Flint was one of the two largest crisis in state government in my life time. I knew Rick Snyder when he was a VC. He headed Gateway Computer during its glory days. I was very impressed with the guy. He ran for governor and was mocked because he wasn't a politician and used his own money. He even ran a Super Bowl ad which hadn't been done before or since.
What he did in appointing an emergency manager in Detroit who shepherded it through bankruptcy was simply nothing short of amazing. But two other emergency managers in Flint and Benton Harbor were complete and utter disasters. He led a lot of reforms that only an outsider could accomplish but he will be remembered solely for the abominable disaster in Flint.
>> Flint was one of the two largest crisis in state government in my life time.
If the Flint water crisis is one of the largest in state government, state governments are doing an exceedingly good job:
"Even at the height of the crisis, testing in children showed blood lead levels that were essentially the same as the Michigan average and far lower than Detroit, which had a safe water supply the entire time. During the whole of the crisis (which encompassed 18 months in 2014-15), the number of Flint children with elevated lead levels was 3.9%. In Detroit it was 8.1%."
It is remarkable to me how officials are able to commit these harms without suffering any repercussions. Of course, immunity provides cover for so-called official acts, however, when harm is so blatant, it’s rather astounding there are no carve outs in the law so that officials can be prosecuted. I’m not an attorney so I can’t suggest a strategy for holding them accountable, but this is a great time for an activist/crusader lawyer to go after wrongdoers and set a precedent.
I followed this closely as I live close to Flint. The handling of Flint in the aftermath was an example of partisan politics that went horribly wrong. For example, the state supreme court, which leans left/democrat, ruled that the attorney general office (democrat led) was doing illegal things in the prosecution of the state officials from the time of the incident (who were right/republican). It was quite a mess from numerous angles. The people targeted for prosecution were state level employees (republicans/right) while the people close to the water systems operations (democrat/left) were never really looked at by prosecution that leans democrat/left.
As a local person following the situation, it was hard to tell what was really going on and where opinion pieces (like this and many of the linked articles) were pointing. I suspect people screwed up at all levels and want to just defer blame to the other political party.
It's remarkable how government is able to commit these harms without suffering repercussions. Normally the law covers damages. Well, the water disaster in flint caused billions in damages. The state government should be broke from the damages.
I don't much care what happens to individuals. First concern is the victims. But the victims were cared for somewhat, but nowhere near the point where they'd not suffer damage.
Instead, the law was modified to minimize what the government paid ...
It's ridiculous to blame a decades long ethnic conflict that already had established routes of propaganda through the state on Facebook. You can also see no noticeable increase in violence correlating with internet access.
I'm not blaming the entire ethnic conflict on Facebook. I'm saying Facebook made it worse and, through reckless neglect, contributed to deaths of people that otherwise wouldn't have died.
Obama pretending to drink from a glass of water by barely touching it to his lips and saying "this is not a stunt" is easily his lowest point as president.
I would think that approving civilian weddings to be drone is far worsebut both those things are far far from his worst (not counting what wikileaks expose) actions
Obama get the blame because "the buck stops here," but just try to imagine the huge chain of people that the intelligence had to traverse to get the targets approved, and then someone up the chain had to sell the idea to the president.
Picking through that comment I'm guessing the statement was about drone strikes on civilians having a wedding (based on questionable intell that high value targets were present and that "collateral damage" (civilian deaths) was OK).
I regard Flint water crisis as a cautionary tale against the mentality of "Move Fast Break Things". My understanding is that before the switch to a different water source, the city's lead pipes had a thick layer of minerals deposited over the years. The mineral lining shielded the citizens from the lead in the pipes.
When the water source was switched to river water, the mineral lining was corroded and led to the crisis.
