Flint Michigan Water Issue

[Warren Kiefer]

What would we Villagers be doing right now if some individual made a mistake and furnished poison water to the entire Villages community for over two years?? That is exactly what happened in Flint Michigan. My heart breaks for those people, especially the children who will probably have life long medical problems.

[goodtimesintv]

What would we Villagers be doing right now if some individual made a mistake and furnished poison water to the entire Villages community for over two years?? That is exactly what happened in Flint Michigan. My heart breaks for those people, especially the children who will probably have life long medical problems.

"The (Villages Community Development) District is pleased to be able to serve its customers with a supply of pure and safe water while providing dependable wastewater and storm water services.

Water supply quantities are regulated by the St. Johns Water Management District (Lake County) and Southwest Florida Water Management District (Sumter and Marion County) which have issued consumptive use permits to the four utility companies serving the residents of The Villages. Water and wastewater treatment and distribution are regulated by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection....."

VCDD Utilities/Amenities (http://www.districtgov.org/departments/utilities/utilities.aspx)

[graciegirl]

It is sad indeed, Warren, that this is happening in Flint, Michigan, but no need to borrow trouble when there is none.

[Paper1]

What would we Villagers be doing right now if some individual made a mistake and furnished poison water to the entire Villages community for over two years?? That is exactly what happened in Flint Michigan. My heart breaks for those people, especially the children who will probably have life long medical problems.
There was really no mistake made. Flint like many other cities had too many legacy costs and no money. Their action after the facts came out were not a mistake either, but incompetence. It is sad to think something like this could happen in USA.

[Cathy H]

There was really no mistake made. Flint like many other cities had too many legacy costs and no money. Their action after the facts came out were not a mistake either, but incompetence. It is sad to think something like this could happen in USA.
disagree! read the news reports. the city workers under state control changed the water supply to a type that removed the coating built up in the lead home supply pipes and it then leached lead into the water. this was gross negligence.

[goodtimesintv]

And then there's the problem of the EPA itself causing toxic spilling into this river in CO:

"...One question that has been answered is the size of the spill: more than triple than originally estimated. The U.S. Geological Survey reported the size of the spill to be more than 3 million gallons, compared with the initial EPA estimate of 1 million gallons.

The EPA, which caused the accidental release of the contaminants Wednesday, said it continues to monitor the river.

"Collection, transportation and lab analysis of metals in water is complex and time-consuming," the agency said in a statement....

...According to the EPA, the spill occurred when one of its teams was using heavy equipment to enter the Gold King Mine, a suspended mine near Durango. Instead of entering the mine and beginning the process of pumping and treating the contaminated water inside as planned, the team accidentally caused it to flow into the nearby Animas River...."

Pollution flowing faster than facts in EPA spill - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/10/us/colorado-epa-mine-river-spill/)

I think we all need a filter like this, since the EPA is essentially like "the fox is watching the hen house" and is not going to indict itself when there is a problem:

Amazon.com: British Berkefeld® Gravity Water Filter with four 7" Super SterasylTM Ceramic Water Filter Elements: Kitchen & Dining (http://www.amazon.com/British-Berkefeld®-Gravity-SterasylTM-Elements/dp/B002RZRJHI)

[golf2140]

It all started with a poorly run city.

[Warren Kiefer]

"the (villages community development) district is pleased to be able to serve its customers with a supply of pure and safe water while providing dependable wastewater and storm water services.

water supply quantities are regulated by the st. Johns water management district (lake county) and southwest florida water management district (sumter and marion county) which have issued consumptive use permits to the four utility companies serving the residents of the villages. water and wastewater treatment and distribution are regulated by the florida department of environmental protection....."

vcdd utilities/amenities (http://www.districtgov.org/departments/utilities/utilities.aspx)


so did the flint water supplier !! At least that is what they believed !!

[SIRE1]

As a snowbird from Flint, I would like to add my 2 cents to this discussion.

Flint's decline started when GM started to consolidate and reduce operations, and essentially pulled out of Flint. That left a lot of unemployed and that of course, led to a decline of revenues since the taxes generated were now reduced. But of course, no one wanted to do with less even though they could no longer afford it, so Flint kept spending and got further into the hole. The uneducated elected leaders were great at promising "free" things they couldn't deliver, so it was a downward spiral. And one of the recent mayors was a convicted felon, but that didn't stop him from running for mayor.

The state either had to step in with an emergency manager or let the city declare bankruptcy. They chose emergency managers who had to make really hard cutbacks in a lot of areas to keep the city solvent. One of those cutbacks was to no longer buy water from Detroit. Detroit was in the same financial mess (remember, they eventually declared bankrupcy) and were trying to generate more and more money by selling water to outside communities at a higher and higher rate. Detroit felt the outside communities had no other alternatives, so they kept raising the rates similar to a form of blackmail.

So the emergency manager had no choice but to discontinue buying Detroit water and Flint is actually building a new water pipe line all the way to Port Huron to get water from Lake Huron. But in the interim, until the new pipeline is completed this summer, Flint started to use their old water plant and get it from the Flint River. Actually, when I was a kid, that is where our water came from but I suspect the water plant hadn't been used for years and years, so I'm sure it was terribly outdated.

And the lead situation arose because the river water was corrosive, and that corrosive water actually started to eat into a lot of the REALLY OLD plumbing infrastructure, which consisted of lead pipes. That is where the lead is coming from.

