What's the deal with the water in Flint?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > What's the deal with the water in Flint?

boom boom boom: Jun 28, 2012; by Shine

Apparently it's bad? Like, maybe poisonous? and the governor or mayor or some government person said that it's fine? I dunno, but it seems like a big deal.

What's up with Flint, and the water there, and the government response to the water?

# ? Jan 17, 2016 01:39

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 04:58

boom boom boom: Jun 28, 2012; by Shine

OK, somebody linked to this article

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/16/flints-water-crisis-what-went-wrong

and I think the basic deal is Flint was on Detroit water, told Detroit they were gonna switch over to a new system, Detroit said "gently caress you, pay us more for the water you're getting until the switchover happens" and the Flint government decided to use the poison river water in the interum instead, and hope nobody noticed before they switched to the new water system

# ? Jan 17, 2016 01:48

Rush Limbo: Sep 5, 2005; its with a full house

How the gently caress does something like that even happen?

The federal government needs to go in and kick some rear end. People should be getting jail time over this.

# ? Jan 17, 2016 01:58

BlackIronHeart: Aug 2, 2004; The Oath Breaker's about to hit warphead nine Kaptain!

boom boom boom posted:

OK, somebody linked to this article

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/16/flints-water-crisis-what-went-wrong

and I think the basic deal is Flint was on Detroit water, told Detroit they were gonna switch over to a new system, Detroit said "gently caress you, pay us more for the water you're getting until the switchover happens" and the Flint government decided to use the poison river water in the interum instead, and hope nobody noticed before they switched to the new water system

It's a bit more complicated and hosed up than that. The Detroit Free Press has written about it quite a bit.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/01/16/president-obama-declares-emergency-flint/78898604/

quote:

In what's become a huge government scandal, garnering headlines across the country and around the world, Flint's drinking water became contaminated with lead after the city temporarily switched its supply source in 2014 from Lake Huron water treated by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to more corrosive and polluted Flint River water, treated at the Flint water treatment plant.

The switch was made as a cost-cutting move while the city was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager. The state Department of Environmental Quality has acknowledged a mistake in failing to require the addition of needed corrosion-control chemicals to the water. That caused lead, which causes brain damage and other health problems in children, to leach into the water from pipes and fixtures.

Basically, our Governor appointed an Emergency Manager to run the city because it was in bad financial straits. The appointed EM, Darnell Earley, went about slashing and cutting costs to try and resolve the financial situation. Not that he wants to admit that now, of course.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/14/in-flint-bad-tap-water-runs-politically-deep/

quote:

Snyder used a state law to appoint an emergency manager, a process that began in 2011. And along with the emergency manager came a board to whom the manager could appeal to override decisions made by Flint's non-partisan, elected city council. In short, Flint has spent years under emergency manager control, a person whose primary charge appears to have been cutting costs.

That same emergency manager, Darnell Earley, has denied that he is responsible for the current crisis. He says the Flint City Council voted to make use of the cheaper water supply from the river as part of a larger plan to join that new regional water system. He says he privately objected to using Flint River water, but local reporters did not find a mention of switching the city's water supply to the Flint River in the related council resolution.

And when The Fix spoke briefly with Flint Ward 2 Councilwoman Jacqueline Poplar Wednesday, she could not have been more emphatic. The city council never voted to approve the shift in the city's water supply. Never, she said. And with that Poplar advised The Fix Earley is now the emergency manager of Detroit Public Schools and wished us goodnight.

# ? Jan 17, 2016 02:03

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

Ddraig posted:

How the gently caress does something like that even happen?

flint's EM wanted to switch to a different water authority so they could stop paying detroit for water, and save money. unfortunately this other system isn't built yet, so they switched temporarily to the backup water supply, the flint river. turns out the flint river has a ton of chlorides in it, possibly because of road salt and other runoff sources. chlorides are not bad for the environment, in fact chlorides are an essential nutrient, so it's either not tested for or the chloride levels, while high, are not dangerous. chlorides corrode the hell out of lead pipes though, and lead of course is extremely dangerous. there's also other nasty poo poo in the water as well

shortly after the switch people complain that the water is nasty. now you can't just switch back over to another water source easily, these things require lots of money and long contracts and detroit is kind of pissed now because detroit has its own infrastructure problems and flint choosing to stop buying water sucked for detroit. probably the EM and other officials were just hoping the problem wasn't that bad or would go away, and were kicking the can trying to wait three years until the new water system is finished because a bunch of complaints from citizens isn't worth the monetary cost of switching back to detroit water. except it turns out the water was way worse than the city thought, to the point of being harmful to human life, so yeah. they were hoping the problem would just go away and it blew up in their faces, and if there was a coverup instead of just plain old incompetence then someone is going to jail

# ? Jan 17, 2016 02:16

hallebarrysoetoro: Jun 14, 2003

Ddraig posted:

How the gently caress does something like that even happen?

