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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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Regarding: One of the three 'great' lies, "I'm with the government, and, I'm here to help you."

Good rhetoric, but an empty punch line. Reagan Was Wrong: The Nine Most Terrifying Words Are, “I’m a Libertarian and the Market Will Save You”

Here is an example:

Remember the Rural Electrification Agency (1936) that was responsible for providing power to rural areas?


Ask yourself what would happen today. There would be no power offered to the rural areas.

Name a single successful Libertarian country in the world. That's right, there are none.
 
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bimr: I don't think of it as rhetoric, but, as a lie based on well founded observation/perception.

There's a really good reason why Libertarians are a failure... their approach doesn't work.

Dik
 
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At the time of rural electrification, may in rural had wind generators, and battery sets. After rural electrification most of those were gone. So we went from these farmers having to least cost for electric to them now having the highest cost of electric and poor service. And you think that is a good thing.

Granted this was not as widespread as many people would like, but rural electrification killed the early green movement, and replaced it with dependence on the government.
Strange how we now want wind energy back.

Yes, electricty makes life easy, but at what cost. Just look at the few communities that don't want worldly things like central electric, and tell me they are unhappy.

Who did who a favor? Now many of the rural people must take other jobs off the farm to pay their electric bills and taxes.
 
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Cranky,

I don't know if I would say it killed the green movement because it was only done in places where the only options that you had was to pay for an expensive interconnection or do without. I don't think environmentalism was ever a consideration during this period.
 
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Spartan5: Does your handle mean you are a sparty?

MSU's lack of interest is the responsibility of the MSU management, not the alumni. It is the mission of the state universities to be involved in these matters. Note also that the Great Lakes Law organization reported the same findings earlier in 2016 prior to the release of the Sadler study.

Flint's financial crisis was largely state-made: From 2006 — the last year Flint ran a budget surplus — to the 2012 fiscal year, when it was placed under state receivership, state revenue sharing to Flint fell 61%, from $20 million to $7.9 million.



 
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It does mean that, bimr. Like you said earlier, the since behind this is mostly settled. Where specifically do you think the Michigan schools are remiss in all of this? What is the "lack of interest" you are referring to? As I understand it, the Flint resident reached out to Dr. Edwards because he was an expert in this field, had done similar work in DC, and already had funding for this sort of research.
 
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Wording from the MSU mission statement:

"•advancing outreach, engagement, and economic development activities that are innovative, research-driven, and lead to a better quality of life for individuals and communities, at home and around the world"

The Flint situation went on for over a year and one would think that someone in the state government or branches would notice and get some experts involved. Flint would appear to be an excellent opportunity for MSU's environmental engineering program.

Based on Mr. Edwards quotes, expert is not the word that ones to mind. Review this article:


Here he states:

"When Flint switched to the Flint River as a water source, the practice of adding orthophosphate inhibitors was discontinued, and phosphate corrosion scales began deteriorating."

Feeding orthophosphate is not a science based method of corrosion control. It is a seat of the pants approach favored by chemical salesmen which is never validated. It is ridiculous to expect that feeding the typical low dosage of 1-5 mg/L of this chemical will do anything.

If Mr. Edwards was an expert, he could have immediately identified the incorrect operation of the water treatment plant (low pH effluent) and distribution system (improper disinfectant dosage) as the major problems and the incident could have been resolved earlier.
 
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bimr said:
On the other hand, the lack of attention by UM, MSU, and Michigan Tech is an embarrassment. Perhaps they don't want to piss off the legislature who funds them?
Click to expand...
bimr said:
The Flint situation went on for over a year and one would think that someone in the state government or branches would notice and get some experts involved. Flint would appear to be an excellent opportunity for MSU's environmental engineering program.
Click to expand...

It's not that I'm a homer (though being an alumnus did heighten my attention to this), but I asked because I wanted to understand where it was you thought the local public universities were negligent in attending to this as suggested in your first quote.

Your second quote appears to lay the blame on the bureaucratic side, not the academic; which is probably more accurate. MSU's mission statement seems irrelevant to that. It would have been an excellent opportunity if they were made aware of the problem.

bimr said:
If Mr. Edwards was an expert, he could have immediately identified the incorrect operation of the water treatment plant (low pH effluent) and distribution system (improper disinfectant dosage) as the major problems and the incident could have been resolved earlier.
Click to expand...
This sounds like the "settled science" part you were talking about. In which case all that was needed were knowledgeable people in the right places making the right decisions. This doesn't sound like an engineering research project.
 
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The point being made is that are water experts in Michigan that could have been brought in and resolved this incident without having to rely on some "hero" from out of state.

