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The Flint Michigan Water Crisis


Boss_Hogg

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I'm happy this story is finally getting national attention. I also see it's now a political subject with the debates; both sides pointing fingers at each other. 

 

EDIT: For those wishing to donate battled water to Flint, MI: http://www.unitedwaygenesee.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=5

Care of sick children: https://www.cfgf.org/cfgf/GoodWork/FlintArea/WaterCrisis/tabid/855/Default.aspx

 

For those that don't know, the City of Flint switched its water supply from the City of Detroit to the Flint River. The move was an effort to save costs. It was viewed as a temporary fix, given the river's long history as a dubious source of water. An ultimate switch to a permanent Flint water supply would be provided after the Karegnondi Water Authority's construction of a pipeline from Lake Huron, thereby eliminating Flint's long-time dependence on Detroit city water.

 
After the change in water source, the city's drinking water had a series of issues that culminated with lead contamination, creating a serious public health danger. The corrosive Flint River water caused lead from aging pipes to leach into the water supply, causing extremely elevated levels of lead. As a result, between 6,000 and 12,000 residents had severely high levels of lead in the blood and experienced a range of serious health problems. The water change is also a possible cause of an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in the county that has killed 10 people and affected another 77.
 
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The water is so toxic, that pipes are corroded in many of the homes
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flint-water.jpg?w=960&h=540
 
 
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Most of the homes in flint are uninhabitable thanks to the pipe damage from the toxic water. 

 

Redskins defensive line strikes first by donating bottles of water


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Why We Love Sports Today: The Washington Redskins defensive line sent 3,600 bottles of water to Flint, Michigan. http://es.pn/23fP2qE 

 
 

NBC Los AngelesVerified account ‏@NBCLA  41m41 minutes ago
Governor's emails show debate over blame for Flint, Michigan water http://4.nbcla.com/Y8OhZUn
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As I understand it, now that this has been done, there's basically no going back. Any lead pipes that have leeched into the water will do so for any water going forward, regardless of the source. That means every single lead pipe in the entire city is now completely unfit for use and will need to be replaced. That's a massively expensive proposition.

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http://www.vox.com/2016/1/20/10789810/flint-michigan-water-crisis

 

As late as July 2015 — 16 months after the switch had occurred — officials said that residents could "relax" about reports of lead in the water. Plus, the Department of Environmental Quality was monitored by the EPA, and they had made no official complaint. (Later investigation found that the EPA, too, knew of the presence of lead by mid-2015.)

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F that, they did away with regulations for that a long time ago. Was strangling the economy ya know.  :doh:

regulatory agencies were in place and aware of problems but failed to act. The EPA noticed the failure to treat the water to reduce its corrosiveness but instead of going public and warning the people directly, which in hindsight was what they should have done, they warned Michigans Department of Environmental Quality, who did nothing for months.

This is a major failure, especially with so many children being poisoned, that I'd really like to see politics removed from the investigation. It's likely many people were at least partially to blame. People deserve accountability. Heads need to roll. Every single government employee that had a hand in this happening and acted wrongly, even if it was an honest mistake, needs to be identified along with what they did and removed from their position. A screw up this damaging can't be shrugged off in the usual manner. This needs to result in more than just finger pointing and a few sacrificial lambs.

That won't happen, but it should. If they can chase down entire financial networks for terrorists and cartels they are capable of piecing together every bit of what happened here and telling the public everything.

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This is a major failure, especially with so many children being poisoned, that I'd really like to see politics removed from the investigation.

Good luck with that.  I think you will see more incidents of infrastructure causing serious issues to come.  The switch from Detroit water to the Flint river was driven by dollars.  Between roads, bridges, water supply, sewer systems, we are going to be in deep trouble.  Most of these haven't been upgraded, or more than barely maintained for decades. 

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Saw an interesting graphic for all the hawks out there.

 

if ISIS or Al Qaeda poisoned an American city's water supply, what do you think would be happening?

 

Some people need to be locked up and the key fed to a lion.

 

~Bang

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so...

 

is everyone's plumbing ruined?

 

is the entire infrastructure ruined?

 

if so, hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy crap that's not really fixable...

 

There's no going back once the pipes are tarnished with lead. Hence why turning back to the clean water in November alleviated nothing. 

 

Each building using Flint water from October 2014-November 2015 will need new pipes. The city itself will need new pipes in the water treatments plants too. 

 

I have no idea how they're going to fix this and I find it ironic that the mainstream media and politicians (both sides) are just picking up on this. Guess it's an election year so...

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So, does getting state of emergency granted mean the federal government picking up the costs of replacing the pipes?

 

If so, then I'm so glad they denied that...

 

 

I think they denied it because the state of emergency is limited to natural disasters, and this had nothing to do with nature, only with incompetence 

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Why, we pay for all the natural disaster relief.

 

This is just a man caused one.

 

Well, I don't think the rest of us should shoulder the cost of something like this.

 

I'm not saying those that think we should are wrong, I just don't agree with them.

 

I pay for enough screw ups I had nothing to do with. ;)

 

(there are plenty of people who think paying for people to rebuild houses in natural disaster prone areas is dumb too)

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The lead wasn't leaching (much) before because the pipes built essentially a bunch of gunk on them that kept the lead from being exposed to the water.  The corrosive water stripped the bunch of gunk off and started leaching lead.

 

If they run enough non-corrosive water through the system long enough, they should be able to build up a layer that will insulate the water from the lead pipes again and not replace the pipes.

 

It was known from the start of the use of the water from the Flint river that it was corrosive and that it should be treated.  It just wan't done.

 

**EDIT**

They are actually adding more phosphates to the water than the city of Detroit already does to build up a layer to protect the lead pipes.

 

http://michiganradio.org/post/flint-fights-lead-drinking-water-adding-more-phosphates#stream/0

 

Here's showing that it was known that the water in the Flint River was corrosive and should treated accordingly BEFORE they switched water supplies.

 

http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2015/11/07/flint-lead-water/75268692/

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Flint, Michigan is a hell hole.  I've been there many times as my uncles family lived there when I was growing up, and I would visit them periodically while I was attending MSU.  Once GM left the city went downhill quickly.  If you haven't seen it check out Roger and Me.  That was from 1989 and I imagine it has only gotten worse.  My uncle moved out as soon as his kids went away to college (emphasis on away).  I'm not surprised the city's infrastructure is failing.

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Why, we pay for all the natural disaster relief.

 

This is just a man caused one.

 

The problem is that it creates a huge incentive for local government to ignore problems and let them fester, because if they get bad enough, the feds will clean up the mess.  

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I'd like to see us get to a place where we view clean water as a basic human right. You should be able to turn on a tap anywhere in this country and safely drink the water that comes out of it.

 

 

Well, to be honest you mostly can.   This is a pretty aberrational situation.    

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