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Flint, MI

If it wasn't to save money, why do it?

It'll all come down to some donor or contractor that got lined up to make millions on the switchover and greased some wheels somewhere.
 
Michigan Officials Quietly Gave Bottled Water To State Employees Months Before Flint Residents

The Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget decided to haul water coolers into the Flint state building in January of 2015 out of concern over the city’s water quality, a year before bottled water was being made available to residents, according to documents obtained by Progress Michigan.

Flint switched its water source from Detroit to the Flint River in April 2014, which is now known to have caused lead to leach into the city’s tap water. After two boil advisories were issued in August and September of 2014, the city sent residents a notice that the level of trihalomethanes (TTHMs), which can cause liver and kidney problems, had exceed federal limits, although they were told that it was still fine to use the water and no corrective actions needed to be taken.

But concerns raised over water quality were enough for officials in the state’s capitol of Lansing to decide to give state employees the option to drink bottled water from coolers, rather than from water fountains. Coolers were placed next to the fountains on each occupied floor, according to the documents, and were to be provided “as long as the public water does not meet treatment requirements.”
 
Michael Moore sucks, but this is just brutal:

While the Children in Flint Were Given Poisoned Water to Drink, General Motors Was Given a Special Hookup to the Clean Water. A few months after Governor Snyder removed Flint from the clean fresh water we had been drinking for decades, the brass from General Motors went to him and complained that the Flint River water was causing their car parts to corrode when being washed on the assembly line. The Governor was appalled to hear that GM property was being damaged, so he jumped through a number of hoops and quietly spent $440,000 to hook GM back up to the Lake Huron water, while keeping the rest of Flint on the Flint River water. Which means that while the children in Flint were drinking lead-filled water, there was one — and only one — address in Flint that got clean water: the GM factory.

For Just $100 a Day, This Crisis Could’ve Been Prevented. Federal law requires that water systems which are sent through lead pipes must contain an additive that seals the lead into the pipe and prevents it from leaching into the water. Someone at the beginning suggested to the Governor that they add this anti-corrosive element to the water coming out of the Flint River. “How much would that cost?” came the question. “$100 a day for three months,” was the answer. I guess that was too much, so, in order to save $9,000, the state government said f*** it — and as a result the State may now end up having to pay upwards of $1.5 billion to fix the mess.

There’s More Than the Lead in Flint’s Water. In addition to exposing every child in the city of Flint to lead poisoning on a daily basis, there appears to be a number of other diseases we may be hearing about in the months ahead. The number of cases in Flint of Legionnaires Disease has increased tenfold since the switch to the river water. Eighty-seven people have come down with it, and at least ten have died. In the five years before the river water, not a single person in Flint had died of Legionnaires Disease. Doctors are now discovering that another half-dozen toxins are being found in the blood of Flint’s citizens, causing concern that there are other health catastrophes which may soon come to light.

People’s Homes in Flint Are Now Worth Nothing Because They Cant Be Sold. Would you buy a house in Flint right now? Who would? So every homeowner in Flint is stuck with a house that’s now worth nothing. That’s a total home value of $2.4 billion down the economic drain. People in Flint, one of the poorest cities in the U.S., don’t have much to their name, and for many their only asset is their home. So, in addition to being poisoned, they have now a net worth of zero. (And as for employment, who is going to move jobs or start a company in Flint under these conditions? No one.) Has Flint’s future just been flushed down that river?

While They Were Being Poisoned, They Were Also Being Bombed. Here’s a story which has received little or no coverage outside of Flint. During these two years of water contamination, residents in Flint have had to contend with a decision made by the Pentagon to use Flint for target practice. Literally. Actual unannounced military exercises – complete with live ammo and explosives – were conducted last year inside the city of Flint. The army decided to practice urban warfare on Flint, making use of the thousands of abandoned homes which they could drop bombs on. Streets with dilapidated homes had rocket-propelled grenades fired upon them. For weeks, an undisclosed number of army troops pretended Flint was Baghdad or Damascus and basically had at it. It sounded as if the city was under attack from an invading army or from terrorists. People were shocked this could be going on in their neighborhoods. Wait – did I say “people?” I meant, Flint people. As with the Governor, it was OK to abuse a community that held no political power or money to fight back. BOOM!