"Two days before former state Treasurer Andy Dillon formally recommended moving
Flint off Detroit water, a Michigan Department of Environmental Quality drinking
water safety regulator warned that using the Flint River would pose increased
public health risk"
Did people routinely resign in protest at Boeing? I guess part of it would have to include shouting from the rooftops which I've only done to the extent of griping to family, (I'm not well off enough to kick my former employers in the nads). Truly astounding requests/denials trickle down from the bean counters, and against all reasoning gets pushed through often to the net negative of all. But we must push on lest we be seen to be the worst of all people backtrackers.
The worst part is how avoidable it was. The chemical additive to prevent the problem was so cheap it would barely appear on the budget, and yet it was removed "for cost reasons". It's not hard to think that the whole crisis was manufactured for some inscrutable reason.
Everybody is making this into some evil plot when the only thing that went wrong was they forgot to add about $30 of antacid a day to the water at the treatment plant.
...another obvious lesson is that acidic water - even mildly acidic - has unintended consequences which vary dramatically depending on the infrastructure being used to deliver it.
The need to protect sources of water with more alkalinity is a largely ignored lesson of this crisis.
(but of course if you try to do any research on water ph you run headlong into the crackpot crowd trying to shill alkaline water machines)
There's more checks in place to assure that your government water is handled appropriately. A corporation will sell you anything and then declare bankruptcy to let the owners profit off the fraud.
A government can inefficiently check over and over again that the supply it is providing is pure. A corporation is only beholding to its shareholders, where inefficiency is always a negative, regardless of its positive externalities.
How could anyone know if the for-profit corporation selling them water is competent?
If a bottled water company decided they could save a tiny amount switching to a plastic type that was legal but might give you cancer in 10 years, do you trust them not to do that?
Anyone making that decision is thinking short term. By the time the harm becomes public they've enriched themselves and left.
Government is less likely to knowingly poison you, and is probably about equally likely to unknowingly poison you.
Is anyone involved in the Flint, MI crisis in prison right now?
Private companies are not immune from consequences.
I agree that it's still possible to be poisoned by bottled water, but there are a greater number of incentives in place to lessen the likelihood of it happening.
The problem is that it's the job of the government to ensure that private companies meet their consequences.
So, if you cannot trust government, you cannot trust private companies to not poison you either. I guess it's possible to have governments break down just enough to screw up the local water supply while not quite rolling in the bed with multinational companies yet, but I doubt such an arrangement would be stable for long.
Isn't it what happened after a river contamination/Chemical spill scandal in WV?
The company declared bankruptcy rather than pay the cleanup bills, but the owner and executives just started a new one, hired the same management, and everything is fine (for them), since taxpayers paid for the cleanup?
I think the name of the company was "Freedom Industries", which makes it even more of a typical american "urban legend", but it is actually true.
[edit] just looked it up, its called "Elk river cheminal spill" on wikipedia, and the exec actually used the same address and the same phone number to set up Lexycon LLC, the new company: they know they'll get away, they don't care to hide anymore.
Market consequences for something like drinking water is such a wild concept. Forget lead, imagine how many can get dysentery before the bottled water business stops blaming random local Chinese restaurants the consumer went to the day before.
If you're concerned about this kind of thing, the only rational way to go about it is to test your water regularly (whether you drink from the tap or buy it bottled). Everything else is basically putting your trust in a bunch of random people whom you don't really know.
> How could anyone know if their state government is competent?
One way of knowing would be that you can see trustworthy water testing. That there are consequences (political, legal) for public officials when there is wrongdoing. That society seems to function.
How would you know a company bottling water isn't incompetent?
That's an oxymoron. You might temporarily have competent individuals in government, but the organization as a whole is not incentivized for competence.
Same goes for corporations, especially bigger ones.
The water authority in every county I have ever lived publish annual water reports with extensive information about water sources, quality, and composition results.
To be fair, most of the time they're correct - at least as far as US tap water goes. Events like this are remembered because they are remarkable, not because they are normal.
