any chatter here about Flint water crisis?

[quicksix]

CB
you have the floor

[Crowbob]

Social stratification is fairly self-explanatory. We all know about social classes, i.e., upper, middle and lower., etc. I was struck by the polluted and garbage-strewn bay in Rio where it looks like Olympic sailing will be taking place. Everything from raw sewage to furniture including animal carcasses are floating about. In addition the mosquito-born Zika virus has infected thousands of Brazilian children and is rapidly spreading. The existences of the people who live in these conditions is a reality far removed from the would-be yacht-owning Olympic champions. Stratification. It got me to thinking about Flint.

The affected population in Flint are there because they have no where to go and no way to get there even if they did. Per a recent article in the Detroit Free Press, one very young woman, a black unmarried, pregnant, single mother of 3 going to community college, lamented that it seems like nobody cares!

As awful as it sounds, she may have a point. But the problem can't be reduced to simple racism, which is usually vociferously announced as the cause or to selfishness and greed. The water problem in Flint is a result of abandonment. Many of the people exposed to the water have absolutely no power and never had any. Their lives, now generational, were hidden from our view through decades and decades of social policy financed by good-time largess and inherently flawed reasoning.

Now that the money and the people who earned it have left, I think the lower strata are now exposed to us as the dependent, non-contributing beings they always were. The water crisis is more a result of economic distortion than of political or racial decision-making.

It seems likely there are going to be more and more victims of these trying times as the complexity of our society increases. We just don't seem to have the energy or the will or the resources anymore to care. We're tapped out. Not that we choose not to care; we can't care. It appears callous and incompetent that such a thing could happen here. But maybe not. It may be that we're beginning to become overwhelmed and overrun by our problems and that there really is no genuine prevention of social Darwinism in spite of how hard we've tried to find one.

[Cajundaddy]

Perhaps.

Abandonment is probably an accurate word but I think that has been going on since man walked upright. Every once in a while we are reminded that we are a flawed species and we tend to f*** up from time to time. In Roman times the military would use captured slaves until they could work no longer and then turn them loose in the desert without food or water or simply toss them overboard in the Med. 150 years ago we abandoned whole civilizations of native Americans who were left rotting in reservations. The world abandoned Armenians while the Turks attempted to wipe them from the earth and 20 years later Hitler tried the same thing with the Jews. Mao abandoned 30 million Chinese during the Great Chinese Famine. In many ways we have abandoned our homeless population.

It is tragic and quite true. The Flint water contamination was abandonment of people and basic principles. It was an easy fix but no one cared enough to get it done. We have come far but still have a long way to go.

[James Brown]

Wallmart to the rescue!
Flint Michigan water: Walmart and partners donating 6.5 million bottles of water to Flint schools - Jan. 26, 2016

[daepp]

Good for Walmart.

Sadly, I think this will get very little press...\\And FWIW, I think Crowbob is onto something.

[Don Ro]

Originally Posted by daepp

And FWIW, I think Crowbob is onto something.

Yes he is.
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"The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty" - - by Simon Baron-Cohen
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Amazon
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Robot Check

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by rattlsnak

ummm, no, this is what happens after years of democrats..

Flint

Or one could see it as what Republicans do to Democrats once they have control over them.

And confirming worst fears.

Originally Posted by jyl

The lead corrosion issues could have been avoided for $100/day in treatment. This wasn't a ultimately a money problem. This was an incompetence and indifference problem.

Those poor people don't vote republican, so they don't get any consideration by the republicans in power.

I still remember a clip of where GWB is exiting Marine One (helicopter) and is asked about now representing the country (by a reporter post election), and his retort is he only represents those which voted for him.

That pretty much sums up the republican attitude I'm afraid.

And we can see it in the handling of Flint.

[flipper35]

Darnell Earley is now Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager. Promising to make cuts there too.

New Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Darnell Earley ready to make 'tough' and 'necessary' cuts | MLive.com

[vash]

i vaguely remember my water treatment class in college.

i think i heard in some lecture that all they do to treat water to protect pipes is to add calcium??? i think it coats the pipes and is a barrier between the lead and water.

and in that class we took several field trips..they took water samples daily. from various points downstream..

man, what a disaster. this is awful.