The Wife of the Governor’s Chief of Staff Is a Spokeswoman for Nestle, Michigan’s Largest Owner of Private Water Reserves. As Deep Throat told Woodward and Bernstein: “Follow the money.” Snyder’s chief of staff throughout the two years of Flint’s poisoning, Dennis Muchmore, was intimately involved in all the decisions regarding Flint. His wife is Deb Muchmore, who just happens to be the spokesperson in Michigan for the Nestle Company – the largest owner of private water sources in the State of Michigan. Nestle has been repeatedly sued in northern Michigan for the 200 gallons of fresh water per minute it sucks from out of the ground and bottles for sale as their Ice Mountain brand of bottled spring water. The Muchmores have a personal interest in seeing to it that Nestles grabs as much of Michigan’s clean water was possible – especially when cities like Flint in the future are going to need that Ice Mountain.

In Michigan, from Flint water, to Crime and Murder, to GM Ignition Switches, It’s a Culture of Death. It’s not just the water that was recklessly used to put people’s lives in jeopardy. There are many things that happen in Flint that would give one the impression that there is a low value placed on human life. Flint has one of the worst murder and crime rates in the country. Just for context, if New York City had the same murder rate as Flint, Michigan, the number of people murdered last year in New York would have been almost 4,000 people – instead of the actual 340 who were killed in NYC in 2015. But it’s not just street crime that makes one wonder about what is going on in Michigan. Last year, it was revealed that, once again, one of Detroit’s automakers had put profit ahead of people’s lives. General Motors learned that it had installed faulty ignition switches in many of its cars. Instead of simply fixing the problem, mid-management staff covered it up from the public. The auto industry has a history of weighing the costs of whether it’s cheaper to spend the money to fix the defect in millions of cars or to simply pay off a bunch of lawsuits filed by the victims surviving family members. Does a cynical, arrogant culture like this make it easy for a former corporate CEO, now Governor, turn a blind eye to the lead that is discovered in a municipality’s drinking water?

Don’t Call It “Detroit Water” — It’s the Largest Source of Fresh Drinking Water in the World. The media keeps saying Flint was using “Detroit’s water.” It is only filtered and treated at the Detroit Water Plant. The water itself comes from Lake Huron, the third largest body of fresh water in the world. It is a glacial lake formed over 10,000 years ago during the last Ice Age and it is still fed by pure underground springs. Flint is geographically the last place on Earth where one should be drinking poisoned water.

ALL the Children Have Been Exposed, As Have All the Adults, Including Me. That’s just a fact. If you have been in Flint anytime from April 2014 to today, and you’ve drank the water, eaten food cooked with it, washed your clothes in it, taken a shower, brushed your teeth or eaten vegetables from someone’s garden, you’ve been exposed to and ingested its toxins. When the media says “9,000 children under 6 have been exposed,” that means ALL the children have been exposed because the total number of people under the age of 6 in Flint is… 9,000! The media should just say, “all.” When they say “47 children have tested positive”, that’s just those who’ve drank the water in the last week or so. Lead enters the body and does it’s damage to the brain immediately. It doesn’t stay in the blood stream for longer than a few days and you can’t detect it after a month. So when you hear “47 children”, that’s just those with an exposure in the last 48 hours. It’s really everyone.

This Was Done, Like So Many Things These Days, So the Rich Could Get a Big Tax Break. When Governor Snyder took office in 2011, one of the first things he did was to get a multi-billion dollar tax break passed by the Republican legislature for the wealthy and for corporations. But with less tax revenues, that meant he had to start cutting costs. So, many things – schools, pensions, welfare, safe drinking water – were slashed. Then he invoked an executive privilege to take over cities (all of them majority black) by firing the mayors and city councils whom the local people had elected, and installing his cronies to act as “dictators” over these cities. Their mission? Cut services to save money so he could give the rich even more breaks. That’s where the idea of switching Flint to river water came from. To save $15 million! It was easy. Suspend democracy. Cut taxes for the rich. Make the poor drink toxic river water. And everybody’s happy.

