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Flint Municipal water 89

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moon161

moon161

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So, Flint has been MI lead poisoned and exposed to legionella bacteria because the water supply was switched from Detroit municipal to the Flint River. Since the polluted river is corrosive and iron rich, lead was leached from pipes and solder into the water of thousands of homes, and legionella bateria (legionaire's diseased) apparently thrived on the dissolved iron.

It was done to save money, it stayed that way because people who knew of the crisis sat on the information and obstructed inquiry.



There HAS to be a (ir)responsible engineer in that chain. What are their duties, did they fail to perform? Would whistleblower action have been appropriate?
 
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That's old information dude.

It's still not clear that the Legionella outbreak is the direct result of the change to Flint River water. The chart that shows legionella infections in Genesee County leaves out the fact that that spike resulted in a big number of cases involving people who do not get their drinking water from the Flint River. I posted this earlier in the thread.
 
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The GM aspect of the Flint story is very odd. The story states that the chloride level of the water increased causing rust to appear on metal parts. However, the range of 50 to 60 milligrams of chloride per liter that is present in the Flint River water is not unusual and would not normally be of any concern.


Chloride corrosion is not something that happens instantaneously, it is a long term problem. A bigger problem than the chlorides would have been the increased amount of salts in the water which would leave white residue as the water evaporates. There may have been issues with iron in the water as there are pictures of red water being flushed from water hydrants.

It is interesting to see people holding colored samples of water indicating the water is bad. The color has nothing to do with lead contamination.



It was relatively easy to tap into the township’s pipes to replace the Flint River water because the infrastructure was already in place. It may have been easier to replace the water than to determine if there was a problem.

My opinion is that the GM story is a red herring.
 
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There are many aspects of this Flint story that defy conventional logic.

However, simple reasoning would have one conclude that the MDEQ was operating in a rouge manner. For those not familiar with the water business, the water business is highly regulated with extensive regulation fully enacted in law. A water department like Flint is not allowed to make any changes without permission from the state water agency (MDEQ).

The EPA affordability guidelines state that water costs should be less than 2.5% of MHI. With an MHI of $28,000 in Flint, that would limit the water bills to $60 per month. Yet, the average water bill in Flint was $140.


The MDEQ should have been actively looking for ways to reduce the cost of water to Flint. Instead, the MDEQ was approving grandiose projects that Flint was incapable of paying for. Being an older community with old piping, it was reported that there was a significant amount of water lost to pipe leaks. Normally, an agency like the MDEQ requires these leaks to be repaired prior to new construction. Otherwise, the new facilities are oversized and uneconomical for the residents. Flint is also paying for the lost water.

In planning for new water facilities like Flint was undertaking, the state agencies like the MDEQ will not permit new projects that cause unaffordable water rates. These scenarios have occurred in the past and the state agencies work to prevent them from happening. Many times the state will help pay for new facilities with grants and the state does not want to promote a wasteful project.

Not to minimize the impact or consequences, the lead aspect also defies logic. Why did the MDEQ authorize the City of Flint to operate the water treatment plant and to operate the water treatment plant with inadequate management? Just to be clear, the state equivalent of the federal EPA such as the MDEQ will require an application to construct a water treatment plant and will then provide an operating permit when the facility is completed. Had the Flint River water treatment plant been operating correctly, there would not have been a lead problem. And then why did the MDEQ allow the situation to go on for so long?

One would expect that the person signing the documents at the Flint River water treatment plant will eventually be prosecuted. Incompetence is not an excuse.

Most state water agencies have accepted primary responsibility for water systems from the EPA. To obtain this responsibility, these state agencies had to provide evidence that they had the capabilities to handle the responsibilities. The MDEQ has demonstrated in the Flint fiasco that the MDEQ is no longer capable of this responsibility.

The immediate problem was lead in the water, but there are many other important aspects.

 
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I looked over the August 15, 2015 operating data. It is pretty clear to me that the Flint Water Treatment plant did not know how to operate a lime softening plant. The final pH at the tap is around 7.3. It should come out of the plant at 8.5. In addition to not knowing how to run a plant they were wasting money by adding too much CO2(??) or some type of acid to bring the pH down after they lime softened. They CAUSED the water to be aggressive. Why the operators were allowed to run the plant will be the subject of a lot of discussions. The fact that they were trying to save money by switching water sources is very ironic. It costs a lot of money per thousand gallons to run a water softening plant compared to a Great Lakes sourced water plant. I wonder how much they were saving at the end of the day.

I would also like to comment that the plant is using ferric chloride as a flocculant. Ferric chloride is very corrosive. You are adding iron and chlorides into the water. Overdosing ferric chloride will create the brown water samples that have widely been seen. Ferric chloride is very corrosive and bacteria can hide behind the ferric ions or ferric sludge if the water is not dosed properly or flocculated and settled properly. I suspect that is why they chlorinated so much. Ferric chloride will eat through metal and concrete. It is only effective at a certain pH range. If it is improperly dosed...watch out.

