.

 

Even if you dont believe in climate change than so be it but not wanting any regulations to prevent companies from dumping lead and chromium into the closest river is stupid.

Flint, Michigan home water Jan. 15 (2), Jan. 16 and Jan. 21, 2015.

 

Not knowing that these two things are completely unrelated is also pretty ignorant.

Also the state of Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have very strict regulations in place regarding what companies can and can not dump into the waste stream.
Ask me how I know.

The issue with Flint was purely political and broke down due to funding and management at the city level.

 

As with many disasters, the issue with Flint has more than one cause.

Michael Brown, the emergency manager who Governor Rick Snyder appointed to slash city costs, decided to stop buying drinking water from the city of Detroit and instead source it from the Flint river, a temporary measure while a new pipeline to Lake Huron was constructed.

He did this without consulting any chemists / geologists, etc., so nobody realized until it was too late that the corrosive water from the river was going to dissolve the city's very old lead pipes, which is when the water turned bad.

Why was the river water so corrosive? A hundred years of industry dumping waste products into or nearby the river, plus agricultural runoff and chemicals leeching out of landfills. Sure, there are strict regulations in place now, but there weren't in the 1950s, and those wastes are still in the soil, still slowly trickling out into the water.

 

Is that what the official report on the wiki page says? Thats only mostly true.

While I won't deny the Flint river wasn't and probably still isn't safe to drink. I can assure you that if the correct measures were taken that water would have been perfectly safe to drink.

I mean come on, you don't even drink well water without first softening it and running it through carbon filters. I mean, you could. But it's not good for you. Hell, even the water that leaves our facility is technically "safe to drink", but would I? Hell no.

Edit* yes you are right, you can pass blame to multiple people. But in my opinion it's still 100% the governments fault for allowing non treated water to be sent out. And yes, we DO need measures and regulations in place to keep companies from dumping tainted water even into the waste stream. It keeps me in a job.




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I didn't check to see what WIki has to say. There are multiple independent sources which are pretty much in full agreement. A few articles:

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flint-w...-you-need-know

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/e...ver-pollution/



What would those measures have been? And would they have cost the city of Flint less than continuing to purchase water from Detroit while they waited for the Lake Huron line to be completed?

Because cost was the driving factor for switching in the first place.



I grew up doing that, yes. It was safe in a small rural town in western Florida where there's never been any industry.

You might be surprised that in many large cities, filtration and other exotic treatments are not required. New York City, for example, gets its municipal tap water from the Catskill and Delaware watersheds. The water is so clean that they do not filter it it all, merely disinfect it with UV light and then poke a little chlorine and fluoride into it. And the final product is some of the best drinking water in the country.

 

Allowing it? The city government made that decision in the first place. They didn't allow it, they actively caused it.

 

And Joe comes full circle to Erat's argument that politics caused the problem.

(I jump in just to get abused)

DNM

 

Ahem . . . gentlemen, please!
Wrong thread for this.

 

This is Kiddo, the first cat to cross the Atlantic by air.




Lots of other interesting sfuff: https://www.airships.net/

 

 

 

Untreated well water is the norm in much of the country. Only cities have water systems. And generally speaking, the water is much better for you and better tasting from a good well than a municipal water supply. But I'm on a municipal supply here.

 

Roughly 82% of the country lives in cities.

 

I live in a "city" Almost every house in town has shitty tasting city water. My next door neighbor and I have wells because the city didn't put water lines on our street(a main road with two lanes in each direction) for two blocks. Thank God they screwed up. Sad part is, we are the only ones without sewers also.

 

Cities put anti corrosion additives, chlorine, fluoride and a list of other nasty **** that is horrible for you (in large quantities) in the drinking water. BUT it keeps the other bad stuff from leaching out of pipes or growing causing issues too. People still get sick from lead pipes. Mostly from in your own home where the water has a longer time to sit. City lines constantly move making the PPM of lead and nickel low. Copper and pex pipes don't have this issue. PVC is also bad as it leaches chloride into the water over time too. It's a delicate balance to keep drinking water clean.

Unrelated 100% carbon fiber constructed 5l hydroplane.

 

Agreed, but early solder joints contain lead. They are a very small factor, but still add to peoples' fears.

 

 

Indeed. And yet most places in the country do not have access to municipal water systems.

 

"Approximately 87% of the U.S. population relied on public water supply in 2015; the remainder relies on water from domestic wells."

U.S. Water Supply and Distribution Factsheet | Center for Sustainable Systems