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Comment by clumsysmurf | Hacker News Reader

Flint is one of thousands of places in the US with poisonous levels of lead. I wonder how this administration plans on dealing with it:

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-lead-...

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> I wonder how this administration plans on dealing with it.

That's a pretty bold assumption you're making in that statement.

fwiw I don't really see anything inflammatory in the parent's statement, or any indication that they feel the current administration is any more/less equipped than previous ones to deal with the water crisis.

It was a joke

The parent comment’s implication is that the administration does not have any plan for dealing with the problem. It was phrased in a sarcastic/jokey way, which doesn’t always read clearly on the internet.

I wonder how you came to that conclusion.

(I am not implying you did not come to that conclusion.)

To be fair, his interpretation was my original intent. The "bold assumption" being that this administration has a plan or has any interest in developing a plan to deal with lead in thousands of municipalities' drinking water.

How is it an assumption? The administration just gave $100M to help repair the pipes in Flint. It's in the title of the article.

Also in the article is this quote from the administrator of the EPA:

> especially focus on helping Michigan improve Flint’s water infrastructure as part of its larger goal of improving America’s water infrastructure.

The Obama administration + Congress did that. Trump had nothing to do with it.

From the 3rd paragraph of the article:

> The funding was approved by Congress in December and signed into law by President Barack Obama, but the EPA had to review and approve a formal request from state officials detailing how the city intends to use the grant money.

> The Obama administration + Congress did that.

Irrelevant. The quote I provided is from the current administrator of the EPA who was appointed by Trump.

Actions speak louder than words. I wouldn't hold my breath for the current EPA to do anything but roll back regulations.

It's an assumption that the current administration will deal with it at all. Consider its denialist position on climate change and the evisceration of the EPA budget, it's entirely reasonable to conclude lead elsewhere isn't a concern worth doing anything about. Besides, don't plutocrats drink only bottled water?

This expenditure was approved by the previous administration. As for the current administration... I'm sure the free market will figure out ways to improve water quality. High taxes are the only thing preventing that from happening.

> I'm sure the free market will figure out ways to improve water quality.

OK, I'll bite. So how would the free market possibly improve the water quality in Flint?

I don't think there's real belief that the free market would fix it.

It's a reference to the general republican stance that if government stays out of the way then the free market will fix everything i.e. health care, banking regulations, environmental protection, et cetera.

I think nindalf was being sarcastic.

I would imagine one of those places is my apartment. Lead is bad, but it's not that bad... Removing lead from gasoline is probably 100x times more important than other hand wringing

Lead is that bad and we didn't remove lead from just gas (except for avgas). We also removed it from paint.

The EPA's action level is 15 ppb.

https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/tips/water.htm

For a few homes in Flint, lead levels reached 4,000 ppb to nearly 12,000 ppb.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/03/16/what-le...

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