[MBAtarga]

Originally Posted by kach22i

I still remember a clip of whre GWB is exiting Marine One (helicopter) and is asked about now representing the country (by a reporter post election), and his retort is he only represents those which voted for him.

That pretty much sums up the republican attitude I'm afraid.

And we can see it in the handling of Flint.

We have the answer now - it's Bush's fault.

[CurtEgerer]

Like all 'crisis' in this day and age, this one too has been completely overblown. It is now nothing more than a money grab and political opportunism. It is an unfortunate event and lead is certainly something to be avoided but let's try to use a tiny bit of perspective.

Nearly anyone over the age of about 50 (that would be most everyone here), was exposed to lead contaminated water (not to mention lead paint and lead gasoline) for their entire childhood - not just a few months like those in Flint. Nobody was treating this stuff or monitoring it until the 70s. Yet, somehow we all seem to be doing OK And there are no health issues in Flint residents today, only some nebulous predictions that something might happen in the future based on elevated lead levels in blood of a small % of those tested.

Lead pipes from the city watermain to the house were considered a very desirable material from the early 1900s to the 1960s throughout the USA. Some houses used lead pipes in their homes rather than galvanized or copper (I'll bet some of these Flint homes built in the 30s and 40s still have active sections of lead). So why hasn't the City of Flint replaced all of the underground lead watermain connections? They've only had 50 years to get it done.

The blame for this is entirely on the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA. They are 100% responsible for approving and monitoring public water supplies. They are the ones who allowed water to be drawn from the Flint River without proper treatment. You can't blame the Mayor, the City Council or the Emergency Manager - if their recommendation to use the Flint River could not meet State/Federal standards, the DEQ and the EPA should have denied the permit. THEY are the water experts, not the politicians. That is their job. That's what we pay them for.

[jyl]

Good article here
What Went Wrong In Flint | FiveThirtyEight

[ChemMan]

My parents live in Flint. They have been doing the bottled water now for a few months. The part of it all that adds insult to injury is the high water bill they receive for essentially non unusable water.

[Oh Haha]

I'm sorry to hear this Mike.

I thought they lived in the township.

[daepp]

Originally Posted by CurtEgerer

Like all 'crisis' in this day and age, this one too has been completely overblown. It is now nothing more than a money grab and political opportunism. It is an unfortunate event and lead is certainly something to be avoided but let's try to use a tiny bit of perspective.

Nearly anyone over the age of about 50 (that would be most everyone here), was exposed to lead contaminated water (not to mention lead paint and lead gasoline) for their entire childhood - not just a few months like those in Flint. Nobody was treating this stuff or monitoring it until the 70s. Yet, somehow we all seem to be doing OK And there are no health issues in Flint residents today, only some nebulous predictions that something might happen in the future based on elevated lead levels in blood of a small % of those tested.

Lead pipes from the city watermain to the house were considered a very desirable material from the early 1900s to the 1960s throughout the USA. Some houses used lead pipes in their homes rather than galvanized or copper (I'll bet some of these Flint homes built in the 30s and 40s still have active sections of lead). So why hasn't the City of Flint replaced all of the underground lead watermain connections? They've only had 50 years to get it done.

The blame for this is entirely on the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA. They are 100% responsible for approving and monitoring public water supplies. They are the ones who allowed water to be drawn from the Flint River without proper treatment. You can't blame the Mayor, the City Council or the Emergency Manager - if their recommendation to use the Flint River could not meet State/Federal standards, the DEQ and the EPA should have denied the permit. THEY are the water experts, not the politicians. That is their job. That's what we pay them for.

Yeah - some sanity!

[KevinTodd]

The sneakiest aspect of this entire racist situation is how the lead-tainted water was only piped to minorities' homes.

[Crowbob]

CurtEgerer's post is excellent.

The bureaucrats screwed up royal.

[vash]

i recently took a class in lead poisoning..

that is bad juju..really bad.

[jyl]

The mid-level guys (DEQ etc) screwed up badly. But the top level guys didn't pay enough attention, dismissed lots of public/private warnings, didn't ask the right questions and push for answers. They cannot, IMO, escape their responsibility. The governor wasn't so far above/removed from the situation. Too many emails directly to him about the problem.

[Crowbob]

This has happened before to a Republican Governor of Michigan:

Snyder's lead-in-the-water crisis harks back to Milliken's trial by PBBs | MLive.com