4 ms·

>the water is poison Putting aside the tons of pollution in lakes and oceans, what strikes me the most now is the abject failure and neglect in cities like Jac

>the water is poison Putting aside the tons of pollution in lakes and oceans, what strikes me the most now is the abject failure and neglect in cities like Jackson, Mississippi and Flint, Michigan. How are people so powerless, governments so weakened, and politicians so detestable that something as basic as clean drinking water in cities is no longer functioning?

pjscott 4y ago
It's worth noting that, in a country of 330 million people, you only came up with two examples. Those things are newsworthy because they're outliers.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  Or perhaps I picked two top-of-mind examples that other readers would recognize in the name of brevity? Those are not the only examples: https://abcnews.go.com/US/map-ongoing-water-crises-happening-us-now/story?id=89454219 https://abcnews.go.com/US/map-ongoing-water-crises-happening... And that list doesn't even include the tragedy of the commons situation that is California. But going back to Jackson, Mississippi, it seems that elected officials refuse to properly fulfill their role in governing. Ie. serving the public. What does that say about an empire? It's not some accident that they are helpless in, more that it is in decline.
  - pjscott 4y ago
    Alright, I'll moderate my argument a bit by acknowledging that I'd have to use both hands to count the number of places that ABC reported as having newsworthy municipal water problems. But that's roughly what I'd expect in a country that's doing pretty darn well at water provision! Elected officials focus on doing what will get them re-elected, and nobody gets re-elected by saying "During my time in office, I made sure the water department replaced their intake filters on the schedule recommended by the manufacturer." When you consider the political incentives, it's an under-appreciated miracle that politicians in the US serve the public at all and that things shamble along as well as they do.
- gallopingcomp 4y ago
  There are more cases of subtler failures that are smaller in scope, eg. in the Chicago metro[1], or on the UNC campus[2]. I do agree with part of your sentiment. Those two examples are the worst case scenarios where misfortunes happened to align, and there are periods in history, as well as other countries today, where this sort of problem was/is rampant. This is also not (exactly) a recent problem - the groundwork, no pun intended, was often laid long ago. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/21/lead-contamination-chicago-tap-water-revealed https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/21/lead-contami... [2] https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article268238707.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article268...
  - laidoffamazon 4y ago
    Lead in water pipes is generally fine as long as the water is treated correctly. With that said, we're now actually putting the money towards replacing them. https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/funding-lead-service-line-replacement https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/funding-...
- moistly 4y ago
  Here are almost 13 million examples for you. https://www.nrdc.org/resources/lead-pipes-are-widespread-and-used-every-state https://www.nrdc.org/resources/lead-pipes-are-widespread-and... “Lead service lines—the pipes that carry water from the water main under the street to residences—have long been recognized as the primary contributor of lead in drinking water (we’ll call them lead pipes for simplicity’s sake). After conducting a survey of these lead pipes in the United States, NRDC estimates that there is a range of 9.7 million to 12.8 million pipes that are, or may be, lead, spread across all 50 states, including those that claim to have none.” This affects some 22 million people.
acyou 4y ago
Clean drinking water in cities isn't the default state of affairs. We're all used to it, but we would do well to remember the open sewers and water carrying from wells and drinking from lakes, streams and rivers that have prevailed in human history. Formerly, we wouldn't live in a desert if there wasn't any water. So we drilled deeper wells where the heavy metals are. We also put a lot of heavy metals into watersheds at the surface. As the watershed levels are dropping from drought or heavy draw, that becomes more of an issue. Water is heavy and expensive to transport, treat and distribute. I don't think it's a simple problem to solve. It's a political issue to be sure, but it wouldn't be a political issue if it wasn't also an extremely difficult logistical issue at its core. In the long run, it would probably be better for people to live where clean drinking water is readily and easily available. To be clear, that doesn't mean trucking in, treating and desalinization, it means people moving to areas with more rainfall.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  A: It feels like society is declining, am I alone in seeing it? Tons of replies: No, we see it too in X, Y, Z ways as well. B: <Specific example highlighting said decline> C: The decline isn't real, people abdicating their responsibilities totally isn't a problem, life has always been shite so quit complaining Sorry, that's just what I see when you reply with: >Clean drinking water in cities isn't the default state of affairs Honestly, I'd say you are gaslighting here because you're trying to convince people that regressing from forward progress isn't a loss. Also, cities and civilization aren't the default state of affairs. There's millennia more of prehistoric time where humans lived in the unforgiving wilderness. Are you suggesting that we are not allowed complain until we're back to living nomadic lives, hunting wild game on the steppes? Like you said, anything better than that isn't the default state of affairs.
  - acyou 4y ago
    Depends on your definition of regression and forward progress. Water in cities isn't basic, it's a difficult problem to solve. It can be so easy to point the finger and say people are abdicating their responsibilities, while offering zero solutions. If you define exponential population growth as forward progress, for instance. Or the status quo of watershed draw and depletion as "forward progress". It has worked well for decades and isn't working anymore. Just because the aquifers are running low does not mean anyone is particularly to blame, or that we have "regressed".
moistly 4y ago
Maintaining (let alone replacing) buried infrastructure is expensive and few people are in favour of paying higher taxes. Politicians get elected by claiming that government services are full of waste, then demand a ten percent reduction in the workforce. Goodbye water quality test protocols! Things have been proven good so far, so obviously it’s not needed! Oh, hey, this other water source is cheaper, let’s use it. Phosphate balance? Can’t test that, the water quality tester was fired. And that is how you get lead poisoning in Flint.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  Kind of like when engineers build a new program from scratch, take their accolades and move on, then the MBA management cuts the budget for maintenance. The only thing junior developers see is declining product quality.