Sounds like "spreadsheet jockey managers" were put in decision making positions that they should not have been in the first place. These people have been able to maneuver themselves into positions that they are not qualified to do. Bullshit baffles brains and in this case bullshit maims people for life
 
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I have designed and added a phosphoric acid system at all the water treatment plants in Toronto in order to meet the lead and copper rule. It works.
 
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QualityTime, that is what I posted above. The MDEQ certified an operator with zero experience to operate the plant. His resume is posted above.
 
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The vast majority of the news stories and comments herein fail to recognize the simple truth that this Flint MI drinking water contamination by lead supply pipes is entirely a water chemistry issue that can and should be solved by treating the raw water at the city-owned treatment plants to mitigate the natural corrosivity of the water, which is leaching lead from the 80-year old water supply pipes.

The water source is NOT toxic NOR is it corrosive! This is a simple water chemistry engineering problem that should never have been allowed to happen, AND can economically be addressed through better water treatment. Everyone should stop being a victim, in need of a $1 Billion solution when the issues are relatively simple to fix, and can be done in a matter of weeks - months, not years - decades.
 
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Regarding the "issues are relatively simple to fix, and can be done in a matter of weeks - months, not years - decades."

The problem is actually much more complicated and was years in the making:

Decades of underfunding the MDEQ by the politicians has diminished the effectiveness of the MDEQ oversight such that MDEQ:
Certified an operator with no experience to operate the water treatment plant.
Permitted the construction of a new water treatment plant that the City is incapable of paying for.
Permitted the startup and operation of the 50 year old water treatment plan​
 
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My post above is just about correcting the water treatment issue. The other issues at play are:


[li]The State is trying to get the Feds to pony up large amounts of GRANT money anyway that they can. The money can be used for a lot of things…other than helping the Flint residents. What better way is there to get it than to create mass hysteria by using the media to say they need to replace all of Flint’s watermains and water treatment plant? If this happens a lot of people will all of a sudden be showing off their brand new shiny yachts[/li]
[li]The City probably does not have the staff that can operate a lime softening plant[/li]
[li]Bureaucrats and engineers at the City and State level who know what the real story is are not saying anything because they want to protect their jobs.[/li]
[li]It is all about getting someone else to pay for it by playing the game of turning a negative into a positive and have the Feds share the stress. The whole thing is politically motivated.[/li]

 
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Of course there is some of that going on, but you are being overly cynical.

The MDEQ had multiple opportunities to prevent this event from happening in the first place and likely did not do so because of the political pressure from the politicians in control of the state.



 
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So which is it- is the MDEQ competent but handcuffed by the Republicans you so despise, or or they incompetent because of the Republicans you so despise?

"The MDEQ should have been actively looking for ways to reduce the cost of water to Flint."

They were. The KWA is an organization that, if their plan comes together, should be able to do EXACTLY that.
 
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You did not read or understand the rest of it.

There is no logical method that someone can build a brand new water treatment plant and 70 mile pipeline that is 6 feet in diameter and then operate it for less than what an old existing water treatment plant and pipeline cost to operate. If someone comes to you and proposes such a scheme, is it believable?

Detroit actually cut the water rate when plans for the KWA project were in the works. And Detroit was turned down.

There are similar projects to the KWA in other states. The politicians put their friends on these agency boards as political favors at fat salaries. Who pays for that?

A municipality that purchases water from an agency like Detroit or the KWA is still going to pay whatever the market will bear. Formerly, the people were at the mercy of Detroit. In the future, they will be at the mercy of the KWA. The water buyer has no leverage after the facility is built.

The KWA organization is some type of scam economic development project that will probably never pan out. Does Genesee County really think that there are firms that will locate there for water? Genesee County would probably have to give the water away as part of other enticements to attract economic development.

Flint will not be able to afford the KWA project, as Flint is already out of money. As I mentioned, affordable water rates are supposed to be in the range of 2.5% of MHI.

The agencies that are equivalent to the MDEQ in other states will not approve a project like KWA proposes where it is unaffordable to the municipalities and the municipalities will bail out causing a backrupty. Yes, affordability is an aspect of permitting such a facility.

You should also be aware that Flint has an old system with significant leakage where a lot of water is being wasted. Flint does not even need the capacity that they are buying. By the way, states also force municipalities to fix leaks and reduce waste. A municipality can't get Lake Michigan water if the water leakage rate from water pipes are too high.

The point made is that the MDEQ is understaffed because of decades of underfunding. That is as good a reason as any for the multiple mistakes that they have made. But the big decisions are being made at the top, not by the little people.

Just so you don't think you are the only state with major problems in government, there are similar problems with state government in other states. The problems at these states remain under the radar because the problems are not as sensational.






The common thread is that there have been a lot of wishful thinking by which tax cutters dreamed that they could keep on cutting taxes without having any real consequences.
 
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Since Flint went back to Detroit's water source, does the lead issue go away?
 
