.....if it was doing that to machines, what was it doing to humans?

[kpete]

Flint water probe may unleash flood of findings on mistakes

....................

One of the most telling moments in this saga was when General Motors disconnected from the Flint River because the water was ruining its machinery, leaving some to wonder — if it was doing that to machines, what was it doing to humans?

Critics contend that red flag alone should have motivated the administration to redouble its due diligence to get to the bottom of this.

http://www.mlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/12/flint_water_probe_may_unleash.html

Flint River is one of the filthiest rivers in Michigan. Over the years, it has housed raw sewage, tires, old refrigerators — which residents have attempted to sift out — and lead. In spite of this, officials declared it safe to drink in April 2014, when they switched the supply to the tainted river. Shortly after the April switch, residents complained the water emitted a foul odor and was cloudy in appearance, but local and state officials insisted the water was safe. In spite of these assurances, in January 2015, MLive reported the State Department of Environmental Quality had “issued a notice of violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act for maximum contaminant levels for trihalomethanes — or TTHM — a group of four chemicals that are formed as a byproduct of disinfecting water.” These chemical byproducts are linked to cancer and other diseases, and presented a separate issue from the lead. The water was so dirty that in October 2014, General Motors announced it would no longer use treated Flint River water at its engine plant out of fears it would cause corrosion.

http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2015/12/rjss-news-on-environment-week-of.html

[JonathanRackham]

1. This problem has been known for awhile.

Why is it taking so long to fix?

This is not a political issue, it's government incompatence.

[madokie]

3. Government is politicians

as I see it. They are who make the decisions that leads to this kind of shit.

[JonathanRackham]

4. Good time for a sit in at the local governments offices.

[madokie]

5. Without a doubt

I'm sick of this cutting taxes for the rich and then cutting services for the rest of us

[JonathanRackham]

6. I wonder what kind of tax breaks the local industrial giants get?

Individuals are also responsible. The crap I find in the upland streams is amazing. I'm afraid to fish and drink water when I hike in the backcountry.

[SharonAnn]

16. Read Ibsen's play - An Enemy of the people. It's about a water source and the political cover up.

[Proserpina]

10. It's GOP trying to solve the poverty problem by killing all the poor

Aside from certain healthy pockets, Michigan is a miserable red-neck, fundie state, trying to pull the covers of a previous century over its head.

It is also my native land, and Michigan can be so much more in the future. As it has been, in the past.

[JonathanRackham]

13. Michigan has some great wilderness areas.

I'd love to canoe the upper peninsula. Obviously away from civilization.

[gratuitous]

18. Not political?

Isn't Flint one of the cities taken over by Gov. Warren's municipal managers? Gotta cut costs somewhere, and dipping out of the Flint River was just one of those cost-cutting measures that would prove the Warren model was just the ticket for running things. Citizens can't be trusted to run their own affairs; too many of them were more concerned with not being poisoned by lead to enjoy an extra couple of dollars every month in reduced taxes. That kind of irresponsible thinking has to be stamped out.

[Siwsan]

26. It is Governor Snyder, and yes he did appoint an "Emergency Manager"

Three different ones. All corrupt, IMHO.

[gratuitous]

30. Thanks

My swiss cheese memory can't keep all the little minions straight. I wonder where I got "Warren"? Rick Warren? Who can say.

[-none]

24. What?

This is not a political issue, it's government incompatence.

If it is government, how is it not political? Elected Politicians run the show in each state and are ultimately responsible for each agency. That makes it political.

[JonathanRackham]

25. Bureaucrats

Bureaucrats generally survive political transitions at municipal agencies. They trend towards entrenchment.

[madokie]

2. Politicians heads should

roll over this. It is no laughing matter that we can't trust our politicians/government on issues as important as water.

[Whiskeytide]

7. Soon there will be rumblings in the belly...

... of the FOX that gubmint can't competently handle the water supply ... so we should privatize it.

[jomin41]

8. Luxuries in the United States of America:

Clean Water
Clean air
Good health care
Good education
Good food
Good job
Good cops

[malthaussen]

9. Machinery is worth much more than people.

People are self-replicating, and surprisingly resilient. They cost a lot less to replace, too. Machines, OTOH, are important.

You just lack the corporate mindset.

-- Mal

[sorechasm]

20. West Virginia Coal miners used to say that mules were treated better in the mines than the miners

because 'you had to pay to replace the mule'.

[malthaussen]

21. Just as they sent a couple of workers to check for quicksand...

... in "Blazing Saddles." And then there's the whole derivation of "Chinaman's chance."

I've always thought the Neutron Bomb made the argument quite cogently.

-- Mal

[Mopar151]

27. Bearings have a part # and a cost. As does the mule.

Knees and ankles are, like, complimentary.... Without a standard fixed cost, it looks like the replacement cost of a miner is $Zilch.Zip, 'cuz recruitment, productivity loss, training cost and the like are buried in "overhead"/fixed cost accounts, not as variable costs like direct payroll.

[ms liberty]

11. Rachel Maddow did a piece on this very recently

Lead in the water. We know what lead does to people. WTF is wrong with the Republicans that they are promoting these insane policies? It just infuriates me.

[ffr]

15. "There is no such thing as a “safe” level of lead"

-Neil DeGrasse Tyson (Cosmos season 1)

You've got that right!

[Enthusiast]

12. US priorities are askew.

But we have the greatest military in the world! We also have a bunch of hawks that can't wait to use that military whether justified or not.

Wouldn't this nation be amazing if we got our priorities straight?

[jomin41]

17. More guns - less butter, to the max.

The amount spent on defense/intelligence/homeland security/hidden budget, just grows and grows and grows. Everything else suffers. More poverty, more debt, more despair.

[Enthusiast]

19. Yup.

Isn't it odd that even though social security has a dedicated funding mechanism, that is in surplus, it is somehow "running out of money". Yet the military, which has no such dedicated funding mechanism, never runs out of money.

[marble falls]

14. This is unbelievable and it reminds me of this:

The Poisoning of Minamata

by Douglas Allchin

It started out quite simply, with the strangeness of cats "dancing" in the street--and sometimes collapsing and dying. Who would have known, in a modest Japanese fishing village in the 1950s, that when friends or family members occasionally shouted uncontrollably, slurred their speech, or dropped their chopsticks at dinner, that one was witnessing the subtle early symptoms of a debilitating nervous condition caused by ingesting mercury? Yet when such scattered, apparently unconnected, and mildly mysterious events began to haunt the town of Minamata, Japan, they were the first signs of one of the most dramatic and emotionally moving cases of industrial pollution in history.


http://www1.umn.edu/ships/ethics/minamata.htm

[glinda]

22. I imagine people's pets suffered pretty badly since they have less

tolerance for toxins even than humans.

[jalan48]

23. Not to worry-agreements like the TPP will make it all better.

[ProfessorGAC]

28. They Sure It Isn't Overchlorinated?

I don't know if the machine tools are made of stainless steel, but chlorine attack on stainless steel is a very well know phenomenon, but perhaps not in the automotive engineering fields. Probably not something mechanical engineers learn a lot about.

Now, if all the machinery is mild steel, then ionic chlorine is not much of a problem.

[Stuart G]

29. Republican in Michigan set this up. ..to save money.

Kill people to save money,,,that is what they are about...