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Personally, I don't really understand these water crises in the US. They already had issues in Flint (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis https://e
by wdb 4y ago
Personally, I don't really understand these water crises in the US. They already had issues in Flint (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis) and now in Jackson? Why is so difficult to get safe drinking water in the US?
- UberFly 4y agoWater issues in Flint and Jackson does not equal difficulty getting safe drinking water in the US. It means there were water system problems in Flint and Jackson. It's a big country.
- duxup 4y agoManaging / paying for these things is a local issue. Poor communities are in less position to deal with these things. Most others do fine.
- xyzzyz 4y agoThis is not about lack of funds. Places around the world much poorer than poor US municipalities manage to have working water supply.
- duxup 4y agoI don’t think that your first sentence has anything to do with the rest of them.
- xyzzyz 4y agoIf you need it spelled out, the second sentence points out that you can have working water supply with little funds, and so if the failing US municipalities cannot manage to have working water supply despite having a lot more funds than other places, the problem does not stem from the lack of funds.
- duxup 4y agoA local government can have few funds regardless of the larger state’s funds…
- kube-system 4y agoIt’s the combination of limited funds and mismanagement. You can have water infrastructure with minimal money if you spend money wisely. If you have plenty of money you can mismanage your money with little consequence. It’s when you have both mismanagement and limited funds that problems arise.
- kingkawn 4y agoThere was a large, federally subsidized post-war investment in infrastructure across the country. A lot of that infrastructure is more expensive to maintain than the local tax base can fully afford. Federal help is not forthcoming. Hence…
- dc-programmer 4y agoThe state government of Mississippi, probably one of the worst in the developed world, has been known to impede Jackson from receiving block grants it is eligible for. A massive scandal is coming to a head where a whistleblower allegedly discovered that 70 million dollars of federal welfare funds where diverted to the ex-governors slush fund which he used to enrich allies such as Brett Favre. In a state that consistently finishes last along any dimension important to measure.
- kaesar14 4y agoI think in large part it’s due to how economically divided American society is in terms of where people live. Places like New York have excellent water - the wealthy and poor live side by side. But a huge part of this country live in suburbs and rural areas that are strongly divided on economic lines, any thus those with means are not exposed to and do not care about the quality of infrastructure in poorer areas.
- bobthepanda 4y agoAlso, metro area balkanization is sometimes the point; a wealthy area of Atlanta recently tried to secede. Merging them is out of the question too as a political third rail. Regional balkanization has a lot of issues; not only are poor areas left with few resources and projects lack coordination and get expensively duplicated, but also they tend to compete with each other to offer tax breaks to companies, and in the end the region gives a big tax break to a company that most likely would’ve located somewhere in the region anyways.
- woodruffw 4y agoThis is the key observation: these kinds of profound utility failures only happen in municipalities where the wealthy have removed themselves from the tax base. This comes in innumerable forms, but one of the most common is building their own little (unsustainable) suburban enclaves beyond the political borders of the cities they draw their salaries from.
- landemva 4y ago> these kinds of profound utility failures only happen in municipalities where the wealthy have removed themselves The Corps got it running in a couple days. It was incompetence that caused the problem, and I doubt you will argue that poor people are less smart.
- andirk 4y agoDid these water issues arise because of incompetence or lack of funds? I know Flint's crisis was not related to lack of funds. So many comments keep harping on funds.
- coryrc 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32795779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32795779 Local governments are given more freedom than in many other countries. Most areas of the US are just fine; I have never lived somewhere with dangerous water.
- noobermin 4y agoAnother aspect is sprawl really that leads to the issues other mentioned. Since the US has loads of sprawl it's just to expensive to maintain all of the suburbs, in fact it's really only because of federal funding that a lot of sprawl isn't insolvent yet because spreading out utilities and roads over wide areas with such a low tax base is a fundamentally unsustainable venture. Eventually, you'll find pockets that just don't have the money and see issues like Flint and now Jackson.
- ars 4y agoThat is a completely inaccurate view of both Flint and Jackson, both of which experienced issues due to incompetence, not lack of money. Everyone everywhere could use more money, but in both cities the fault was at the central pumping station, and was not due to a lack of money. Jackson wants $1 bil to replace every pipe in their city - that might be nice to do, but it's not what caused the failure.
- landemva 4y agoThe original story of lack of funds due to people leaving was debunked when Corps cleaned intake filters and found the start button, all within a couple days. Maybe the $1B emergency was on purpose or just incompetence.
- ryukoposting 4y agoIt isn't. These places are a thousand miles apart, these occurences are years apart, and they happened for completely different reasons. In Flint's case, their local government just did something stupid. That's not a "pattern of poor water quality."
