Flint, Michigan:

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UK
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Flint, Michigan:

Post by UK »

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/ ... -buildings

C'mon Feds....

There's some criminal activity of proportions not seen in some quite time by a Government body

This makes what Christie did look like nothing. Great job Republican Governors!

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IMADreamer
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Re: Flint, Michigan:

Post by IMADreamer »

I'm still not sure how this happened. I know when I was younger I worked the weekend shift at the water treatment plant in my town and we tested things extensively. There were certain test that were done hourly, every three hours, and every twelve hours. Then there were big tests done monthly for things like lead, atrazine, and other chemicals. If a test was off it was a big deal to the point where sometimes we'd shut down processing for a bit to figure out what was going on.

Obviously there was a pretty big cover up on a lot of levels at Flint. The scary part is, it's probably happening a lot of other places.

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Re: Flint, Michigan:

Post by UK »

Of course, it should be noted the EPA failed as well.

The arrogance of the Michigan governing body is so overwhelming.
When an aide to Ananich complained to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, she says she was told, "It's called the Clean Drinking Water Act, not the Tasty Drinking Water Act. We're doing our job." Acceptable water standards had become a fungible term in Flint.
Walters and the rest of Flint were told it was all going to be OK. One of the recommendations was that residents should allow their water to run for 20 minutes to flush out the TTHM. This was met with much grumbling, but consent, in a city where water bills can be higher than mortgage payments.

In January 2015, Walters and a few dozen other citizens attended a hearing with Flint Emergency Manager Jerry Ambrose. She showed Ambrose plastic bottles with her orange water. He just shook his head and said there was no way the water came from Flint.
Walters told me the story with her hands clasped together so tightly I could see her knuckles whitening. We went out on the porch so she could smoke. The city offered to fix her pipes and in return asked her to sign a no-harm agreement. Appalled by the horse trading over her kid's health, she fired back.
In February, the EPA asked the MDEQ directly if the state was practicing corrosion control. MDEQ staffer Stephen Busch wrote back: "[Flint] has an optimized Corrosion Control Program [and] conducts quarterly Water Quality Parameter monitoring at 25 sites and has not had any unusual results."
All of official Michigan denied there was a problem. In February, the EPA asked the MDEQ directly if the state was practicing corrosion control. MDEQ staffer Stephen Busch wrote back: "[Flint] has an optimized Corrosion Control Program [and] conducts quarterly Water Quality Parameter monitoring at 25 sites and has not had any unusual results."
This wasn't true; there was no corrosion control. Still, the state of Michigan launched a counteroffensive essentially calling anyone with concerns about Flint water a crank. "Let me start here – anyone who is concerned about lead in the drinking water in Flint can relax," said Brad Wurfel, spokesman for MDEQ. (He later described Del Toral as a "rogue employee.")

Internally, the MDEQ seemed more annoyed than concerned. In July, the ACLU's Curt Guyette pushed for more details, and an MDEQ staffer e-mailed co-workers saying of the Flint situation, "Apparently it's going to be a thing now."

Eventually, the MDEQ admitted the city hadn't been doing any corrosion control with Flint's water, and no one seemed overly concerned. Wurfel essentially said they didn't have to address it for a year. "You know, if I handed you a bag of chocolate chips and a sack of flour and said, 'Make chocolate-chip cookies,' we'd still need a recipe," Wurfel told Michigan Radio. "They need to get the results from that testing to understand how much of what to put in the water to address the water chemistry."

