Flint water crisis costs Michigan $600M. Preventing would have cost $80/day
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Apparently, the liberty buzz - the one that states get from refusing federal health orders - comes with a nasty hangover (one that can damage health and/or end lives).
Construing this as the inevitable result of some ill-advised liberty binge is simply lying. Flint didn't care about thumbing their nose at the EPA. Their mistake was being poor, incompetent and unlucky simultaneously. If they were rich they could have out spent their own stupid. If they were smart they'd have figured out there was a problem and treated it before it god bad. If they were lucky there never would have been a problem.
There is no winning in these kinds of situations, you just try your best and hope to not be the unlucky one who presided over something that went south. Of course sucking at your job makes it harder to get it right but even if you're good the risk is always there.
The ironic thing is the people of Flint can probably relate to this dilema a heck of a lot better than a bunch of HNers who have no frame of reference for this kind of thing.
Full wiki background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak
Case study: http://scceh.com/Portals/6/Env_Health/consumer_protection/dr...
Literally everyone who has been within 100yds of a muni water system knows the stakes for this stuff.
Something to keep in mind the next time HN starts ranting about working remotely.
But we're not talking about doing it all, we're talking about meeting its minimum legal requirements. If a city doesn't have enough money to do that, then presumably it should declare bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy can cancel debt, but it can't create new funding. If the money isn't there, it isn't there.
Flint didn't have the money to not get the old supply turned away from them.
Why are towns competing for clean water sources by how much they can pay to a provider?
I don't know enough about Michigan state law to comment in detail on this topic. I can only extrapolate from the local situation where I live, where our water is provided by a corporation, that corporation works to minimize its costs to maximize its revenue (within a safety framework established by the state), but the corporation is private. It maintains its own reservoirs, and I don't doubt a price point could be found where, if they were willing to pay, it would sell the water from the city down into neighboring towns, possibly to a level that decreases the odds that can satisfy demand in-city during a drought.
This is the scenario I would anticipate unless there is law to the contrary.
Detroit cut off the water, seemingly out of pettiness, with a year of warning. They did that after offering lower rate though.
Many people are saying this. I'd be interested to know how cities get into situations where they stop complying with legal requirements, and what consequences they face, if you have some examples.
> Furthermore, it's not always clear what severity is attached to various compliance requirements.
I don't think a city should be deciding which laws to follow based on how big the punishment is for not complying. If it is ever economically rational to pay a fine rather than obey the law, then the fine needs to be higher, and if it is ever unclear what the punishment is for breaking a law, then the law needs to be made clearer.
Again, if you have an example of a city mistakenly believing that the penalty for non-compliance with a legal requirement was smaller than it actually was, I'd be interested to know.
> Bankruptcy can cancel debt, but it can't create new funding.
You're absolutely right. I think I was assuming that bankruptcy would automatically trigger a process of the state taking control of the city, which is sort of what happens in Michigan[0]. In some cases, a city can also be dissolved.[1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_emergency_in_Michiga...
[1] https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/what-happens-if-your-ci...
I agree what you mention can happen. That’s not the situation here.
That kind of indicates Flint shouldn't have switched their water supply if they couldn't afford to do it w/o lead-poisoning the population.
/sigh
Neglecting infrastructure and poisoning water despite warnings?
"Former Gov. Rick Snyder and eight others have been charged with crimes related to the Flint water crisis."
I got $1000 that says no time gets served, nor financial hardship (like reduction to a middle-class life) to him. Happy to lose this bet.
Politicians however can build a whole career out of it. They don't even have to stay in those states if a cushy role in Congress opens up.
This is called the fiscal multiplier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_multiplier
One estimate was that food stamps have a 1.73x multiplier effect, payroll tax cuts have a 1.29x effect, while the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy had a 0.29x effect.
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. -Not me
Everyone knows quality investment in the future always works. Especially in infrastructure. Building a new bridge across the detroit river will pay for itself. The caveat with your position is that you cannot indebt a future generation with bad debt. Only 5% of that infrastructure bill is really 'planting trees' but rather instead a bunch of ideological vote buying.
Apparently you don't have uncles and former co-workers like mine.
I'm so sick of debating these things. I'm about ready to give up on government, and instead form Unions that force behavior.
I bet you these uncles do know the rule. They like you are fed up with government not doing those things.
Im not american and dont know what's in the infrastructure bill but I can guarantee that it's not infrastructure. It'll be full of investment in swing states. It will be entirely about buying votes.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/2/five-ways-feder...
The worst part, justice was not served - those responsible were not held accountable. [1]
[1] A great PBS doc, but start at 48:27 - https://youtu.be/6oVEBCtJgeA?t=2907
But, does the water contamination cause incontinence or something?
Republican Gov. Snyder (a former VC) promised to fix Michigan and he appointed 18! What Detroit's EM, Kevin D. Orr, did was nothing short of amazing and it led to Detroit's comeback.
Most of the rest of the EM's either succeeded or quietly failed, except Flint. The guy running Flint was a complete and utter disaster. They weren't even saving all that much money by switching to the river water.
Where Gov. Snyder and his staff failed utterly is they tried to cover it all up. Someone should be held accountable for the coverup but sadly it doesn't appear that's going to happen.
A similar article with more detail...I'm still reading it. https://www.materialsperformance.com/articles/material-selec...