- ZoomerCretin 4y agoThe Flint water case was due to the _State_ government's interventions, not the local government. The former Republican governor is right now facing criminal charges for his role in the crisis. https://www.wsaz.com/2021/01/12/michigan-plans-to-charge-ex-gov-snyder-in-flint-water-probe/ https://www.wsaz.com/2021/01/12/michigan-plans-to-charge-ex-...
- jahewson 4y agoUS cities boomed in the 20th century and are geographically large, with large infrastructure. The gradual collapse of industry has led to such cities emptying out to the suburbs beyond a city’s relatively tight administrative boundary, particularly since the 1980s. The ever-reducing tax base is unable to maintain the boom-time infrastructure. Cities are blue and so in a red state the government sits back and lets it fail, while the federal government is powerless to intervene until the point of failure. Many other factors layer on top but this is the core of the issue. Interestingly where I grew up in the U.K. this situation would be impossible because the cities boomed in the Victorian era and so are more compact while the administrative boundary of the city spans a much larger area, including suburbs of the core city itself, so the rise of motorcar suburbanites did not deprive the city of its tax base. We experienced the same trend - the collapse of industry in parallel with the rise of the motorcar leading to wealthy suburbs and a poor urban core. But we had the money to invest in redevelopment.
- CincinnatiMan 4y agoAren’t most cities also part of a county in the US, and therefore include the suburbs? I was under the impression that where I live, Richmond, Virginia, is somewhat unique how the city is totally independent.
- analog31 4y agoIndeed, but in most if not all states, counties are severely constrained in terms of how much money they can raise and distribute (or re-distribute, if you will). The powers of governmental entities within the state are controlled by the state.
- jahewson 4y agoYes but US counties are part of the state government. Roughly speaking city governments are independent and the county is not “above” it (technically it’s not quite that simple). A classic edge-case where I live is that San Francisco is both a city and a county. Many US suburbs choose to incorporate into their own “cities”, in order to avoid being administered by the county, or annexed by a nearby city, so that they may tax commerce (think local strip mall or big box) instead of just property.
- manv1 4y agoThe main issue is that water system maintenance in the US is funded by the locality. The locality may be a city, town, county, or some other kind of governmental overlay. Some localities have dedicated funding sources for the water system, and some localities pull the funding from the general fund. As an example, my water bills are paid directly to a water company, which is a public utility company that handles all the water stuff. Other cities might issue the bills, collect the water money, and spend it on "something else." The main issue IMO is that maintenance can be expensive, and nobody really notices if you defer maintenance for 30 years until the system fails. Until then you can spend that water money on pet projects and retire. At that point it's someone else's problem. The same issue occurs with road and bridge maintenance, which are usually prime targets for politicians looking for money to fund their projects. Very few cities in the US spend enough money on road/bridge/infrastructure maintenance, because other constituencies want that money. In many ways that's why water districts that are politically independent are better, but I've never seen any actual surveys on that.
- triyambakam 4y agoBillions for Ukraine but nothing for Jackson
- diordiderot 4y agoUkraine isn't funneling it's defense funding to Brett Farve now is it
- skissane 4y ago> The main issue is that water system maintenance in the US is funded by the locality Isn't that a good argument that it should be run by the state government instead? Local government in the US has so much power, compared to many other countries. It makes you wonder if that's a mistake, and if greater centralisation would produce better outcomes.
- runako 4y agoAlmost certainly yes (and one could similarly make a good argument for federalizing a lot of our services). However, having services run by larger jurisdictions is directly at odds with the American need to ensure that the "haves" have distinctly better living conditions than the "have nots," and so this is a political non-starter. Put another way: poor services (such as healthcare, schools, and even potable water) are a design feature, not a bug, of American civics.
- AtlasBarfed 4y agoThe argument presented by strongtowns is that suburban sprawl and associated infrastructure is a ticking time bomb financially, because federal dollars fund the construction, but localities are responsible for upkeep and eventual replacement. ... which they can't keep up on. So in 20-40 years, the water supply and roads and other infrastructure decline without any means for replacement. Sure, perhaps with intelligent setting aside of funds, localities could handle it, but that kind of long term thinking is really hard to expect to happen across all local governments without some sort of federal mandate. Plus, there is always a hidden assumption that you let things get bad and wait for a federal bailout. In some ways, some dramatic crisis like this is exactly as planned. Finally, we are talking about Mississippi. The South is unquestionably more corrupt at the local and state levels, going back to the reconstruction and post reconstruction eras after the civil war and the intense entrenched racism. All you really need to do is look at how the South collects more federal aid than blue states, yet Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi routinely rank in the bottom ten for public education by states. Their universities are noteworthy for SEC football and little else. Things are compounded by the fact that these are frankly really really poor states. It is a bit unfair to cast them as horribly corrupt when Illinois and New York also aren't exactly poster children. BUT, Louisiana/Alabama/Mississippi don't have floods of northerners enriching them like Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. People do go to New Orleans for tourism, but that's about it, and I'd posit that New Orleans likely still has not recovered from Hurricane Katrina. Finally, politically these states are owned by vehemently far right anti-government Republicans, and have been for decades. They are all horrendously gerrymandered, so reform is basically impossible. As California shows, when any party has long term control of a government, corruption and incompetence results, and it's only worse when one of the pillars of your party is to hate the government you run. Which gives full license to corruption.
