A reader comments on Flint:
I just read the details of the actual cause of the lead poisoning in Flint. It’s a bit more subtle than most people would have gleaned from the popular press, but just as damning nonetheless.
It turns out the water from the river is more corrosive in just the wrong way so as to leach/dissolve the layers of minerals which have been deposited over the many years on the inside of the old pipes used in the water system. Those pipes were made of lead, a very common thing at the time. With an interior coating of things like manganese, iron or other salts which occur naturally in most water, those pipes are perfectly safe (they were not when first installed, of course, but we did not know better at the time).
Apparently the “cheaper” river water was a bad choice versus the more “expensive” lake water they had been using. The decision was made under a series of state-appointed city managers who were all about Republican-driven cost savings. The decision was made more than a year ago, or thereabouts. The problem was discovered by a third party 5 to 6 months ago (who knows when the water utility people spotted it — they’ve probably been threatened to silence). But the Republican leadership, from city appointees up to the governor himself were all busy denying and covering it up.
There’s no simple solution now. It’ll take years to naturally re-coat the interior of those pipes. Digging them up and replacing them is horrendously expensive. They’ve switched back to lake water, which stops the problem from getting worse, but the damage is already done. They may have saved a few dollars on the front end but they’ve lost millions on the back. Typical stupid right-wing planning.
Or at least, quarterly thinking – that is, gotta keep the shareholders happy each quarter. Governor Snyder has a background in the private sector, according to Wikipedia:
From 2005 to 2007, Snyder served as the chairman of the board of Gateway, Inc., based in Irvine, California. Prior to his election as governor, he was chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and co-founder of Ardesta LLC, a venture capital firm based out of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Which is merely an observation, not a real accusation. Still, the executive office must set the tone, to some extent, throughout the executive arm – especially when the governor is in his second term.
That said, here are the backgrounds of the relevant Flint Emergency Managers:
Darnell Earley: City Administrator and Municipal Administrator, with a Masters of same from Westsern Michigan University. He’s named in a class action lawsuit, but claims it wasn’t his decision; a while ago he claimed it was not foreseeable. I don’t know if that’s still his assertion.
Michael Brown: His career appears to be in various city administration positions. He preceded Earley.
So those two appear to have respectable careers in city administration. Ed Kurtz is harder to track down. In his support, The Daily Beast reports,
In a civil deposition not reported until now, Ambrose testified under oath that emergency manager Kurtz considered a proposal to use the Flint River, discussed the option with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and then rejected it.
In 2014, Ambrose was deposed in a civil lawsuit brought by retired Flint municipal workers against the state over severe cuts to their health care benefits. Attorney Alec Gibbs questioned Ambrose about the water decision (a year before Flint learned it was being poisoned). …
Howard Croft, the former director of public works for Flint who resigned in November 2015, asserted more than four months ago in a videotaped interview with the ACLU of Michigan that the decision to use the dangerously corrosive river came directly from the Snyder administration.
In the interview, Croft said that the decision to use the river was a financial one, with a review that “went up through the state.”“All the way to the governor’s office?” the ACLU of Michigan asked him.
“All the way to the governor’s office,” Croft replied.
