3 ms·

There’s a lack of reporting on Flint, period. For whatever reason, lead and water contamination stories don’t stick in the news cycle. People just aren’t as con

by ianai 7y ago

There’s a lack of reporting on Flint, period. For whatever reason, lead and water contamination stories don’t stick in the news cycle. People just aren’t as concerned about it. This is of course horrible. They’re not the only municipality with lead in its water. But people spend a lot more time and money on the painful wart on their neck than the removed plight of others.

zaroth 7y ago
Probably 90% of the country know the story of Flint’s lead contaminated water. It absolutely dominated the news cycle for weeks, and continues to make waves. It must be the most highly reported incident of lead contaminated water in history.
- snagglegaggle 7y ago
  And there are apparently more across the nation, with a notable number in affluent CA suburbs.
sokoloff 7y ago
That actually seems fairly reasonable to me. If there's something causing daily pain to me or someone in my family, I'm much more likely to spend time, attention, and money on that than on something that is another city's responsibility and is not affecting me directly. This is a natural and beneficial form of decentralization. I don't expect you to be concerned that my grandmother broke her hip. It's properly a big deal to my family, but not even a blip for yours. I want daily/several times per week updates on her progress; you don't. We all have a finite amount of time, attention, and money, and while I probably know more about the origin of the Flint water situation than the average American (owing to the latter being near zero rather than deep expertise on my part), I'll be honest that I'm more worried about the water quality in Cambridge, MA and in the schools my kids attend. There are millions of unfortunate or even tragic events unfolding in the world in any given week. It's unreasonable to assume that everyone should care about all of them or judge the situation to be "of course horrible" when we don't. We'd get nothing done as a society if we stopped to mourn every tragedy everywhere or to get weekly updates on years-long remediation efforts. I sincerely hope that the city of Flint is able to address the entirely city-inflicted (though funding related) water quality issues for its residents. If they aren't able to do it alone, I hope they ask for and get help from the encompassing county, state, or feds. At the same time, I conclude that there's nothing with a productive return-on-time that I should be doing, because people who are far more informed, more educated on water treatment specifics, have devoted >100 times the amount of time as I have to understanding the issue, and are in a position (spatially and with authority) to make productive decisions are working on the problem.
- cma 7y ago
  Just don’t end up voting to privatize your water or appoint private administrators to take over a city like happened in Flint, just because you thought reading the news on Flint would just be needlessly competing with water treatment experts.
- ianai 7y ago
  Actually, water contamination by lead and other compounds is present all over the US. This isn’t an issue that should be likened to “other peoples problems” as it’s national. I would identify it as part of the growing infrastructure crisis, though, as a New Deal type project is needed to properly address this stuff. Lead map: https://mytapscore.com/pages/the-lead-map https://mytapscore.com/pages/the-lead-map Pfas map: https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/2019_pfas_contamination/map/ https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/2019_pfas_contamination...
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    Is there reason to think that typical good practice isn’t sufficient to manage the risk of lead exposure in distribution plumbing? (Basically pH management and water testing by the water authority and cooking with cold water by the public.)
    - ianai 7y ago
      From my first link: “Although many small water systems are run well, it's often the case that they lack resources to monitor and update infrastructure in a timely fashion or manage the water's chemistry carefully. In theory, larger city water systems adjust their water's chemistry continuously to prevent health risks, but, as we've learned from Flint, this is not always the case.”
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        So perhaps rather than a New Deal digging up of millions of miles of piping, we could raise awareness and compliance with standards proven to work? That’s seems wildly less wasteful.
wang_li 7y ago
>There’s a lack of reporting on Flint, period. There's no reason to continue reporting on Flint as the water there has met EPA standards for lead for two years now. https://eng.vt.edu/media-center/articles/2017/flint-water-meets-epa-standard.html https://eng.vt.edu/media-center/articles/2017/flint-water-me...
- mrguyorama 7y ago
  Have those responsible for the problem been punished in any way? The root cause of the problem was gross mismanagement and easily preventable.
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    Charges were dropped. It's not clear why, but it sounds like the new AG realized there was some irregularity in the investigation that could scupper the prosecution at trial. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/us/flint-water-crisis-charges-dropped.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/us/flint-water-crisis-cha...

