Flint, MI

TownieDeac said:

Weird, I thought that tire fire had been under one party rule for half a century?

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jhmd2000 said:

Not at all. In fact, let's ask the people at the very center of it. Here's what they said:

"Government failed you -- federal, state and local leaders -- by breaking the trust you placed in us."

Your beloved omnisolution sucks again.

WHAT A SUPRISE!

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jhmd2000 said:

If you're looking for a defense of Michigan local government, why are you asking a Republican? That tire fire has been under one party rule for half a century...and it shows. Good job, good effort, dems.

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deacvision7 said:

Yet, I'm not the one trying to blame an entire political party. Weird, that.

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deacvision7 said:

Elected officials of both parties have massively failed their constituents in Michigan. Shame on both the Democratic and Republican parties in that state.

I have no problem at all saying that.



If you want to start a thread about the failing schools in Detroit, including how they are all shut down today, because of inept politicians in that city, please feel free to do so. I will agree with you on that matter. However, it has very little to do with the poisoning of water in Flint, Michigan. The main similarity is the ineptness of the elected officials in charge; Republican or Democrat. So let's keep the focus on the water poisoning in this thread, jhmd. What do you say?

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deacvision7 said:

If you want to start a thread about the failing schools in Detroit, including how they are all shut down today, because of inept politicians in that city, please feel free to do so. I will agree with you on that matter. However, it has very little to do with the poisoning of water in Flint, Michigan. The main similarity is the ineptness of the elected officials in charge; Republican or Democrat. So let's keep the focus on the water poisoning in this thread, jhmd. What do you say?

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avalon said:

One thing, the guy that was the appointed Emergency Manager for Flint when the water supply was switched over is now the Emergency Manager of the Detroit Public Schools. I don't know how much he has to do with the schools currently being shut down, I just think that's crazy.

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deacvision7 said:

I didn't realize it was the same guy. That's fucking insane.

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jhmd2000 said:

Government fails to police its own failures? I for one am shocked at this stunning news.

But anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yes, letting this crowd run our national health care monopoly. Seems legit.

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TownieDeac said:

I don't think anyone is proposing putting Flint officials in charge of our nation's single payer health care, aside from you.

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jhmd2000 said:

If you're looking for a defense of Michigan local government, why are you asking a Republican? That tire fire has been under one party rule for half a century...and it shows. Good job, good effort, dems.

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TuffaloDeac10 said:

Your family is #2 on the list to be hydrated with Flint water.

MI is a Dillon's Rule state. This is squarely on the GOP state gov.

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Flint's water problems started long before the news of lead poisoning broke. First there was bacterial contamination; then the city issued a warning because the water had too much trihalomethane, a byproduct of chlorine that can cause cancer and birth defects.

State Rep. Sheldon Neeley, who represents Flint, sent Snyder a letter in January 2015, pleading with the governor for help. Flint "stands on the precipice of civil unrest" because its residents cannot trust the water, he wrote, asking the state to forgive a $21 million debt it owed to a state fund meant to help improve water safety.

But a briefing from the state Department of Environmental Quality sent to Snyder on Feb. 1 plays down the Flint water safety problems. And it suggests the city was ginning up panic in order to get access to state funds.

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That narrative — that the water problem was Flint's, not Michigan's — would continue for months, even though Flint was controlled by a state-appointed emergency manager. And the denial continued after research revealed that children's blood lead levels were increasing.

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Five years ago, Snyder signed legislation that expanded the reasons why the state could choose to appoint a municipal emergency manager, then granted those appointees almost complete power over their assigned municipalities. Under Public Act 4, as it was called, state-appointed emergency managers could break collective bargaining agreements, fire elected officials and determine their salaries, and privatize or sell public assets.”We can’t stand by and watch schools fail, water shut off, or police protection disappear,” the governor said in a statement defending the emergency management law. “Without the emergency manager law, there is precious little that can be done to prevent those kinds of nightmare scenarios. But with it, we can take positive action on behalf of the people to quickly avert a crisis.”

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Walters called the city. After some hemming and hawing, they sent over a crew to test the water. The inspector left her an urgent voicemail one night telling her not to use the water until they talked. She called the next morning, and the inspector told her that her water came back with 104 parts per billion of lead. This was nearly seven times above the federal-action level of 15 ppb. The inspector recommended running the water for nearly a half-hour before using it, and he came back two weeks later. This time, Walters' water tested at 397. Panicked, she got Gavin and the rest of her family tested for lead poisoning. No level of lead is considered safe, but anything more than 5 micrograms per deciliter in the blood is considered highly damaging. [Four year old] Gavin's came back at 6.5.

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The state and city did their own testing. They managed to come up with only 71 samples. Originally, the city came in above federally accepted levels, but then the MDEQ instructed Flint to eliminate two of the highest test scores on technicalities. One was LeeAnne Walters' house. The reason? She used a water filter.

"It's amazing how hard they had to work to leave people in harm's way and all the lies they told," Edwards said to me a few weeks later, after his research had been vindicated. He's taken Flint on as a cause, and much of the information that's come to light came from FOIA requests made by Edwards. "We will throw a landlord in jail in this country if they do not disclose a lead-paint hazard in an apartment. It's that simple." He sighed and tried to maintain an even tone, but was unsuccessful. "Here, these fuckers were working overtime to cover this up and to keep kids drinking."

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"When pediatricians hear about lead, we freak out," Hanna-Attisha told me. "We absolutely freak out, because we know the kind of irreversible lifetime multigenerational impact." You can address the damage, she said, but it will always be there.

Prior to the switch-over, 2.1 percent of kids tested at elevated lead levels. In tests administered between January and September 2015, the number spiked to 4 percent and to more than 6 percent in Flint's worst-effected neighborhoods. She checked and rechecked the numbers before going public in September. The state's reaction was predictable. Wurfel said her research didn't match the state's and was "unfortunate" in a time of "near hysteria."

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WFFaithful said:

Why haven't the lovlies in Raleigh discovered this "Emergency Manager" "solution" with their hatred of the liberal cities? ALEC must not have mentioned it to them yet.

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