Is that because we assume that bottled water has more rigorous testing or ... ? Because seems like a failure at the top could cause just the same issues.
Flint is not the only one. Parts of Chicago have very low quality tap water, as do other cities.
In my view, the problem is that we have no chance of upgrading any infrastructure in the US ever. Consider that most tax dollars go to the Federal government and go to wars and entitlements.
The small bit of tax dollars left for local governments, the ones who would need to undertake infrastructure renewal projects locally, is simply nowhere near enough to fix the problem.
The same problem exists in many domains. Roads covered in potholes, power grid unsuitable for installing superchargers, last mile broadband owned by monopoly players with no incentive to improve upon it, long lines at government offices and months of wait time for things as simple as building permits, property values decimated by failing school systems, and polluting industries grandfathered in and allowed to pollute in unconscionable ways.
I really hate that word. People apply it in a derogatory way to social security, which is funded through a separate tax, and has its own pile of money. The only way it really affects the federal budget is when they borrow from that fund or have to pay back into it.
Right. The point of my comment was not about how the accounting is (or should be) done, but on how little of the dollars paid overall in taxes are able to be used to improve infrastructure.
That doesn't mean that none of the existing uses are worthwhile, just that we are unlikely to see political changes that result in significant infrastructure investment.
It boggles the mind to think that your own local government would betray you in the stupidest fashion imaginable. All counties/states have scientific teams, or the ability to hire them, to help elected official make decisions that are this important.
I'm going to start collecting these examples of government dishonesty and untrustworthiness. These days we have so many people crusading against so called "fake news", as determined by the so called "authorities". The mere existence of these crises is the perfect argument.
Governments at all levels lie all the time, either to cover up for their incompetence or episodes of corruption, or to justify their deliberate attempts to do what they know wouldn't be easily sold to the public. They do this at the federal, state, county and municipal level not just as individual politicians but also on a fully official, formal footing.
Law enforcement bears the brunt of accusations for doing this publicly, followed closely by the military (at least in the U.S.) but the dishonesty is pervasive at all levels in the midst of formalisms of transparency and rectitude.
The only thing that makes it memorable in the case of Flint is the magnitude of the media blowback.
What he did in appointing an emergency manager in Detroit who shepherded it through bankruptcy was simply nothing short of amazing. But two other emergency managers in Flint and Benton Harbor were complete and utter disasters. He led a lot of reforms that only an outsider could accomplish but he will be remembered solely for the abominable disaster in Flint.
If the Flint water crisis is one of the largest in state government, state governments are doing an exceedingly good job:
"Even at the height of the crisis, testing in children showed blood lead levels that were essentially the same as the Michigan average and far lower than Detroit, which had a safe water supply the entire time. During the whole of the crisis (which encompassed 18 months in 2014-15), the number of Flint children with elevated lead levels was 3.9%. In Detroit it was 8.1%."
-- https://jabberwocking.com/the-tragedy-of-flint-is-not-what-m...
Then what you're saying makes perfect sense. In government he cast a bunch of bets, most were disasters and one worked out well.
As a local person following the situation, it was hard to tell what was really going on and where opinion pieces (like this and many of the linked articles) were pointing. I suspect people screwed up at all levels and want to just defer blame to the other political party.
I don't much care what happens to individuals. First concern is the victims. But the victims were cared for somewhat, but nowhere near the point where they'd not suffer damage.
Instead, the law was modified to minimize what the government paid ...
That statement carries as much water as "100% of people that breathe air will die."
1. https://archive.is/iLuni
https://www.bridgemi.com/truth-squad-companion/years-missed-...
The need to protect sources of water with more alkalinity is a largely ignored lesson of this crisis.
(but of course if you try to do any research on water ph you run headlong into the crackpot crowd trying to shill alkaline water machines)
If you're downstream of a bunch of 19th-century dye factory locations, you may be better off with bottled water.
If your tap water is of high quality, bottled water is likely worse due to microplastics from the bottle.
