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What I remember about Flint water crisis was how state government lied
- rmason 3y agoFlint 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.
- toiletfuneral 3y ago[dead]
- itsanaccount 3y agoRick Snyder was a venture capitalist? Then what you're saying makes perfect sense. In government he cast a bunch of bets, most were disasters and one worked out well.
- rufus_foreman 3y ago>> 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%." -- https://jabberwocking.com/the-tragedy-of-flint-is-not-what-most-people-think-it-is/ https://jabberwocking.com/the-tragedy-of-flint-is-not-what-m...
- rawgabbit 3y agoI 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.
- kurthr 3y agoIt seems much more intentional than that. https://www.bridgemi.com/truth-squad-companion/years-missed-warnings-flint-river-switch https://www.bridgemi.com/truth-squad-companion/years-missed-... "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"
- HPsquared 3y agoSounds like mistrust of experts was a factor.
- mistermann 3y agoAlso the incompetence (on an absolute scale) of relative experts, if all the people involved are even that.
- datavirtue 3y agoHerds don't have an ALU for which to process nuance. Buckle up.
- peteradio 3y agoThat would be a redline for me, if a critical safety decision gets axed by a bean counter I bounce.
- 3y ago
- acuozzo 3y agoI remember Flint every time I see a Reddit crusader make the claim that bottled water is no better than water from the tap.
- Clubber 3y agoBottled water is no better than water from the tap*. *Except in Flynt. Bottled water also has around a 1600x markup.
- acuozzo 3y agoFlint, MI is hardly the only case of this happening in the 21st century.
- Clubber 3y agoAware
- vundercind 3y agoNever lived somewhere with tap water you can smell, I guess?
- alkonaut 3y agoIf you have competent government bottled water shouldn't be better than tap. I prefer tap because I find bottled tastes too little.
- acuozzo 3y agoHow could anyone know if their state government is competent? What if it's mostly competent, but the agency in charge of the water supply is the bad apple that spoils the whole bunch?
- margalabargala 3y agoHow 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.
- EarthAmbassador 3y agoIt 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.
- sharemywin 3y agoI imagine some kind of forgery or fraud must of happened I can't believe that's coved by the law. (but it could be)
- candiodari 3y agoIt'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 ...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mfer 3y agoI 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.
- aurizon 3y agoThat is why they are called 'Civil Serpents'
- bloomingeek 3y agoIt 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.
- sk11001 3y agoObama 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.
- TheGamerUncle 3y agoI 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
- blaufuchs 3y agoI'm curious, what's wrong with a civil* wedding?
- defrost 3y agoPicking 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).
- Galatians4_16 3y agoOr how about drone-striking a 16-year-old American citizen, merely for being related to a suspected terrorist? [1] 1. https://archive.is/iLuni https://archive.is/iLuni
- datavirtue 3y agoObama 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.
- resters 3y agoFlint 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.
- paulryanrogers 3y agoDoesn't the fed subsidize or pay for a huge portion of infrastructure: highways, ports, waterways, even some bridges?
- phkahler 3y ago>> entitlements 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.
- resters 3y agoI wasn’t trying to use it in a derogatory way. It just happens to be where most of the revenue goes.
- phkahler 3y ago>> I wasn’t trying to use it in a derogatory way. It just happens to be where most of the revenue goes. SS taxes aren't general revenue. And any part of other revenue paying for SS is actually repaying the loan taken out by treasury.
- matheusmoreira 3y agoI'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.
- southernplaces7 3y agoGovernments 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.