Republicans*. Move as much public money to private interests and gently caress over people too poor to matter in politics.

*
On second thought, it really is just "fiscal conservatives" playbook

# ? Jan 17, 2016 02:22

Badger of Basra: Jul 26, 2007

Ddraig posted:

How the gently caress does something like that even happen?

The federal government needs to go in and kick some rear end. People should be getting jail time over this.

Michigan's governor has the ability to appoint municipal dictators if a municipality is declared in "financial emergency," and this was the municipal dictator's idea.

# ? Jan 17, 2016 02:23

Cugel the Clever: Apr 5, 2009; I LOVE AMERICA AND CAPITALISM DESPITE BEING POOR AS FUCK. I WILL NEVER RETIRE BUT HERE'S ANOTHER 200$ FOR UKRAINE, SLAVA

hallebarrysoetoro posted:

Republicans*. Move as much public money to private interests and gently caress over people too poor to matter in politics.

*
On second thought, it really is just "fiscal conservatives" playbook

While the austerity measures implemented by the EM are the direct cause, this is a problem of government corruption and incompetence at every level—check out flintwaterstudy.org/.

Essentially, once the decision was made to switch, successive levels of bureaucrats not only failed to verify that the switch would be safe, but actively suppressed all information to the contrary until the truth broke into the national news media:

Local city civil engineers/inspectors failed to conduct a comprehensive testing regimen (partially at the behest of pressure from above).
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, rather than reacting with concern to reports, tried to sweep things under the rug. A FOIA request dug up their emails since the first EPA inspector leaked a report of improper procedure and high lead content back in June—their correspondence suggests complete disregard for the health and safety of the people of Flint. There's also decades of history that suggests they should have been well aware of the risk going into it.
The region's EPA director, a political appointee of the Obama administration (read: big donor to Obama's campaign and the Democratic Party), went out of her way to silence dissent and to empower local bad actors.

Flint Water Study posted:
Del Toral, gagged and effectively placed under house arrest by EPA Region 5 Administrator and political appointee Susan Hedman, was certainly guilty of doing his job. In early July, Del Toral released an interim memo to sources (Walters/Edwards) outside of EPA, that first sounded the alarm about MDEQ�s illegal decision to not use corrosion control for the Flint River water source. His memo also detailed the perils that illegal decision posed to the city of Flint and the health of its children. The lack of corrosion control has caused red water, taste and odor problems, pipe infrastructure damage, childhood lead poisoning and quite possibly an outbreak of Legionnaires disease.

Outstanding reporting by HuffPost, Detroit News and others, has demonstrated how Hedman worked hand in hand with MDEQ to cover up Flint�s water woes and evade accountability for the growing disaster. EPA knew about MDEQ�s illegal actions since at least April 2015, and did nothing to protect Flint residents. EPA has also known about blatant misrepresentations on water lead safety since 2004 across the United States, and has repeatedly helped cover up more recent problems in other cities such as New Orleans.

Hedman�s actions actively aided, abetted and emboldened the MDEQ, in their efforts to deny their epic blunder.

Don't want this happening to you? Pay attention to local politics and make sure that psychopathic, cronyistic shitbags aren't running things. loving call your current representatives and let them know your vote depends on their ability to put safety and progress over bullshit politicking.

If you live in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, or Wisconsin, call your representatives at every level and demand they publicly call for the removal of EPA Region 5 Administrator Susan Hedman.

# ? Jan 17, 2016 03:26

ComradeCosmobot: Dec 4, 2004; USPOL July

It's worth noting that, while lead is the headlining issue, the water change-over very possibly increased the number of cases of Legionnaires' Disease by more than four times and led to 10 deaths.

# ? Jan 17, 2016 04:33

rscott: Dec 10, 2009

When people ask me why the gently caress I moved to Kansas it's because I used to live in Flint

This is all continuing fallout from GMs decision to abandon the town back in the 70s and 80s, the resulting collapse of the tax base and the slow decay of the infrastructure in the city. The city has had emergency managers off and on since 2002 and efforts to spin the city into a college town have largely failed for a lack of investment.