It was like drinking straight from the lake in the spring.*
*may not be wise
(Jokes aside yes Chicago water is phenomenal and Geneva, IL is even better. Take a tour some day or try out the local brewerys that use that water. https://www.geneva.il.us/516/Water-Treatment-Plant)
A government can inefficiently check over and over again that the supply it is providing is pure. A corporation is only beholding to its shareholders, where inefficiency is always a negative, regardless of its positive externalities.
What if it's mostly competent, but the agency in charge of the water supply is the bad apple that spoils the whole bunch?
If a bottled water company decided they could save a tiny amount switching to a plastic type that was legal but might give you cancer in 10 years, do you trust them not to do that?
Anyone making that decision is thinking short term. By the time the harm becomes public they've enriched themselves and left.
Government is less likely to knowingly poison you, and is probably about equally likely to unknowingly poison you.
Private companies are not immune from consequences.
I agree that it's still possible to be poisoned by bottled water, but there are a greater number of incentives in place to lessen the likelihood of it happening.
So, if you cannot trust government, you cannot trust private companies to not poison you either. I guess it's possible to have governments break down just enough to screw up the local water supply while not quite rolling in the bed with multinational companies yet, but I doubt such an arrangement would be stable for long.
The company declared bankruptcy rather than pay the cleanup bills, but the owner and executives just started a new one, hired the same management, and everything is fine (for them), since taxpayers paid for the cleanup?
I think the name of the company was "Freedom Industries", which makes it even more of a typical american "urban legend", but it is actually true.
[edit] just looked it up, its called "Elk river cheminal spill" on wikipedia, and the exec actually used the same address and the same phone number to set up Lexycon LLC, the new company: they know they'll get away, they don't care to hide anymore.
Better hope that new brand isn't just the old one with a new label slapped on.
1. https://hackaday.com/2022/04/02/monitoring-water-quality-usi...
One way of knowing would be that you can see trustworthy water testing. That there are consequences (political, legal) for public officials when there is wrongdoing. That society seems to function.
How would you know a company bottling water isn't incompetent?
That's the biggest "if" I've ever seen.
Same goes for corporations, especially bigger ones.
Do companies like Coke and Pepsi do that?
When you bottle spring water as it comes out of the spring, now that’s very different.
*Except in Flynt.
Bottled water also has around a 1600x markup.
In my view, the problem is that we have no chance of upgrading any infrastructure in the US ever. Consider that most tax dollars go to the Federal government and go to wars and entitlements.
The small bit of tax dollars left for local governments, the ones who would need to undertake infrastructure renewal projects locally, is simply nowhere near enough to fix the problem.
The same problem exists in many domains. Roads covered in potholes, power grid unsuitable for installing superchargers, last mile broadband owned by monopoly players with no incentive to improve upon it, long lines at government offices and months of wait time for things as simple as building permits, property values decimated by failing school systems, and polluting industries grandfathered in and allowed to pollute in unconscionable ways.
I really hate that word. People apply it in a derogatory way to social security, which is funded through a separate tax, and has its own pile of money. The only way it really affects the federal budget is when they borrow from that fund or have to pay back into it.
SS taxes aren't general revenue. And any part of other revenue paying for SS is actually repaying the loan taken out by treasury.
That doesn't mean that none of the existing uses are worthwhile, just that we are unlikely to see political changes that result in significant infrastructure investment.
>no chance of upgrading any infrastructure ever
The recent huge federal infrastructure bill included $50 billion for various kinds of water projects.
The senseless commentary of people whose statements are based on nothing but gut feelings infuriates me. It does not belong here.
Law enforcement bears the brunt of accusations for doing this publicly, followed closely by the military (at least in the U.S.) but the dishonesty is pervasive at all levels in the midst of formalisms of transparency and rectitude.
The only thing that makes it memorable in the case of Flint is the magnitude of the media blowback.