[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by ram2

Where was the United States Environmental Protection Agency during all of this?

Busy

Actually it is a lot more involved than the inaccurate fact summary in this thread.

In a nutshell, but massively simplified andshortented:


The decision was originally made by the City and continued forward by the Emergency Manager with City input, but he was in control. the City no longer had a say - other than an advisory role. The people who were responsible to make sure the water was safe dropped the ball when they came up with brilliant ideas to make the water cheaper. The EM really did not know a lot about what they were doing. Snyder had no involvement whatsoever. If you understood how water systems are governed and how complex they can be, you would understand how this could happen. "arpiuo a row akngri aoutanali. Anf therefore we can reduce the cost of water by 10%" "Sounds great! Do it" The crime was trusting people who were not thinking things through.

The entire area has been looking for alternatives to DWSD water for some time. They felt it was too expensive and they had no real input or control. They are building a separate system (which I am not sure whether it ever got finished and not sure the city is involved, but Genessee county is.). The City considered an interim switch to the local source and decided to take that route before the EM was appointed. The Em followed through with it and made the switch. The local source (Flint River) may or may not be more polluted than the DWSD source (Mouth of the Detroit River), but they made the decision not to treat it with chemicals to reduce (acidity I think). The treatment normally used both reduces the causticness of the water and coats the old pipes with a layer of mineral slime that prevents the water from coming into contact with the old lead and other ickyness of the very old pipes in some parts of the City and in many apartments and homes. The more caustic water eroded away the protective slime coating the pipes and lead leached into the water in some places. The bigger issue is when it was discovered, the parties involved tried to downplay it and then cover it up and as a result, the water continued to have higher lead content than is normally considered acceptable. The problem not only continued, it grew worse as more and more of the coating was worn away and more lead and ick leached into the water. Had they shut it down immediately when detected, it may have been a less significant issue.

This was definitely a problem, not necessarily a disaster. The lead levels found in Flint are common in about 30 or 40 cities across the country. However the water also looked and smelled bad (unrelated to lead) and this made for a media and political circus which turned the mess into a crises.

The most practical solution to the problem was to switch back to DWSD water or add the necessary chemicals to the Flint water and let the slimy coating build back up. Instead the politicians and media insisted that all lead pipes or lead soldered joints in the city be replaced - which is stupid for two reasons. 1. It does nothing about lead pipes and solder in the homes and or apartments, and 2. replacing sections of pipe here and there breaks up and loosens other gunk in existing pipes up and downstream of the replaced pipes. Then there is also the fact it was hysteria driven and not really necessary, but we can put that aside for now. It did need to be done eventually like every other older city, but it did not need to be done in panic mode which costs several multiples more.

Lead pipes and lead soldered pipe joints are all over the place. every older city has some with a few exceptions, primarily in Wisconsin where they replaced them already. They are slowly being replaced (more quickly now) by most cities. Detroit has tons of them. They were never considered a problem because the coating on the pipes prevented significant amounts of lead leaching into the water and it was pretty well assumed the EPA's "safe" maximum levels had a huge factor of safety - in other words, the levels could be substantially higher without any real threat of health impacts. the problem is they really do not know for certain. It could be any lead is a problem (in which case we are all in trouble) or it could be lead levels many multiples of the EPA safe levels might be no problem. They do know lead at very high levels in children and pregnant women is a problem, they just do not know what that threshold is.

You would be amazed if you knew what was in your water. Things known to be a threat like lead, arsenic, mercury are measured to make sure the amount you are drinking of these substances is not a problem. Other things are in the water that are not measured like estrogen, psychoactive drugs, and many many pollutants. P-Foss (I think it may actually be P Phos) for example was never really measured. It has been in our water in many places for decades. No one ever though of it until recently, now it is a crises. Not saying it is not a crises, but it demonstrates there are all kinds of things in the water you drink that are probably killing you or harming you in other ways. Truly clean water is almost non-existent on earth. they believe nearly all water had been flushed through a toilet somewhere at least seven times. Many things (like those mentioned above) are peed out by humans and do not get filtered out through our filtering systems. No one knows what they are doing to us. Hundreds of chemicals were dumped into our water before we wised up and we drink them without knowing they are there, or what they may be doing to us.

Oh and that roundup stuff that Monsanto just got tagged hundreds of millions for making? yeah that is in the water in most places too, especially in agricultural areas.

It is funny to me that some people say "Well I am safe, I am on well water" No, you are less safe. Your water is not filtered or tested or treated at all. Other people say "I only drink bottled water so I am safe" Again dead wrong. Bottled water is either filtered and treated tap water or possibly worse, unfiltered untreated "mountain spring water" Then it is dumped into bottles manufactured and prepared using all sorts of toxic chemicals (and hopefully rinsed away).

So if you want to panic and get hysterical about water, go for it, but there is no need to focus on Flint, look at the water in your tap or in your bottle. It is all contaminated.

[TheProf]

Originally Posted by magellan

I'm not sure what Schuette did above and beyond his "job" as Attorney General regarding the Nassar case.

What's your beef with Cortez? Michigan alos was one of the first States to send a Muslim woman to Washington in this election. Which was sort of surprising but not so much with the huge growth of the Muslim population in metro Detroit area.

My sentiments exactly!