by ianai 7y ago

zaroth 7y ago

Probably 90% of the country know the story of Flint’s lead contaminated water. It absolutely dominated the news cycle for weeks, and continues to make waves. It must be the most highly reported incident of lead contaminated water in history.

snagglegaggle 7y ago
And there are apparently more across the nation, with a notable number in affluent CA suburbs.

sokoloff 7y ago

That actually seems fairly reasonable to me. If there's something causing daily pain to me or someone in my family, I'm much more likely to spend time, attention, and money on that than on something that is another city's responsibility and is not affecting me directly. This is a natural and beneficial form of decentralization. I don't expect you to be concerned that my grandmother broke her hip. It's properly a big deal to my family, but not even a blip for yours. I want daily/several times per week updates on her progress; you don't. We all have a finite amount of time, attention, and money, and while I probably know more about the origin of the Flint water situation than the average American (owing to the latter being near zero rather than deep expertise on my part), I'll be honest that I'm more worried about the water quality in Cambridge, MA and in the schools my kids attend. There are millions of unfortunate or even tragic events unfolding in the world in any given week. It's unreasonable to assume that everyone should care about all of them or judge the situation to be "of course horrible" when we don't. We'd get nothing done as a society if we stopped to mourn every tragedy everywhere or to get weekly updates on years-long remediation efforts. I sincerely hope that the city of Flint is able to address the entirely city-inflicted (though funding related) water quality issues for its residents. If they aren't able to do it alone, I hope they ask for and get help from the encompassing county, state, or feds. At the same time, I conclude that there's nothing with a productive return-on-time that I should be doing, because people who are far more informed, more educated on water treatment specifics, have devoted >100 times the amount of time as I have to understanding the issue, and are in a position (spatially and with authority) to make productive decisions are working on the problem.

cma 7y ago
Just don’t end up voting to privatize your water or appoint private administrators to take over a city like happened in Flint, just because you thought reading the news on Flint would just be needlessly competing with water treatment experts.
ianai 7y ago
Actually, water contamination by lead and other compounds is present all over the US. This isn’t an issue that should be likened to “other peoples problems” as it’s national. I would identify it as part of the growing infrastructure crisis, though, as a New Deal type project is needed to properly address this stuff. Lead map: https://mytapscore.com/pages/the-lead-map https://mytapscore.com/pages/the-lead-map Pfas map: https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/2019_pfas_contamination/map/ https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/2019_pfas_contamination...
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Is there reason to think that typical good practice isn’t sufficient to manage the risk of lead exposure in distribution plumbing? (Basically pH management and water testing by the water authority and cooking with cold water by the public.)
  - ianai 7y ago
    From my first link: “Although many small water systems are run well, it's often the case that they lack resources to monitor and update infrastructure in a timely fashion or manage the water's chemistry carefully. In theory, larger city water systems adjust their water's chemistry continuously to prevent health risks, but, as we've learned from Flint, this is not always the case.”
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      So perhaps rather than a New Deal digging up of millions of miles of piping, we could raise awareness and compliance with standards proven to work? That’s seems wildly less wasteful.

wang_li 7y ago

>There’s a lack of reporting on Flint, period. There's no reason to continue reporting on Flint as the water there has met EPA standards for lead for two years now. https://eng.vt.edu/media-center/articles/2017/flint-water-meets-epa-standard.html https://eng.vt.edu/media-center/articles/2017/flint-water-me...

mrguyorama 7y ago
Have those responsible for the problem been punished in any way? The root cause of the problem was gross mismanagement and easily preventable.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  Charges were dropped. It's not clear why, but it sounds like the new AG realized there was some irregularity in the investigation that could scupper the prosecution at trial. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/us/flint-water-crisis-charges-dropped.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/us/flint-water-crisis-cha...