Hacker News Reader

Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

The problem in Flint is not that the river is polluted it is that the pH of the river water is causing lead from old pipes and fittings to leach into the water. It's not really a good example of the general subject of the story.

View on HN

I too was confused why they tried to tie the two events together. The lead pipes had formed a coating (and this is true in other locations too) that made them nontoxic but when they were flushed with acidic water (as the water treatment plant did) they shed that lining and it began washing through the lead and putting it into the lines. The lines had operated fine with water from a different location that had different pH levels, but pH variation is common without pollution, so blaming this on pollution is a bit nonsensical.

When it comes to the article, it makes sense that pollution would be in poorer areas. Pollution lowers property value, which allows poorer individuals to live there. Or the area could have already been poor and they are unable to afford to leave.

I'm not sure who is to blame for the Flint crisis tbh, there seems to be a lot of finger pointing and politicizing. I have yet to find a source that wasn't biased one way or the other, which is sad. People just want answers and for it to be fixed.

The lines had operated fine with water from a different location that had different pH levels

Actually one of the talking points is that no one will talk about lead levels before they switched the water from Detroit to Flint river. But its not as bad as it is now obviously. . . Does building this 'coat' back up work? How long does that take?

I'm no expert, but I assume it takes long enough to where they are just going to have to replace all the lead pipes and fittings.

That talking point you mention could be true, or it could be a way for the state level government to dish it back to the local government. Who knows. To me it seems like the municipality screwed this up more than the state, but like I said it's virtually impossible to find an unbiased news source with the whole story; they both no doubt have a role. Even this very story is politically driven, it could be misleading in its urgency to drive clicks/narrative. Happens all the time with various things in the news (like the claim of x drug use among teens, etc.)

Hopefully there is a non-partisan investigation from the Federal level on the Flint fiasco.

I agree. In one sense, there is no way this was an intended consequence. On the other hand, it would be tough to convince me to drink treated flint river water, and I thought that long before they switched the water. (I'm from the area). My gut feeling is the state, the local, and everyone in between is to blame. You are spot on with the politicizing too, its out of control.

They tie the two events together because there is no better way to fund the replacing of Flint water infrastructure than to blame a third part (state, federal, etc) so they feel obligated to pay for the repair and maintenance work Flint should have been doing in the first place.

So Flint didn't pollute their water, they just failed to treat it properly?

The Detroit urban area has been a disaster for a while. Flint had been getting lake water from Detroit. Detroit, bankrupt, wanted more money from Flint (also bankrupt). Flint was "forced" to switch to river water and yes they did not treat the pH.

Detroit and Flint are both under management of the State of Michigan, so it's not like the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing.

I don't really understand how this is anyone but the State's problem and why celebrities need to be donating for these people to keep living shouldn't the state be doing that?

Indeed, the state has a sizable slush fund that could be spent on rectifying the problems in both Flint and Detroit, but... Michigan. I grew up in southwest Michigan, and the prevailing view was always that Detroit's problems were its own to solve, period. It didn't help that the city government was openly hostile to the rest of the state too, and plagued with a "machine boss" type of city government.

Flint was at the end of a long term agreement with Detroit for water. It was going to go in with another municipality for their own pipe to the lake. Except that wasn't going to be completed by the time the contract with Detroit was up.

Detroit, being hard for cash, and realizing that Flint was going to be a short-term customer, had proposed higher rates in the short term. Flint thought that was too much and decided to use their river.

I don't know if Flint could have negotiated a new long-term agreement with Detroit for water rather than the construction of a new pipe to the lake.

It seems likely that purifying the water up to Lake Huron standards would have erased the cost savings. Something akin to desalination might have been necessary.

I'm no expert on water engineering, but my understanding is as follows: The Flint river water was safe to drink after treatment, but with a slightly lower pH than normal. This caused the pipes to corrode which allowed lead and iron from the pipes to contaminate the water. If Flint's water engineers had followed standard practices to control corrosion (e.g. by adding orthophosphate to the water) then there would never have been any problem. Corrosion control would have cost peanuts -- about $100 per day [0].

Of course, it's hard to find unbiased sources, and I could easily be mistaken. Do you have a source for your claim that making the water safe would be expensive, or are you just speculating?

[0] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/who-poisoned-flint...

Speculating. I was thinking of something akin to desalination, but I now realize that the pollutant doesn't need to be removed but just neutralized.

Replacement of the lead pipes would seem to be a pretty important safeguard, in any event. All of the lead was replaced in the town where I live.

It's an old city, with a lot of old infrastructure that was never updated, corrupt government, and no money. Have you seen some of the stories about the Detroit public schools? No heat, leaking roofs, infested with rodents and cockroaches, etc. The place has so many problems that it's hard to focus on any one of them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com