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Flint, MI

So why does the water in Flint have abnormally high levels of lead?
 
Same here. What on earth?
 
What Did the Governor Know About Flint's Water, and When Did He Know It?

The move saved millions, but the problems started becoming apparent almost immediately. The water starting smelling like rotten eggs. Engineers responded to that problem by jacking up the chlorine level, leading to dangerous toxicity. GM discovered that city water was corroding engines at a Flint factory and switched sources. Then children and others started getting rashes and falling sick. Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech environmental-engineering professor, found that the water had nearly 900 times the recommend EPA limit for lead particles. As my colleague Alana Semuels noted in a deeply reported feature in July 2015, residents believe the city knew about problems as soon as May 2014. Yet as late as February 2015, even after tests showed dangerous lead levels, officials were telling residents there was no threat.
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First, there’s a question of democracy. As Chris Lewis wrote in The Atlantic in 2013, the emergency-manager law raises serious questions about representation. If the manager is appointed by the state, he or she is not answerable to the population at the ballot box, and that means he or she is far less accountable when things go wrong. (This is exacerbated by the fact that the cities with managers are mostly Democratic, largely by virtue of being cities, while Snyder is a Republican.) That’s not just a bug—it's also a feature, since the managers are thought to be able to make painful but necessary choices that an elected official just won’t have the stomach to make. Flint’s water shows what can happen when the link between residents and authorities is broken: months of poisoned water supply.
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I feel like there are at least a couple of people that should go to jail on this, but guessing no one will actually go to jail. It's a shame the current governor of Michigan is term limited because the commercials would be fantastic.
 
State Police to deliver water door-to-door in Flint

This attempt to save money, and the ongoing neglect, is going to cost a lot of money in the end. (In addition to the human element of, you know, poisoning people. And ignoring them while they were crying out about being poisoned.)

ETA:

How tap water became toxic in Flint, Michigan

Later it became publicly known that federal law had not been followed. A 2011 study on the Flint River found it would have to be treated with an anti-corrosive agent for it to be considered as a safe source for drinking water.

Adding that agent would have cost about $100 a day, and experts say 90% of the problems with Flint's water would have been avoided.
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160110181941-flint-fire-hydrant-medium-plus-169.jpg
 
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Shortsightedness is a huge problem in American politics. It seems to be worse at the state level.
 
PhDeac said:
Same here. What on earth?
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Corrosive water means it's slightly acidic. That often happens naturally....water interacting with shale will often be acidic which happens in western PA. Limestone will cause it to be more basic. The acid then leaches lead solder. I seriously doubt the entire system is fubar.
 
Flint, Mich., has 10 fatal cases of Legionnaires’ disease; unclear if linked to water

Michigan Department of Health and Human Services officials announced Wednesday that the city and the surrounding area have seen a spike in cases of Legionnaires’ disease — a bacterial infection that can be deadly for between 5 to 30 percent of those who contract it.

So far, 87 cases have been diagnosed since June, two months after Flint changed its water source to the Flint River, the Detroit Free Press reported. Ten of those cases were fatal.
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