Edit: The article has a chart that says just one additive would have improved things, but still left the water 3.5x more corrosive than the original water source: https://www.materialsperformance.com/uploads/images/Articles...
"Former Gov. Rick Snyder and eight others have been charged with crimes related to the Flint water crisis."
Engineering failures (either due to structural, legal, or political failure) happen all the time.
Having clean water is obviously good and having a backup is even better, especially considering the consequences.
Then there’s whatever residue is left from washing/rinsing with warm water.
TBH, if I’m making a pot of pasta, I fill the pot with hot water to jump-start too, but I know my system is mostly pex. Maybe that’s still risky due to the plastic, but there shouldn’t be any lead deposited in the heating process.
I’m in the Great Lakes area, so cold taps can be 5C in winter. If you’re making OJ from concentrate (or Tang), it could take a while to dissolve at that temperature.
For pasta I have a convoluted system of putting a small amount of cold water into the pot and then doing 3-4 rounds of the electric kettle (with occasional additions of cold water when the water in the pot reaches a boil but I still need more water).
The big risk is new lead-soldered piping and leaded (largely pre-2014 USA brass plumbing but [1]) fixtures, because even with corrosion control, it takes a while (months to years) to build up that protective layer.
What people get wrong with pasta is they think they need a strong boil. While the steam is hotter than the liquid, most pasta is in contact with the water and your energy is going into evaporating more water off. Just use a spoon to stir occasionally and use a pot cover to condense the steam back in.
[1] http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/11/06/nsf-61-lead-from-a-ne...
For example i live in appartent building with central water heater. I absolutely use hot water from it for pasta. Am is it wrong? And letting water to flow for 20s? Why?
So flushing the line gets you 'fresher' water from the municipal line that hasn't dwelled against your smaller diameter dirtier pipe.
Can be a big issue in schools for the first kids that drink from the fountains for the day.
The water heaters, well, hotter water has higher solubility, so while it sits in pipes, could absorb more from the pipes.
Personally I am of the point of view of "Upgrade the damn water infastructure already! There is ample demand for pure and better tasting water and it would benefit from scale compared to a household level."
Use it to flush the toilet or do laundry.
This is a very light gray water. It isn't "water that went down the sink" or "water that was used to wash clothes". It's "water that has a slightly higher concentration of what isn't in the RO water.
This means running multiple water systems through the house. Hot, tap cold, non-potable, filtered. One could combine the tap cold and non-potable to simplify the use. But it's the same problem (and solution) of using rain water as non-potable and RO waste water as non-potable.
If the input is just barely not good enough for drinking, the "bad" water is probably still good for showers.
I use Brondell Circle RO which developed a different design that wastes less water. Much less water. They wrote an interesting white paper about it. You don't have to read the whole thing. Just look at the graph on page 5 to see how efficient this system is: https://www.brondell.com/media/wysiwyg/water-filters/circle-...
It's by far the best designed filter I've ever used. Changing the filters is so simple because of the lack of high water pressure. Previously water would spill everywhere and tightening and loosening the filters was such a nightmare. Like an mini-explosion.
It's also less susceptible to structural breakdowns (water will bore through any material over the span of months. It's how my old system failed).
Nobody has really innovated on the RO design as well as they have. It stayed stagnant for a number of years and it was something I complained about constantly.
For example, one of the other innovations they've done (that most other companies don't automatically do) is automatic flushing so the RO filter last longer. You can install this on old RO systems, but normally, you have to do it manually.
Other companies have also tried building a tankless version of the RO system, but the problem they ran into is as the water empties, there's less pressure, so the water dribbles out. Brondell built a flexible reservoir so the pressure always stays constant.
It's a beautiful piece of engineering and I wish more people heard about this company.
https://www.brondell.com/circle-reverse-osmosis-water-filter...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_%26_Me
https://michaelmoore.com/10FactsOnFlint/
However, take that hat off and put on the opposite ideological hat. What really happened?
Most of his other productions were taking aim at issues on a national level, and so they could be very polarizing. Roger & Me, which was his first production, is really localized on Flint, so it's hopefully less polarizing to someone watching it for the first time. Additionally, given what we now know about Flint, Roger & Me takes on a more poignant tone than it otherwise might have. [Edit: Spelling]
I think people are learning the wrong lessons along their political ideology. If you favour small government, this is further proof that the state never does anything right.
Or, the lesson is that the government will screw you over because they don't care.
In reality, this is an engineering fuckup that will cost us dearly. The fault is in the systems that allowed this to occur.
"Small-government" state Republicans take over Flint, fuck things up ruining the lives of tens of thousands over a few dollars a day, and when their pants are firmly down around their ankles... "further proof that the state never does anything right."
I don't think you can blame this on a particular party.
Most people would not. Most of us come to our conclusions and make the evidence fit (and not the reverse).
If you run an experiment with possible outcomes 'A' and 'B', but both outcomes reinforce one's philosophy/model, then they aren't really testing one's model.
I am not trying to advocate one way or the other, just commenting on how little reality actually changes people's perceptions.
Begging the question of why class action suits aren't handled similarly
They are. Your quote is incomplete. The opinion says the "Plaintiffs' motion for attorney fees will be addressed in a separate opinion and order" [1].
[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21102078/flint-settle...