Except those who were poisoned in the process. All 102,000 of them. In the richest country in the world.
 
Gov is asking the federal government to provide long-term health care for all children of Flint.

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DPS EM Darnell Earley to step down Feb. 29

^^ Former Flint Emergency Manager, current Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager.

In a statement, DPS spokeswoman Michelle Zdrodowski said Earley is leaving “because he has been able to accomplish everything possible under the stated powers of an EM.”

“Most specifically, were it not for the $515 million in debt, the District’s FY15 audit shows that there would have been a $13 million surplus,” she said.

Earley has come under intense criticism in recent weeks for his tenure as emergency manager of Flint when the city moved from the Detroit water system to the Flint River, a switch that resulted in lead contamination of the city’s drinking water.

In addition, teacher sickouts this year in DPS have raised awareness of potentially unsafe and unsanitary conditions at many buildings within the district, which is on the brink of insolvency.

Tanika Smith, a preschool teacher at Spain Elementary-Middle School, said staff members celebrated the news. A city inspection of the building last month found evidence of rodents, water damage, mold and other problems.

“We are ecstatic here at Spain that he resigned,” said Smith. “And the governor should be next. It is unacceptable that our schools had to have so much attention paid to the conditions before he resigned.”
 
Small consolation. When are people going to go to jail for intentionally allowing people to be poisoned?
 
The absolute smallest of consolations. He was allowed to step down from another job basically because of bad publicity. And he's bragging about a phantom surplus in $$ as some schools are left in deplorable conditions.
 
The Day One Flint Mother Told Me The Story Of How America Poisoned Her Baby Girl

She kept running the water. Told me to put in the tester that some government man had stopped by her house to give her to see if her water was still contaminated. On any given day, the meter should give out a reading close to zero, definitely below 15 and for sure below 50. I held the tester in the water myself and got a reading immediately. 184. One hundred and eighty-four. We stood in silence, me in disbelief, her in much more concerned disbelief. Even the filters weren’t working.

For now, this young mother just looked at her one year baby girl, and softly said, “we got her tested last week and the results were no good.” Seizures. The little girl had developed seizures recently. No one knew why. Now they knew.

The little boy in the ninja turtle pajamas was standing off to the side. Staring off into the living room. I tried to pick him up, missing Mateo Ali, I thought he would bring me comfort. But, he certainly didn’t like that idea and quickly squirmed out of my arms. Upon landing back on his feet, he just stared into space. I tried to tickle him and make small jokes, attempting to engage with him on some level, but his mother said, “he is having trouble talking.” I couldn’t help but notice, that his gaze seemed to be fixated somewhere not important in the room. I asked, “is he ok?” His mama said, “we are getting him tested this week.”

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So now we're going sensationalistic? That's not going to solve anything. The aging infrastructure is the root issue and it's a problem all over the place in these older cities......see the article WFFaithful linked to which talks about lead levels being worse than Flint in many other parts of Michigan. Sure lead levels got above safety limits in a large part of Flint but for the most part it was still below acceptable limits for adults (and kids prior to 2010). A couple of exceptions have been noted but I'm not sure anyone could have foreseen that happen. I think that's why no one was really acutely concerned...including the EPA. These limits have a lot of safety buffers built into them anyway.

It's not "billions" of dollars to fix the pipes either, the estimate is $60m.
 
What is sensationalistic?
 
Small consolation. When are people going to go to jail for intentionally allowing people to be poisoned?

never. too many low level criminals to send to prison for stealing cars.
 
what is an "acceptable limit for adults?"
 