- wyager 4y ago> All you really need to do is look at how the South collects more federal aid than blue states, It's extremely misleading to portray the dichotomy as between "the south" and "blue states". Note that red states outside of the south generally score very highly on metrics like income, educational outcomes, quality of life, quality of infrastructure, net tax receipts, etc. The thing that makes southern states shitty is not the fact that they're red. You can tease out the Simpson's paradox here - go ahead and check average federal aid receipts in southern states after splitting the population by political affiliation. There's a very blue subpopulation in southern states that accounts for a vastly disproportionate fraction of federal spending. > yet Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi routinely rank in the bottom ten for public education by states Why do you qualify this with "yet"? This is perfectly expected if you understand the causal factors here.
- wyager 4y agoTop 99% of US water quality is better than many European countries. Only a few extremely shitty cities have serious water problems like this.
- neither_color 4y agoYeah I fail to see how two incidents in different cities years apart spells some sort of trend about water in the US. We have thousands of cities. What country has 100% water uptime?
- mellavora 4y agoAs a former US and current (20 yr +) EU resident, I'd like to see the list of EU countries you are referring to. Because your statement does not seem to match my lived experience.
- GeekyBear 4y ago>Why is so difficult to get safe drinking water in the US? There was a fire at the water treatment plant in Jackson about a year and a half ago. It took the main water pumps offline, leaving the city with only the smaller emergency backup pumps. The city refused to repair the damage. The EPA stepped in, but a bit too late. >Jackson has 45 days to tell the EPA how and when it will repair damage caused by a fire that broke out last April at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant. This week, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a notice of noncompliance to the city for failing to repair or replace a damaged electrical panel at the plant. In addition to telling EPA when and how repairs will be made, the city also must meet with the federal regulatory agency to “show cause why the EPA should not initiate legal proceedings” against the city as a result. The notice comes about nine months after a fire broke out at the O.B. Curtis plant, shutting down the plant’s high-service pumps. During a November 8, 2021 inspection of the facility, “the pumps remained out of service, with no target date by the city to put the pumps back into service,” the letter states. “The loss of the pumps has caused multiple elevated tanks to be low or empty and has caused certain areas of the distribution system to have sustained low water pressure.” https://www.wlbt.com/2022/01/28/epa-cites-jackson-failing-repair-water-plant-following-april-fire/ https://www.wlbt.com/2022/01/28/epa-cites-jackson-failing-re... The emergency backup pumps eventually failed too, and the city had no water.
- wffurr 4y ago>> The city refused to repair the damage. That's the weirdest part. Why?!
- spicyusername 4y agoAlmost certainly because they don't have the money. Mississippi is a very poor and underdeveloped state.
- wyager 4y agoLet's not act like the rest of the state is as bad as Jackson.
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- spoonjim 4y agoAlmost nowhere in the history of the world does safe drinking water flow freely out of the tap. The US has been one of the exceptions due to the tireless efforts of professionals working under a political system that saw itself as stewards of all citizens present and future and treated public goods as apolitical entities to be shepherded rather than used as political footballs. That is no longer true and water crises are just the tip of the iceberg.
- bee_rider 4y agoI sort of wonder if the problem might actually be that it isn't enough of a football. Infrastructure is seen as a generally good thing. This means that every politician will of course say "blah blah I'm going to fix the water blah blah." But when push comes to shove, it isn't a wedge issue, it doesn't excite their voters in a partisan manner. Nobody is opposed to it, it can't be used as a concession. I imagine the response, in most cases, to a party asking the other to sacrifice a core interest for an infrastructure win is "you can't use 'providing basic services to your constituents' as a bargaining chip, you should want to do that anyway."
- KerrAvon 4y agoI don’t know about that. I suspect this may be again a case where reality has a liberal bias. Cities in California don’t have these problems, at least not for months at a time.
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoCalifornia trends to have problems with electricity instead.