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boo1,

The lead issue will go away over time as the scale from water covers the corrosion.

The traditional approach to corrosion control is to have a water with a slight tendency to scale. The most reliable method to make this happen is to increase the pH slightly so that the hardness begins to precipitate out as scale. Over time, the scale will coat the piping materials thereby preventing corrosion. The tendency to scale can be measured by the langelier index.

If the water has a high tendency for scaling, over time, the scale will start to plug the piping. The operator of the water distribution system strikes a balance on the scaling tendencies.

What has happened in Flint is that the chemical precipitation process that Flint is using is leaving the pH too low which is causing the corrosion. It is a result of poor operations by the inexperienced water treatment operators working for Flint. It is also a simple matter to remedy.

The professor is making a big deal out of phosphate. There is no standard approach for phosphate treatment of water. In most cases when phosphate is applied, the users are not adding enough phosphate to make a difference anyway. Phosphate treatment is considered to be more of a seat of the pants technique than science. Phosphate is now considered to be a pollutant and most users are moving away from phosphate.

The most reliable water treatment method to stop the corrosion is to increase the pH with an alkali.
 
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FWIW The Lowe foundation has a series of "Plain talk" papers they attribute to their founder, Mr Lowe.

Seems like Dan Wyant may have skipped over this one, about "hiring the best you can" -

"....... Of course, hunches can also go astray. I hired a popular local fellow as my first sales manager. At work he displayed a side few people knew about — a dark moodiness when he didn’t get his way. Once, after three days under his black cloud, I invited him to unload his feelings. He proclaimed that he was undervalued, and that he wanted 25% ownership of my company. Otherwise, he was going to start his own competitive business. Although he was a pretty decent sales manager, I wished him luck and told him to clean out his desk.

The fact that he was someone I knew well didn’t make it any easier. It taught me the first of many important lessons about hiring friends and others close to you. Evaluate them with the same brutal honesty as any other prospect, or you’re asking for trouble. A growing entrepreneur can’t afford one stick of dead wood.

But when you find the right people, let them do their job. A boss who constantly badgers and second-guesses good employees is as unsettling as a waiter hovering over your every bite in a fine restaurant. Empower your employees; and though you don’t need to dish out slices of your company, pay them well for a good job. As an advertisement once noted, a good mind is a terrible thing to waste — or worse yet, to send running to a competitor...... "
 
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bimr:

In Flint's case I think they brought the pH down too low after lime softening. By doing that they unnecessarily brought down the hydroxide alkalinity. Why they did that is up to speculation. There could be a lot of reasons one of which is the operator is not qualified to run this type of plant. Another possible reason is that the plant is not designed properly to take into account the necessary pH swings that occur in this type of water plant. Another reason is that the instrumentation etc probably does not work well after being mothballed for 50 years. Remember they are trying to disinfect, flocculate, lime soften (i.e. raise the pH to drop out hardness), then drop the pH so that the water is drinkable and take into account having a positive calcium carbonate precipitation potential and post disinfect. It also looks like they are trying take out the magnesium hardness. I am not sure whether they really need to do that. There is quite an added expense to take out magnesium hardness.....But anyhow operating this type of plant requires more than one plant operator. It requires more people in the plant and in the City Water Department. It is a tragedy that the City and the State allowed this to occur. The U.S. is not supposed to be a third world country. Just goes to show you how dangerous having spreadsheet jockeys who tout themselves as "managers" can be. Somehow it has been turned around on people who have good technical backgrounds that can make informed decisions. If you are a lousy engineer or have a big mouth somehow you must make a good manager....LOL. It is the way the lazy people get to the top

I cannot see how treating your own water is cheaper than buying water from others. Even if it is the case, the fact that there will be now two sellers this improves the chances of getting a competitive price for water. If there ever was a chance of getting poor quality water and cost cutting in order to maximize profit private companies will do it.

BTW I got a chuckle over the $150,000 spent to get an "operations" company to make recommendations how to operate the water plant....what a joke

 
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QualityTime,

Basically what occurred was that the politicians making decisions and the Flint staff did not understand the complexity of starting up and operating a water treatment plant. Flint has been operating just a water pumping and distribution system for decades.

The superintendent of the water treatment plant was not licensed. The guy with the operating license was the lab supervisor. Usually in a plant this size, you will find 3-4 of the people with licenses.
 
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I've been looking for some time for real information as to the blood lead levels resulting from this fiasco. Overwhelmingly, news stories provide no actual information in this regard.

The best information I've found has come from Kevin Drum of Mother Jones magazine (a solidly left-wing poltical magazine, for those of you unfamiliar with it). He has written extensively for years on the horrible effects of elevated blood lead levels in the mid 20th Century.

His conclusion on this: "Flint is not a public health holocaust."

Some key graphs from his recent reports that put things in perspective:

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Those of us middle aged and older, who grew up in the age of leaded gasoline, almost certainly had higher blood lead levels that the worst affected of the Flint children.
 
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