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Flint water crisis

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Active Member
Dec 22, 2014
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UK
I can't believe the stories about Flint's water. A country with the most powerful economy in the world with such humanitarian and infrastructure problems. Is the MSM making it out to be worse than it is?
 
I can't believe the stories about Flint's water. A country with the most powerful economy in the world with such humanitarian and infrastructure problems. Is the MSM making it out to be worse than it is?

No, it is worse than reported. I live in Michigan. This is why you can't run government like a business. Rick Snyder installed an emergency manager, they attempted to save a few million dollars a year. Wound up killing Flint Citizens, poisoning countless others (time will tell the longitudinal damage). Initial civil engineering costs will be $1.5 Billion to correct the problem. That number does not include the hundreds or thousands of civil lawsuits.

Free Press photo helps define Flint tragedy for nation

There are water drives in which people are donating bottled water to the city of flint because the Flint citizens cannot use the water. For example, my organization donated 50 cases of bottled water, which I will drive up Monday.

Read the Time magazine coverage (I did not post the link but it is subscription/pay site).
 
Why don't they just go back to using the cleaner water? They said the problem arose from using the dirtier water.

The population of Flint is just over 100,000. They are using a new water source that can not be switched over (or back) quickly. It will take time and money to properly switch back and treat a clean water source. Also, all pipes will need treatment and cleaned of the toxic water. It will be done just takes time and approximately $1.5 Billion dollars

In the interim, the EPA, the State of Michigan, and the Obama Administration declared the water toxic and unsafe to drink, bath, or use. Flint citizens are using bottle water to drink, bath, and wash cloths/dishes, etc.
 
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Why don't they just go back to using the cleaner water? They said the problem arose from using the dirtier water.

It kinda sorta wasn't the water per se.... the lead came from the existing pipes not the new water supply... the water supply that they switched to was corrosive. When they switched they were supposed to use certain chemicals to control corrosion... they didn't. Now that the damage has been done to the existing pipes switching back won't really help. The only solution now is to replace all the pipes that have become corroded.

201601_1358_fefcd_sm.jpg
 
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I have to admit that I haven't followed this story very closely. I do understand what's going on, but don't necessary know who or what is to blame. But, I will say this, as it appears to be a case of willful ignorance in some case or another. And that is why my friends, you have seen me so short with people who deny climate change or evolution. Willful ignorance is not only slows necessary human advancement in science and technology, it can kill. The article Ignorance Kills argues that point way better than I can. But instead of just asking why a certain Governor or bureaucrat failed to have a basic understanding of something, why not ask the more important question is why do we have so many presential candidates that deny evolution, or why we have a Senator who leads the Environmental commitee use a snowball to disprove climate change, or why there is a Congressman on the House Science Commitee that says that evolution and the Big Bang are "lies from the pit of hell", or why a Congressman attacked the NOAA for issuing a report on climate change?



The big thing is, what can really be done here to combat willful ignorance towards science and the environment? At this point, I really don't know. Because every good idea I've heard has already been used and isn't working, the ignorance just gets more vitriolic and aggressive with time.

Ignorance does kill. It killed the people in Flint. And ignorance will kill more if we don't stand up and deal with it.
 
Yes. Especially since they are saying it will cost $1 billion to fix now.
The reality is, this case is just the tip of the iceberg. While the chemistry issues in this case are a little unusual, the state of infrastructure on both sides of the border is less than comforting. It's all buried, so out of sight, out of mind... but that doesn't mean it isn't aging and failing. People would be shocked if they saw video inspections of storm and sanitary lines... and the nastiness that lives in water mains.

It's not sexy to budget for that sort of work, so we haven't and those decisions will eventually bite us in the a$$. (emphasis on the $$ ;-))
 
I have to admit that I haven't followed this story very closely. I do understand what's going on, but don't necessary know who or what is to blame. But, I will say this, as it appears to be a case of willful ignorance in some case or another. And that is why my friends, you have seen me so short with people who deny climate change or evolution. Willful ignorance is not only slows necessary human advancement in science and technology, it can kill. The article Ignorance Kills argues that point way better than I can. But instead of just asking why a certain Governor or bureaucrat failed to have a basic understanding of something, why not ask the more important question is why do we have so many presential candidates that deny evolution, or why we have a Senator who leads the Environmental commitee use a snowball to disprove climate change, or why there is a Congressman on the House Science Commitee that says that evolution and the Big Bang are "lies from the pit of hell", or why a Congressman attacked the NOAA for issuing a report on climate change?

