket expense they are talking about. It doesn't even involve the hours spent. So unless you can disapprove that sampling costs for water tests didn't cost $166,487 - we have little reason to trust your claim.
Regardless, lets say even if that $166,487 indeed includes their hourly rates for which no one was asked to be paid, their claim is justified. Heck no one asked them to do this in first place.
There is time and place to be cynical but I don't think this is the one. I personally can't applaud them enough for work them have done.
So...how much research money was within his discretionary budget? It's a bit of a stretch to call that "his own funds".
> That’s a net deficit of $147,174, which Edwards covered with his own discretionary research and personal funds. The Flint Water Study team of 25 students and research scientists also estimated their total donated labor at more than 6,000 hours, which they valued at over $165,000 based on the hourly rates of the team members.
So it was an estimated $165k in free labor on top of the rest of the costs. You are confused because their lab costs were $166,487, which is a similar number.
>The deficit of $147,174 in out of pocket expenses has been covered by Professor Edwards’ discretionary research and personal funds. We also conservatively estimate that our total donated labor exceeds 3.0 person years (well over $165,000) of effort.
Did you not read the article or did you have some better source where you are getting your data?! Going by the article, the GoFundMe page and the project site itself it seems perfectly clear what money they spent, how they spent it, and also how much volunteer time was also donated.
I don't understand why you would launch a personal attack against Professor Edwards and his team by just making up numbers and trying to stir up controversy where there is none.
The volunteers are not expected to be paid. Their time was freely donated and it's clear in the GoFundMe where the funds are going and how they will be used.
They are probably costing $1 Million per week now in bottled water.
Imagine what the special needs kids caused by this will cost taxpayers for the next several decades.
Even without the lead leeching issues, everyone knows the Flint river was an industrial dumping ground for decades and was very toxic - no amount of filtering would have made it safe for constant consumption.
It's starting to look like they were offered a deal from their previous water source that would have come in under the price of switching to Flint, so the decision making process was especially weird.
> Even without the lead leeching issues, everyone knows the Flint river was an industrial dumping ground for decades and was very toxic - no amount of filtering would have made it safe for constant consumption.
As I understand it, the science is that it would have been fine if they hadn't failed to add an anti-corrosive agent, against normal best practice. The lead did not come from the river; the lead came from water pipes being corroded by the water.
In the world we live in, people only invest in themselves and society may or may not benefit as a consequence. This type of selflessness is rare and unsustainable.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/03/27/no-its-...
I'm not versed on RoundUp's safety, so I'll leave that for others to discuss. I'm just saying that sort of stunt doesn't provide any evidence in either direction.
For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.
> On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL. In this demonstration, he poured TEL over his hands, then placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose and inhaled its vapor for sixty seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems whatsoever. However, the State of New Jersey ordered the Bayway plant to be closed a few days later, and Jersey Standard was forbidden to manufacture TEL there again without state permission. Midgley would later have to take leave of absence from work after being diagnosed with lead poisoning.
Anyone have a link of the said email dump? Other links are broken
That is the cockroach that needs the light shown upon them.
follow the money.
jrjr
Again, I'm not saying he's a fraud. He probably still put up a decent chunk himself. He did take out a mortgage on his house, but it doesn't mean that he put 100% of the value of his house towards this crisis. All I'm saying is don't get caught up in all the sensationalism.
I think it's pretty sensational that he did this, regardless of the exact details. It's all money he could have spent on something else, and instead he uncovered something critical to the lives of many.
So, I would say it is a big deal that he committed his research funds to do this.
It is curious as in why only his personal money would make his effort valiant!
Whether or not he put $2k or $50k is not what we should be discussing but rather, the moral imperative to bring this important matter to the forefront to save thousands of lives..
(inaccurate + convenient characterizations of existing comments are a pet peeve, sorry)
I wasn't going to reply, but couldn't pass this one up. Inaccurate characterizations might be a pet peeve of yours, but apparently that doesn't prevent hypocrisy.
If it was lost in a longer quote maybe not, but when there are 2 sentences quoted and 1 of them is the statement in question...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/41gqfe/is_...