In addition, if the City of Flint had initially engaged the services of a qualified and licensed water treatment plant operator, this incident would never have occurred.
 
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The Flint water issue is still making the news:

Researchers say definitive link exists between most Legionnaires’ cases and switch to Flint River


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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Sh-h-h. Snyder state update left out 75% drop in reading proficiency in Flint

"Third-grade reading proficiency in Flint, where Snyder allowed the water — and children — to be poisoned by lead, dropped from 41.8% in 2013, the first year of the poisoning, to 10.7% last year."

 
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But he never paid any price since none of those families were ever going to vote Republican anyway.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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There was an overall decrease in reading proficiency state-wide largely due to a new reading test. The blood lead levels at the peak of this were lower than they had been just a few years before. If there was a direct connection then there should have been a similar gain shortly before.

blog_flint_lead_levels_1998_2016_3.jpg
from
It is possible that a few children did worse because of local concentrations but, as a population, children in Flint were largely unaffected in comparison to a decade earlier.
 
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Agree that it will be difficult to prove a cause and effect relationship between exposure to water and elevated blood lead levels.

However, the reported 75% drop in reading proficiency in Flint should set off some alarm bells and should be addressed.

The Michigan schools appear to have the same problem as the water systems - a lack of oversight.

Michigan has the most for-profit charter schools in the country and some of the least state oversight. DeVos' Michigan schools experiment gets poor grades.

 
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On Dec. 14, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a delayed publication for the new draft of the Lead and Copper Rule. Previously, the EPA’s objective was to release the draft by Jan. 2018, but has been pushed back to Aug. 2018.

The EPA will use the extended time table to gather input from state and local officials, and assess revision strategies. Additionally, this announcement coincides with the Trump Administration's goal to cut back on federal regulations. In the first 11 months of the Trump administration, 1,579 rules have been cancelled or delayed. The recently announced delay in the Lead and Copper Rule has received a mixed reception by officials.

Democratic Representatives Frank Pallone of N.J., Paul Tonko of N.Y., and Debbie Dingell of Mich., said in a joint statement, “Administrator Pruitt is hiding this delay behind the guise of a novel consultation process with the states, but the states need to see the proposed rule in order to provide relevant comments.”

Still, others see the delay as an opportunity to receive more input and, therefore, make better revisions. Lynn Thorp, campaign director for Clean Water Action said, “Further consultation with state and local governments is very appropriate. We should make sure revisions are truly informed.”


 
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Report states Governor Snyder bears significant legal responsibility:

"The governor is responsible for overseeing the faithful execution of state law, including accountability for state agency decisions. With regard to Flint, there are conflicting accounts as to when the Governor became aware of the water quality issues or Legionnaire’s disease outbreak. But reports, interviews, and released emails suggest that by October 2014, the Governor’s staff was sufficiently aware of water quality issues in Flint that several top aides were arguing that Flint should return to using water from DWSD. It appears that the Governor received regular assurances from MDEQ and MDHHS officials that the water was safe and healthy, but also that the Governor and/or his staff were aware of Flint residents’ mounting complaints about the water. Given the number of emails circulating among his own staff about Flint water quality concerns, the escalating complaints from Flint residents, and even state offices’ determinations to stop using Flint drinking water due to water quality concerns, critics are skeptical about the Governor’s claimed ignorance of the crisis as it unfolded.

Even setting aside the Governor’s appointment of an emergency manager, discussed more fully below, he bears significant legal responsibility for the crisis based on his supervisory role over state agencies. The Governor had adequate legal authority to intervene—by demanding more information from agency directors, reorganizing agencies to assure availability of appropriate expertise where needed, ordering state agencies to respond, or ultimately firing ineffective agency heads — but he abjured, either due to ignorance or willful neglect of duty. Flint residents’ complaints were not hidden from the Governor, and he had a responsibility to listen and respond.

The governor also has exclusive authority to issue a state level declaration of emergency or disaster. Upon doing so, the governor may request federal emergency assistance (financial or otherwise), suspend statutes, orders, or rules as necessary for the emergency response, issue necessary orders or directives that have the force and effect of law during the emergency, and allocate resources, including personnel and public or private property (with appropriate compensation), to respond to the emergency. The Governor finally declared an emergency in Flint on January 5, 2016—three months after Flint and Genesee County declared local emergencies. The Governor’s declaration was crucial to getting needed supplies to Flint and should have been made as soon as the extent of the water contamination in Flint came to light."
 
 http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=af019aea-d469-489c-acee-c66128a1a860&file=FlintReport.pdf
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