The big thing is, what can really be done here to combat willful ignorance towards science and the environment? At this point, I really don't know. Because every good idea I've heard has already been used and isn't working, the ignorance just gets more vitriolic and aggressive with time.

Ignorance does kill. It killed the people in Flint. And ignorance will kill more if we don't stand up and deal with it.
Wow, what a stretch. It's a wonder humankind has made it this far. Of course, questioning a theory that relates to the formation of the universe and life that followed is getting people killed.:rolleyes: Al Gore predicted a great calamity to befall the world back in 2005 and this month was the time it was all to come to fruition. Does that kind of rhetoric and exaggeration make him ignorant or does he get a free pass? Would spending oneself into bankruptcy and triggering a possible worldwide economic collapse to hopefully prevent a global mean rise in temperature of a fraction of a degree be indicative of intelligence as opposed to ignorance?

Sensible ideas for reducing air pollution are welcomed but within reason, and this has little relation to the Flint fallout (think aging infrastructure).

Does it bother anyone else that Michigan is asking everyone else in the country to pay for cleaning up this mess? Why don't I hear the GOP presidential candidates raising this as an example of big government?
Because they're trying to avoid being maligned as racists is my guess since the progressives will immediately attempt to change the narrative of the argument.
 
I have to apologize for not having spent the time to think about the Flint situation before now.

----->First, full disclosure: Neither I nor anyone with whom I am associated has any financial or other interest in the following.<-------

But now I have, and very quickly an idea occurred to me. I remembered an engineering company in which we invested fairly substantially late in the 1980s. The company was called Insituform, and its product was a cured-in-place polyethylene pipe. Their goal was to create a way to remedy aging subterranean pipes without any trenching. Their product was a liner that would unroll from a single access port - via a manhole, in most situations - and would provide a fully lined pipe-within-a-pipe.

The easiest use for such a product was in wastewater pipes, because these are structured for ambient pressure; they also run larger than water mains. But their process worked for pressurized systems as well, and included taps to account for network branchings (i.e., from water mains into household feeds).

I use the past tense for the above because that is my recollection of the company. I remember in one of the company's early presentations to us I challenged management to aver or deny my understanding of the procedure, thus: "You mean, it is just like an inverted condom." I think they liked the analogy but am absolutely convinced they didn't use that imagery with any other presentations! But it may help you visualize the process.

Our investment paid off nicely, although it wasn't a barn-burner, and we long, long ago moved on, and I've thought no more of Insituform until now. But I did a quick internet search and found they still exist now as a subsidiary of Aegion Corp, whom I do not know. Here is a link that offers the company's products and provides what looks to me to be a quite outdated video of Insituform's products:

Installation Method - Insituform CIPP and Sewer Rehabilitation


I'm hoping this is a small bright light in a dismal situation - whether from this company's products or others, there likely exists a solution with today's (yesterday's!) technology that fairly affordably can provide a solution to the dreadful state of Flint's and other cities' outdated water infrastructure. Any Michiganders might consider prompting their officials of this possibility.
 
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This, and other variants of the concept are very much in use today. In some cases, 'pipe bursting' is done where a larger pipe is required to provide higher flows. It's still not cheap, but compared to the cost of open-cutting a major road... yeah, it's a good deal.

Easy to say after the fact, but there really should have been an annual program to rehabilitate the worst of the old pipes a few blocks at a time (assuming there wasn't as I've seen nothing to suggest otherwise). Infrastructure is in a sorry state of decay all across the continent. We'll hear more about this as time goes on and failures become more common and inconvenient...

Shiny stuff get's politician elected... dirty pipes, buried out of sight, just don't make the cut.