Apparently, Flint's citizens needed to keep drinking poisoned water for a year before the state could figure out how to unpoison their water.
The MDEQ spokesman Wurfel uttered another gem, decrying the research and saying, "[Edwards] specializes in looking for high lead problems. They pull that rabbit out of that hat everywhere they go. Nobody should be surprised when the rabbit comes out of the hat."
The state and city did their own testing. They managed to come up with only 71 samples. Originally, the city came in above federally accepted levels, but then the MDEQ instructed Flint to eliminate two of the highest test scores on technicalities. One was LeeAnne Walters' house. The reason? She used a water filter.
Over the winter, e-mails obtained through FOIA requests by Edwards revealed that the problem with Flint's water could have been addressed months earlier if the state hadn't ignored red flags raised by administration officials. Before the new year, Snyder would accept the resignations of Wurfel and MDEQ head Dan Wyant. Wurfel, in hindsight, says he would have handled things very differently. "I regret this situation and my role in it," he said. "Deeply. I'm a father to a toddler, and I've had to look at him and imagine how I'd feel countless times. I'll carry that with me for the rest of my life." Edwards says corrosion control would have cost the state of Michigan $80 to $100 a day.
Snyder gave a standard mea culpa: "I've apologized for what's going on with the state and I am responsible for state government." He went on to say he wished none of this had happened. Snyder noted that he didn't know the seriousness of the situation until October.

For that to be true, he'd have to have not read his e-mail. In July, his chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, wrote: "I'm frustrated by the water issue in Flint.... These folks are scared and worried about health impacts, and they are basically getting blown off by us." (Not that Muchmore was a friend of Flint. In a September e-mail, he referred to water activists as the "anti-everything group.")

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Re: Flint, Michigan:

Post by UK »

They would have to replace every water pipe in the city, every home, building, school, hospital will need all of their plumbing replaced at a cost more expensive than the building itself. Who would ever buy a house or chose to use the water in Flint ever again?

I can't wait for a class-action suit (unfort. at the expense of Michigan tax payers with a system geared towards reduced taxes for the wealthy).

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Re: Flint, Michigan:

Post by Freed Roger »

The GOP will spin this is as another example of big government failure.

Well- yea, of course it fails, when the autocrat in charge is taking it apart rather than governing effectively.

Jeb Bush, alluded to the big government is the problem in some comments. disappointing. I still had slim hopes that Jeb would emerge as the sembleance of the GOP most centrist (or least insane if you prefer) candidate.
"I admire Rick Snyder for stepping up right now," Bush said on CNN's "State of the Union." "He's going to the challenge. He's fired people and accepted responsibility to fix this."
NPR had an informative documentary playing earlier this week on the history of this problem. I had no idea how long this has been going on. Started with E Coli, then they over-chlorinated the water to kill that, and then the lead levels. I think one home's water had lead levels (quite a while ago) that tested well above levels that would deem it toxic waste. (the Walter's family home probably)

It's a convoluted tale, but the key event was that the autocrat Snyder put in charge of a broke Flint shut off safer water from Detroit as a cost-saver.

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Re: Flint, Michigan:

Post by UK »

I wish it was to save money, it would make some sense, although it's hard to justify fiscal savings when you're giving hundreds of millions of tax cuts to businesses and the wealthy.

But there's a far more far right lean to it....

http://billjohnsondetroit.com/?p=2531

Detroit Water & Sewer did a proposal far cheaper (20%) than the cost of the Karegnondi Water Authority (which is what they have now.)

I agree with the premise that the goal was to weaken the DWS as it has already been split in two, the goal was to strangle it to non-survival and create a privatized water company.

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Re: Flint, Michigan:

Post by Freed Roger »

UK wrote:
I agree with the premise that the goal was to weaken the DWS as it has already been split in two, the goal was to strangle it to non-survival and create a privatized water company.
How in the [expletive] is a privatized water company going to make money off a left-for-dead-by-industry place like Flint -or even Detroit for that matter?

All privatizing would amount to is govt subsidizing a private water company, instead of a public one - for when it goes to Flint. Even less accountability. and the government has washed it's hands of failures -because failures in privatization are looked at as the successes/the system at work.
Last edited by Freed Roger on January 29 16, 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Flint, Michigan:

Post by heyzeus »

It is possible that Flint is now Michigan's Times Beach - uninhabitable, but nearly impossible to remediate. What they've done there is astonishing in its incompetence.

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Re: Flint, Michigan:

Post by cardsfansince82 »

It goes without saying that this would never occur in an affluent predominantly white community. Get ready for an avalanche of lawsuits.

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IMADreamer
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Re: Flint, Michigan:

Post by IMADreamer »

They will probably get their privatized water now because the people of Flint would probably take anything over what they have. How could they trust their local officials after this?

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