# ? Jan 17, 2016 14:06

Yoshifan823: Feb 19, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

BlackIronHeart posted:

It's a bit more complicated and hosed up than that. The Detroit Free Press has written about it quite a bit.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/01/16/president-obama-declares-emergency-flint/78898604/

Basically, our Governor appointed an Emergency Manager to run the city because it was in bad financial straits. The appointed EM, Darnell Earley, went about slashing and cutting costs to try and resolve the financial situation. Not that he wants to admit that now, of course.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/14/in-flint-bad-tap-water-runs-politically-deep/

I feel like it has to be pointed out that, in the WP article here, Darnell Earley is apparently now the Emergency Manager of Detroit Public Schools, which are also in the news as of late because teachers have staged multiple sickouts over the last few months due to the absolutely atrocious conditions of the buildings they work in.

In short, this dude is, at best, tremendously terrible at his job, and at worse, a horribly corrupt shithead who loves to make life harder for children.

# ? Jan 17, 2016 15:50

TROIKA CURES GREEK: Jun 30, 2015; by R. Guyovich

Cugel the Clever posted:

While the austerity measures implemented by the EM are the direct cause, this is a problem of government corruption and incompetence at every level—check out flintwaterstudy.org/.

Essentially, once the decision was made to switch, successive levels of bureaucrats not only failed to verify that the switch would be safe, but actively suppressed all information to the contrary until the truth broke into the national news media:

Local city civil engineers/inspectors failed to conduct a comprehensive testing regimen (partially at the behest of pressure from above).

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, rather than reacting with concern to reports, tried to sweep things under the rug. A FOIA request dug up their emails since the first EPA inspector leaked a report of improper procedure and high lead content back in June—their correspondence suggests complete disregard for the health and safety of the people of Flint. There's also decades of history that suggests they should have been well aware of the risk going into it.

The region's EPA director, a political appointee of the Obama administration (read: big donor to Obama's campaign and the Democratic Party), went out of her way to silence dissent and to empower local bad actors.

Don't want this happening to you? Pay attention to local politics and make sure that psychopathic, cronyistic shitbags aren't running things. loving call your current representatives and let them know your vote depends on their ability to put safety and progress over bullshit politicking.

If you live in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, or Wisconsin, call your representatives at every level and demand they publicly call for the removal of EPA Region 5 Administrator Susan Hedman.

Huh, this is the first I'm hearing about this being a semi-bipartisan affair, is there any reason why the EPA director played ball?

Yoshifan823 posted:

I feel like it has to be pointed out that, in the WP article here, Darnell Earley is apparently now the Emergency Manager of Detroit Public Schools, which are also in the news as of late because teachers have staged multiple sickouts over the last few months due to the absolutely atrocious conditions of the buildings they work in.

In short, this dude is, at best, tremendously terrible at his job, and at worse, a horribly corrupt shithead who loves to make life harder for children.

Well one issue is that the money simply isn't there; they are trying to get cash from the state but other districts have little interest in more bailouts and everyone is also trying to find hundreds of millions of dollars for the crumbling roads at the same time. The sad fact of the matter is that Detroit is just starting to recover from decades of decline and it will still be some time before there's a solid tax base to solve these problems with.

Incompenent or corrupt officials are part of the blame (and unforuntatly there's lots on both sides when it comes to that) but the real issue is that:

rscott posted:

This is all continuing fallout from GMs decision to abandon the town back in the 70s and 80s, the resulting collapse of the tax base and the slow decay of the infrastructure in the city. The city has had emergency managers off and on since 2002 and efforts to spin the city into a college town have largely failed for a lack of investment.

And a similar story played out across the state and in Detroit.

# ? Jan 17, 2016 16:57

OJ MIST 2 THE DICK: Sep 11, 2008; Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes
And I am taken to a place
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings
Take up shelter in the base of my spine
Sweet like a chica cherry cola
-Cheap Trick; Nap Ghost

Ddraig posted:

How the gently caress does something like that even happen?

The federal government needs to go in and kick some rear end. People should be getting jail time over this.

Republican governor and state congress.

gently caress my state. :negative:

# ? Jan 18, 2016 03:22

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Everyone was hoping for bi-partisan cooperation but not like this.