pjscott 4y ago

It's worth noting that, in a country of 330 million people, you only came up with two examples. Those things are newsworthy because they're outliers.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Or perhaps I picked two top-of-mind examples that other readers would recognize in the name of brevity? Those are not the only examples: https://abcnews.go.com/US/map-ongoing-water-crises-happening-us-now/story?id=89454219 https://abcnews.go.com/US/map-ongoing-water-crises-happening... And that list doesn't even include the tragedy of the commons situation that is California. But going back to Jackson, Mississippi, it seems that elected officials refuse to properly fulfill their role in governing. Ie. serving the public. What does that say about an empire? It's not some accident that they are helpless in, more that it is in decline.
- pjscott 4y ago
  Alright, I'll moderate my argument a bit by acknowledging that I'd have to use both hands to count the number of places that ABC reported as having newsworthy municipal water problems. But that's roughly what I'd expect in a country that's doing pretty darn well at water provision! Elected officials focus on doing what will get them re-elected, and nobody gets re-elected by saying "During my time in office, I made sure the water department replaced their intake filters on the schedule recommended by the manufacturer." When you consider the political incentives, it's an under-appreciated miracle that politicians in the US serve the public at all and that things shamble along as well as they do.
gallopingcomp 4y ago
There are more cases of subtler failures that are smaller in scope, eg. in the Chicago metro[1], or on the UNC campus[2]. I do agree with part of your sentiment. Those two examples are the worst case scenarios where misfortunes happened to align, and there are periods in history, as well as other countries today, where this sort of problem was/is rampant. This is also not (exactly) a recent problem - the groundwork, no pun intended, was often laid long ago. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/21/lead-contamination-chicago-tap-water-revealed https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/21/lead-contami... [2] https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article268238707.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article268...
- laidoffamazon 4y ago
  Lead in water pipes is generally fine as long as the water is treated correctly. With that said, we're now actually putting the money towards replacing them. https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/funding-lead-service-line-replacement https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/funding-...
moistly 4y ago
Here are almost 13 million examples for you. https://www.nrdc.org/resources/lead-pipes-are-widespread-and-used-every-state https://www.nrdc.org/resources/lead-pipes-are-widespread-and... “Lead service lines—the pipes that carry water from the water main under the street to residences—have long been recognized as the primary contributor of lead in drinking water (we’ll call them lead pipes for simplicity’s sake). After conducting a survey of these lead pipes in the United States, NRDC estimates that there is a range of 9.7 million to 12.8 million pipes that are, or may be, lead, spread across all 50 states, including those that claim to have none.” This affects some 22 million people.

acyou 4y ago

Clean drinking water in cities isn't the default state of affairs. We're all used to it, but we would do well to remember the open sewers and water carrying from wells and drinking from lakes, streams and rivers that have prevailed in human history. Formerly, we wouldn't live in a desert if there wasn't any water. So we drilled deeper wells where the heavy metals are. We also put a lot of heavy metals into watersheds at the surface. As the watershed levels are dropping from drought or heavy draw, that becomes more of an issue. Water is heavy and expensive to transport, treat and distribute. I don't think it's a simple problem to solve. It's a political issue to be sure, but it wouldn't be a political issue if it wasn't also an extremely difficult logistical issue at its core. In the long run, it would probably be better for people to live where clean drinking water is readily and easily available. To be clear, that doesn't mean trucking in, treating and desalinization, it means people moving to areas with more rainfall.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
A: It feels like society is declining, am I alone in seeing it? Tons of replies: No, we see it too in X, Y, Z ways as well. B: <Specific example highlighting said decline> C: The decline isn't real, people abdicating their responsibilities totally isn't a problem, life has always been shite so quit complaining Sorry, that's just what I see when you reply with: >Clean drinking water in cities isn't the default state of affairs Honestly, I'd say you are gaslighting here because you're trying to convince people that regressing from forward progress isn't a loss. Also, cities and civilization aren't the default state of affairs. There's millennia more of prehistoric time where humans lived in the unforgiving wilderness. Are you suggesting that we are not allowed complain until we're back to living nomadic lives, hunting wild game on the steppes? Like you said, anything better than that isn't the default state of affairs.
- acyou 4y ago
  Depends on your definition of regression and forward progress. Water in cities isn't basic, it's a difficult problem to solve. It can be so easy to point the finger and say people are abdicating their responsibilities, while offering zero solutions. If you define exponential population growth as forward progress, for instance. Or the status quo of watershed draw and depletion as "forward progress". It has worked well for decades and isn't working anymore. Just because the aquifers are running low does not mean anyone is particularly to blame, or that we have "regressed".

moistly 4y ago

Maintaining (let alone replacing) buried infrastructure is expensive and few people are in favour of paying higher taxes. Politicians get elected by claiming that government services are full of waste, then demand a ten percent reduction in the workforce. Goodbye water quality test protocols! Things have been proven good so far, so obviously it’s not needed! Oh, hey, this other water source is cheaper, let’s use it. Phosphate balance? Can’t test that, the water quality tester was fired. And that is how you get lead poisoning in Flint.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Kind of like when engineers build a new program from scratch, take their accolades and move on, then the MBA management cuts the budget for maintenance. The only thing junior developers see is declining product quality.