APNewsBreak: Officials warned of water, Legionnaires' link

"The increase of the illnesses closely corresponds with the timeframe of the switch to the Flint River water. The majority of the cases reside or have an association with the city," Jim Henry, Genesee County's environmental health supervisor, wrote March 10 to Flint leaders, the city's state-appointed emergency financial manager and the state Department of Environmental Quality, known as the DEQ.

"This situation has been explicitly explained to MDEQ and many of the city's officials," Henry said in the email that was forwarded by the DEQ to a Snyder aide three days later. "I want to make sure in writing that there are no misunderstandings regarding this significant and urgent public health issue."
 
What is sensationalistic?
sensationalism
[sen-sey-shuh-nl-iz-uh m]

Examples
Word Origin

noun
1.
subject matter, language, or style producing or designed to produce startling or thrilling impressions or to excite and please vulgar taste.
 
what is an "acceptable limit for adults?"
Just what is means....the measured level of something has been deemed acceptable. In this case blood levels of lead in micrograms per deciliter is the way it's defined. 10 used to be the acceptable/safe level for adults and kids. Most people in Flint have lead levels less than 10. The safety limit for kids was reduced to 5 ug/dl a couple of years ago...and some kids in Flint are above that limit. NPR reported something like 4% of kids under 5 showed levels > 5 up from 2% prior to the switch and the average for those above is 6.5. The federal level for lead in water I believe is 15 ppb. For most people lead wasn't really that much of a problem....but apparently in a few specific homes levels skyrocketed both in the water and the blood. I doubt anyone expected that to happen.

A connection between the water and Legionnaires outbreaks has not been established and to my knowledge has never been seen before. A lot of what happened here was unexpected and unforeseen.
 
Just what is means....the measured level of something has been deemed acceptable. In this case blood levels of lead in micrograms per deciliter is the way it's defined. 10 used to be the acceptable/safe level for adults and kids. Most people in Flint have lead levels less than 10. The safety limit for kids was reduced to 5 ug/dl a couple of years ago...and some kids in Flint are above that limit. NPR reported something like 4% of kids under 5 showed levels > 5 up from 2% prior to the switch and the average for those above is 6.5. The federal level for lead in water I believe is 15 ppb. For most people lead wasn't really that much of a problem....but apparently in a few specific homes levels skyrocketed both in the water and the blood. I doubt anyone expected that to happen.


A connection between the water and Legionnaires outbreaks has not been established and to my knowledge has never been seen before. A lot of what happened here was unexpected and unforeseen.

Links?
 

"environmental health supervisor for Genesee County, Jim Henry, who alerted Flint leaders as well as the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, known as the MDEQ, on March 10, 2015—long before Flint residents were informed about any water issues:

“The increase of the illnesses closely corresponds with the timeframe of the switch to the Flint River water. The majority of the cases reside or have an association with the city...

“This situation has been explicitly explained to MDEQ and many of the city’s officials. I want to make sure in writing that there are no misunderstandings regarding this significant and urgent public health issue.”

"Although it has been suspected that the outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease was caused by the switch in water sources, there was previously no evidence that the state was aware of that connection. Now we know that the government was warned about the link between the water and the outbreak, and leaders did nothing to stop it, or inform the public."

http://gizmodo.com/michigan-leaders-knew-about-bad-water-s-connection-to-l-1757157434
 
"Gov. Rick Snyder announced the number of cases of Legionnaires' disease has spiked in Genesee County in the two years since Flint switched its water supply from the Great Lakes to the Flint River.

But the increase cannot be directly attributed to the switch, said Nick Lyon, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Not all the people who got Legionnaires' were exposed to Flint water, he said.

From June 2014 to November 2015, at least 87 county residents developed Legionnaires' disease, compared to between six and 13 cases in the four preceding years, Lyon said. Ten patients died, he said."



""What's clear is that there's an association, which means that the increase of the Legionnaires increased pretty dramatically," he said. "And there's a strong likelihood that it's related to the water supply.

"We'll never know for sure, but we did find very high levels in the time period when they were on the Flint River water."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/13/health/flint-michigan-water-crisis/

Pour = Nick Lyon? ;)
 
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