But through some level of incompetence, no one thought about the infrastructure and what a change in water supply might do to the pipes. They had used Detroit water so long that it wasn't on anyones radar. So they didn't think to add chemicals which would have prevented the proplem and the water started to eat the old lead pipes which were installed in the older sections of the city. That has created the problem we are reading about now. It is important to know, however, that the lead problem is not impacting the whole of the city, but in the area where lead pipes and lead solder was used. And like most other cities, the older sections of Flint are also the poorer sections as well so the news media is using that as a major talking point.

So it is really the same old story we have all heard before. Much of the infrastructure of America was built before the mid 1950's and uneducated politicians keep spending money they don't have. But was there an intentional decission to target a specific group of Flint citizens - I say NO. It was more a series of decissions that were made by people who had good intentions but who were uninformed to the consequences. Could it happen here in TV, or any where else? I hate to say it, but probably.

[goodtimesintv]

so did the flint water supplier !! At least that is what they believed !!

Well I think we're a bit better situated by not being tied to a city like Detroit, for water and total economic-jobs-housing collapse!

"The city of Detroit, Michigan, filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy on July 18, 2013. It is the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history by debt, estimated at $18–20 billion, exceeding Jefferson County, Alabama's $4-billion filing in 2011.

Detroit is also the largest city by population in the U.S. history to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, more than twice as large as Stockton, California, which filed in 2012. Detroit’s population has declined from a peak of 1.8 million in 1950; recently, the New York Times called the city “home to 700,000 people, as well as to tens of thousands of abandoned buildings, vacant lots and unlit streets.”

Detroit’s bankruptcy filing followed a declaration of financial emergency in March 2013 that resulted in Kevyn Orr being appointed as "emergency manager" of the city by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. Orr’s subsequent negotiations sought to get creditors to willingly “take a haircut” on Detroit’s debt, and were ultimately unsuccessful."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_bankruptcy

[KayakerNC]

And it keeps getting more interesting. Unless, of course, you live in Flint.

New emails reveal the switch to the Flint River was not about saving money | Blogs | Detroit Metro Times (http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2016/01/25/new-emails-reveal-the-switch-to-the-flint-river-was-not-about-saving-money)

[Fred R]

As a snowbird from Flint, I would like to add my 2 cents to this discussion.

Flint's decline started when GM started to consolidate and reduce operations, and essentially pulled out of Flint. That left a lot of unemployed and that of course, led to a decline of revenues since the taxes generated were now reduced. But of course, no one wanted to do with less even though they could no longer afford it, so Flint kept spending and got further into the hole. The uneducated elected leaders were great at promising "free" things they couldn't deliver, so it was a downward spiral. And one of the recent mayors was a convicted felon, but that didn't stop him from running for mayor.

The state either had to step in with an emergency manager or let the city declare bankruptcy. They chose emergency managers who had to make really hard cutbacks in a lot of areas to keep the city solvent. One of those cutbacks was to no longer buy water from Detroit. Detroit was in the same financial mess (remember, they eventually declared bankrupcy) and were trying to generate more and more money by selling water to outside communities at a higher and higher rate. Detroit felt the outside communities had no other alternatives, so they kept raising the rates similar to a form of blackmail.

So the emergency manager had no choice but to discontinue buying Detroit water and Flint is actually building a new water pipe line all the way to Port Huron to get water from Lake Huron. But in the interim, until the new pipeline is completed this summer, Flint started to use their old water plant and get it from the Flint River. Actually, when I was a kid, that is where our water came from but I suspect the water plant hadn't been used for years and years, so I'm sure it was terribly outdated.

And the lead situation arose because the river water was corrosive, and that corrosive water actually started to eat into a lot of the REALLY OLD plumbing infrastructure, which consisted of lead pipes. That is where the lead is coming from.

But through some level of incompetence, no one thought about the infrastructure and what a change in water supply might do to the pipes. They had used Detroit water so long that it wasn't on anyones radar. So they didn't think to add chemicals which would have prevented the proplem and the water started to eat the old lead pipes which were installed in the older sections of the city. That has created the problem we are reading about now. It is important to know, however, that the lead problem is not impacting the whole of the city, but in the area where lead pipes and lead solder was used. And like most other cities, the older sections of Flint are also the poorer sections as well so the news media is using that as a major talking point.

So it is really the same old story we have all heard before. Much of the infrastructure of America was built before the mid 1950's and uneducated politicians keep spending money they don't have. But was there an intentional decission to target a specific group of Flint citizens - I say NO. It was more a series of decissions that were made by people who had good intentions but who were uninformed to the consequences. Could it happen here in TV, or any where else? I hate to say it, but probably.

This is the best summary of this terrible issue that I have read in a long time. Bottom line, there is plenty of "blame" to go around and no one person was responsible for this disaster. I would hope that now the issue has presented itself for the poor folks up there, that they spend as much time fixing the problem as they have trying to fix the blame.

[asianthree]

And it keeps getting more interesting. Unless, of course, you live in Flint.

New emails reveal the switch to the Flint River was not about saving money | Blogs | Detroit Metro Times (http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2016/01/25/new-emails-reveal-the-switch-to-the-flint-river-was-not-about-saving-money)

This is what bothers me the most

[SIRE1]

For a little more background on the Flint water issue, I recommend you read the letter that was sent by Kettering University to their students and parents of their students. Go to Google and enter "Kettering letter to students". That is the most comprehesive description of the problem I have found since the water switch was made. For those of you who may not be familiar with Kettering University, it is one of the highly regarded technical colleges in the country, and used to be know as General Motors Institute.