Flint Michigan Water problems.

[tiredtoo]

This should go viral, keep their feet to the fire.
http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2015/12/23/states-handling-flint-water-samples-delayed-action/77367872/

[madinmaryland]

1. Thanks! In the future would you mind pasting a couple of paragraphs from the artical?

That way we have a better idea what the article is about. You can paste up to four paragraphs...

LANSING — Lead levels in Flint's drinking water would have spurred action months sooner if the results of city testing that wrapped up in June had not been revised by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to wrongly indicate the water was safe to drink, e-mails show.

The records — obtained by the Michigan ACLU and by Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech researcher who helped raise concerns about Flint's water — show how state officials first appear to have encouraged the City of Flint to find water samples with low lead levels and later told Flint officials to disqualify two samples with high readings. The move changed the overall lead level results to acceptable from unacceptable.

The e-mails also show that DEQ district coordinator Stephen Busch told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Feb. 27 that Flint had "an optimized corrosion control program" to prevent lead from leaching into the drinking water from pipes, connections and fixtures. In fact, the city — disastrously — had no corrosion control program.

..snip

[ljm2002]

2. Someone needs to go to prison...

...they have caused lifelong problems for many people, especially the young who drank lead tainted water.

Shame on them. Glad this is coming to light, but wow does it say a lot about our current situation here in the US.

[madinmaryland]

3. It's a really scary thing that something like this can happen.

[tiredtoo]

7. oops

Will do so in the future.

[Octafish]

4. Researcher: State Tried to Cover Up Child Lead Poisoning in Flint Following Switch to River Water

by Curt Guyette
ACLU Michigan, Investigative Reporter, Dec. 21, 2015

The State of Michigan attempted to cover up the fact that its own data revealed a significant spike in lead found in Flint children after the state forced the city to draw water from the Flint River, a researcher who studied the Flint crisis has alleged.

In a posting Monday on the website FlintWaterStudy.org, Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards accused the state of neglecting the lead-poisoning issue even though Michigan officials knew as early as summer 2014 that there was a problem.

“They (Michigan Department of Human and Services officials) discovered scientifically conclusive evidence of an anomalous increase in childhood lead poisoning in summer 2014 immediately after the switch in water sources, but stood by silently as Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) officials repeatedly and falsely stated that no spike in blood lead levels (BLL) of children had occurred,” wrote Edwards

Last summer, Edwards joined forces with a coalition of Flint residents and the ACLU of Michigan to conduct an independent test of water entering the homes of Flint residents. Those tests found lead levels dramatically higher than those being claimed by state and city officials.

This new report, prompted by state e-mails obtained by Edwards under the Freedom of Information Act, adds to the emerging picture of a state government more concerned with concealing the potential health hazards that resulted from the water-source switch than with addressing the risks themselves.

[font color="green"]Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley, who was appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder, ordered that the city switch from the Detroit water system to the caustic Flint River in April 2014.[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.aclumich.org/article/researcher-state-tried-cover-child-lead-poisoning-flint-following-switch-river-water?platform=hootsuite

[appalachiablue]

5. What this vile crime says about the state of the country is distressing. Things must change.

[Igel]

6. I watched this for the last month or two.

What I don't understand is the graph that keeps getting thrown around that shows a blood-lead spike in summer '14. It reverts to normal within a couple of months, even before "steps were taken" to stop the problem. What's current is taken to be what's past and not present.

It's mostly gone viral, but there's a lag in updating the popular knowledge base or on new information.

[tiredtoo]

8. The reversion to normal

is part of the problem. State officials requested samples from sources they knew would be normal. collecting 25 percent of the samples from a block that had new water lines installed just recently.