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The car factories in the area already knew the water was bad and could no longer use it for production lines because it was damaging paint. It took this level

• nemild 11y ago
  Why don't the car factories give some money to Virginia Tech then (or have commissioned the rigorous study themselves)? I'm assuming $150k is not a huge amount compared to shutting down an entire process at your factory (and especially if it financially impacts several businesses, not just one)?
  • ck2 11y ago
    Or along those lines, give them less of a massive write-off in taxes and allocate those taxes to properly funded daily testing of water around the city. Or just use their taxes to keep paying for the Detroit water in the first place. You think factories are in and around Flint because of the scenery? Or because of huge tax discounts?
    • nemild 11y ago
      I'm all for that - but in this case the government was asleep at the wheel. If that happens, is one of the only ways to (empirically) fight back the kindness of a single professor? To keep this constructive, here are other options to have blown the whistle sooner (assuming the state and federal govts are not a willing party): - Area residents call in the press with pictures, that forces the govt to change (which it didn't seem worked well here, even with those pictures) - Find a single state representative (or several) who takes up the cause; get them to get some cash for an independent analysis - A few area businesses get together when they start seeing financial issues from the water and fund an expert to come in (or area residents crowdfund for an expert with a GoFundMe-type campaign) - Lawyers sensing a payday invest in an expert - Call up the local university (or in this case, get the interest of a far off uni) I'm hardly going to do a good brainstorm in an HN thread (especially without more reflection), but you get the idea. Assume the state and federal governments (executive branch) are not a willing party, what are a bunch of things you do to get an independent expert to run an empirically sound analysis sooner? (and without taking out a personal mortgage)
      • a3n 11y ago
        > but in this case the government was asleep at the wheel. I like the ideas in your post. I think the above though is understated. The government was actually driving against traffic on a one way street. They didn't sleep, they plotted. What happened, suppressing lead data, was done specifically and on purpose.
  • GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    Presumably the cost of dealing with lousy water is far less than the cost of risking antagonizing the business-friendly anti-union governor.
  • cowsandmilk 11y ago
    Well, the GM engine plant had a small part of the property in another water district, so they just ran couple pipes and started buying the water from next door. http://michiganradio.org/post/how-people-flint-were-stripped-basic-human-need-safe-drinking-water#stream/0 http://michiganradio.org/post/how-people-flint-were-stripped...
    • ck2 11y ago
      Wow that was a really well written timeline of events. Link should be shared more.
• Symmetry 11y ago
  That's really not the problem that Flint had, it's quite possible to treat water so that it's potable and in fact the water leaving Flint's treatment plants was perfectly drinkable. The problem is that Flint hadn't operated it's own water supply for 40 years and the people in charge thought that having drinkable water leave their plant meant that their job was done. But really preventing the water from rusting the iron main pipes and dissolving lead from the distribution pipes requires another layers of work involving controlling pH and other stuff that wasn't being done.
  • XorNot 11y ago
    Actually the real issue is that when people warned them what would happen, they decided it was probably okay to just ignore that.