Nckdictator fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Jan 18, 2016

# ? Jan 18, 2016 03:56

Rand alPaul: Feb 3, 2010; by Nyc_Tattoo

Here's a little tidbit on how Michigan's Emergency Manager law works:

quote:

CURT GUYETTE: Well, one of the things about the emergency manager law is that these managers were given extreme unchecked authority. And the thinking was, the reason for doing that is they were given the ability to come in, clean up the problems and get out. And so there was an 18-month time limit put on their terms. Except that this governor is exploiting what amounts to a loophole in that law. So what happens is that these emergency managers serve for 17 months and 29 days, and the day before their term expires, they resign. A new emergency manager is put in place, and the clock starts ticking all over again. And they just shuffle them from one place to another. So Earley goes from Flint to run DPS. And it just perpetuates this control. It can go on, really, forever, if they want it to, denying people of their democratically elected representation, because the school board, which has been fighting emergency management every step of the way, gets completely marginalized. They have zero authority whatsoever. And that goes to the heart of the problem of this law. It eliminates the democratic checks and balances that make a democracy functional.

Emphasis mine. What a blatant denial of democracy to poor people.

# ? Jan 18, 2016 04:53

Tigey: Apr 6, 2015

Have I walked into the China thread by mistake?

# ? Jan 18, 2016 05:32

boom boom boom: Jun 28, 2012; by Shine

Tigey posted:

Have I walked into the China thread by mistake?

No, this is the thread about Flint, Michigan's water situation.

# ? Jan 18, 2016 05:34

rscott: Dec 10, 2009

ayn rand hand job posted:

technically this was the Flint city council

they voted to make to form a new water authority and switch over before Snyder was even elected

the EM made the swap over about a year earlier than was originally planned and before the rest of the water infrastructure was finished

The fact that they moved off of Detroits water before the pipeline to Lake Huron was done is what had caused this crisis to begin with

# ? Jan 18, 2016 05:36

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

rscott posted:

The fact that they moved off of Detroits water before the pipeline to Lake Huron was done is what had caused this crisis to begin with

which isn't on its face a bad idea, they just utterly failed to do their homework re the flint river water quality

# ? Jan 18, 2016 05:55

CommanderApaul: Aug 30, 2003; It's amazing their hands can support such awesome.

Tigey posted:

Have I walked into the China thread by mistake?

CommanderApaul posted:

Some of the people in my office are involved in sorting out what exactly happened and how to fix it. The quote I got from one of them was "We have to go up and educate them on all the water treatment advances made in the last 50 years" or something to that general effect.

Chinese-style water, Chinese-style solution. Execution, not education.

# ? Jan 18, 2016 16:25

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

This whole situation is kindof mindblowing. I expected bad poo poo to happen under the emergency manager laws, but I thought it would just be corruption, not murder.

# ? Jan 18, 2016 16:39

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

Are there any challenges being worked on to the em law on constitutional grounds?

# ? Jan 18, 2016 17:02

Polygynous: Dec 13, 2006; welp

Real hurthling! posted:

Are there any challenges being worked on to the em law on constitutional grounds?

Maybe, though isn't the position of the Scalia wing of the judiciary that there's technically no right to local government?

# ? Jan 18, 2016 17:33

Bitchkrieg: Mar 10, 2014

The entire state is a mess.

Detroit teachers have been posting to social media about what a catastrophic mess the public schools are.

# ? Jan 18, 2016 18:36

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Bitchkrieg posted:

The entire state is a mess.

Detroit teachers have been posting to social media about what a catastrophic mess the public schools are.

America is an amazing place.

# ? Jan 18, 2016 18:58

Teriyaki Koinku: Nov 25, 2008; Bread! Bread! Bread!

Bread! BREAD! BREAD!

Bitchkrieg posted:

The entire state is a mess.

Detroit teachers have been posting to social media about what a catastrophic mess the public schools are.

Holy poo poo. I've been to India and even the conditions there weren't this bad. And that's with squatter toilets as the cultural norm.

Get your poo poo together, America!

# ? Jan 18, 2016 20:35

Abilifier: Apr 8, 2008

Bitchkrieg posted:

The entire state is a mess.

Detroit teachers have been posting to social media about what a catastrophic mess the public schools are.

This is all being done by the same emergency manager who poisoned Flint's drinking water. Can nothing be done about him? Can someone actually make a career out of killing children and get away with it?

# ? Jan 18, 2016 20:40

OJ MIST 2 THE DICK: Sep 11, 2008; Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes
And I am taken to a place
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings
Take up shelter in the base of my spine
Sweet like a chica cherry cola
-Cheap Trick; Nap Ghost

Abilifier posted:

This is all being done by the same emergency manager who poisoned Flint's drinking water. Can nothing be done about him? Can someone actually make a career out of killing children and get away with it?

Technically he has the power over the district finances. He isn't in charge of building operations, at least directly.

# ? Jan 18, 2016 20:48

Tigey: Apr 6, 2015

I thought the water crisis was bad, but schools as well? Jesus... I've seen public schools in Sierra Leone that were better built/maintained.

# ? Jan 18, 2016 21:23

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Ladies and Gentlemen, the invisible hand of the Free Market :patriot:

# ? Jan 18, 2016 22:39

Party Plane Jones: Jul 1, 2007; by Reene; Fun Shoe

At what point do you not declare the whole town a Superfund site ala Centralia and start trucking people out?

# ? Jan 18, 2016 22:40

OJ MIST 2 THE DICK: Sep 11, 2008; Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes
And I am taken to a place
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings
Take up shelter in the base of my spine
Sweet like a chica cherry cola
-Cheap Trick; Nap Ghost

Party Plane Jones posted:

At what point do you not declare the whole town a Superfund site ala Centralia and start trucking people out?

Centralia isn't a superfund site and Flint is approx 100x the population of Centralia at its peak, so probably never.

# ? Jan 18, 2016 22:49

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

Party Plane Jones posted:

At what point do you not declare the whole town a Superfund site ala Centralia and start trucking people out?

when the ground itself is harmful to human life. the water is sloooowly getting better since they switched back to detroit water in october

# ? Jan 18, 2016 22:52

Party Plane Jones: Jul 1, 2007; by Reene; Fun Shoe

ayn rand hand job posted:

Centralia isn't a superfund site and Flint is approx 100x the population of Centralia at its peak, so probably never.

I was talking about Detroit. :downsrim:

# ? Jan 18, 2016 23:23

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Party Plane Jones posted:

I was talking about Detroit.

All of flyover country and the Rust Belt, you mean.

# ? Jan 18, 2016 23:27

boom boom boom: Jun 28, 2012; by Shine

Suddenly over half a million refugees from Detroit somehow show up in Greece and Turkey.

# ? Jan 18, 2016 23:32

Blowdryer: Jan 25, 2008

Copy pasting because someone asked about this in USPol and I bookmarked it.

e; woops messed up, some of the links worked but here is the original post as someone found it http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3753932&perpage=40&pagenumber=187#post453893384

Blowdryer fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Feb 1, 2016

# ? Jan 18, 2016 23:38

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 04:58

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

there's an interesting angle here about postindustrialism in cities. detroit especially is the crown jewel of the rust belt, but you see the same problem all over - once a city's economic base is taken away, it declines. and this is an odd position for many cities to be in, especially in america where we're used to growth growth growth all over the place. check out detroit's population over time

1820 1,422 �
1830 2,222 56.3%
1840 9,102 309.6%
1850 21,019 130.9%
1860 45,619 117.0%
1870 79,577 74.4%
1880 116,340 46.2%
1890 205,876 77.0%
1900 285,704 38.8%
1910 465,766 63.0%
1920 993,678 113.3%
1930 1,568,662 57.9%
1940 1,623,452 3.5%
1950 1,849,568 13.9%
1960 1,670,144 −9.7%
1970 1,514,063 −9.3%
1980 1,203,368 −20.5%
1990 1,027,974 −14.6%
2000 951,270 −7.5%
2010 713,777 −25.0%
Est. 2014 680,250 −4.7%

detroit has lost over a million residents since deindustrialization began. and the infrastructure to take care of that many people still exists. detroit has full water, sewer, and public electric provision to places that look like this:

and you still have to pay for the infrastructure for all those non-houses

the scale of the vacancy isn't as bad in many places as it is in detroit but still, you can see why so many cities in michigan have such dire finances that emergency managers are empowered. it's not even a question of mismanagement, structurally there's just this built-in burden of paying for infrastructure that can't move as quickly as people can flee the city

here's the fun part - this can happen in any neighborhood in america, and probably will

http://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/

# ? Jan 19, 2016 01:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > What's the deal with the water in Flint?

«‹›9 »

boom boom boom posted:

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Ddraig posted:

Ddraig posted:

Ddraig posted:

hallebarrysoetoro posted:

Flint Water Study posted:

BlackIronHeart posted:

Cugel the Clever posted:

Yoshifan823 posted:

rscott posted:

Popular Thug Drink posted:

Ddraig posted:

quote:

Tigey posted:

ayn rand hand job posted:

rscott posted:

Popular Thug Drink posted:

Tigey posted:

CommanderApaul posted:

Real hurthling! posted:

Bitchkrieg posted:

Bitchkrieg posted:

Bitchkrieg posted:

Abilifier posted:

Party Plane Jones posted:

Party Plane Jones posted:

ayn rand hand job posted:

Party Plane Jones posted: