The Néw York Times reviewed 274 pages of emails released by Governor Snyder’s office about the Flint water crisis. Confronted with multiple claims that something was wrong with the water, the Snyder administration belittled the critics.
“The correspondence records mounting complaints by the public and elected officials, as well as growing irritation by state officials over the reluctance to accept their assurances.
“It was not until late in 2015, after months of complaints, that state officials finally conceded what critics had been contending: that Flint was in the midst of a major public health emergency, as tap water pouring into families’ homes contained enough lead to show up in the blood of dozens of people in the city. Even small amounts of lead could cause lasting health and developmental problems in children….
“Though Mr. Snyder issued the emails as part of an effort to reveal the administration’s transparency on the matter, the documents provide a glimpse of state leaders who were at times dismissive of the concerns of residents, seemed eager to place responsibility with local government and, even as the scientific testing was hinting at a larger problem, were reluctant to acknowledge it.
“The messages show that from the moment Flint decided to draw its water from a new source, the Flint River, officials were discounting concerns about its quality and celebrating a change meant to save the cash-starved city millions of dollars. From 2011 to 2015, Flint was in state receivership, its finances controlled by a succession of four emergency managers appointed by Mr. Snyder’s administration.
“That upbeat mood lasted for months, even as residents began complaining about the new water’s foul odor, odd color and strange health effects, and began showing up at events with “jugs of brownish water.”
The governor has apologized.
He should be charged with willfully endangering the lives of the citizens of Flint and held accountable for his administration’s criminal negligence.
He and his cohorts are guilty of poisoning residents. A tragedy and they must be held responsible!
It’s a crime, not a tragedy.
It’s a strategy, not a tragedy, which is what makes it a crime.
Prosecute.
After they prosecute, they should EXECUTE.
Students that teachers work to protect from deplorable classroom conditions are defenseless victims for water poisoning, by Michigan’s richest?
The months of April and November , in D.C., may hold unpleasant surprises for the plutocrats.
Snyder and his appointees have poisoned 100,000 people and destroyed the city’s water pipes. Why isn’t this a crime?
Virginia Tech staff and a local pediatrician warned Snyder’s officials.
The emails do not absolve Snyder.
GM was able to get off the Flint River water supply when the water was ruining car parts.
Water coming out of the hospital water taps looked awful.
One of Flint’s emergency managers (appointed by Snyder) is now in charge of the Detroit schools.
Paging Dr. Raj, paging Dr. Raj….
Didn’t Raj assure us a couple of weeks ago that the Flint story was hot air and we should be grateful that the EM saved millions of dollars by switching to Flint River water?
Diane – that would be correct. Which is why I imagine Raj will make himself rather scarce around these parts for a while. If he knows what’s good for him, anyway.
Raj is a pure idiot, a moron, and a fraud. Someone smack him him upside the head so that he never writes here again . . . .
Stated metaphorically, that is . . . . .
Diane,
Please go back to my comment. I never said that Flint story is hot air. I never said that we should be grateful that the EM saved millions. My sole objections was for your lead that EM poisoned the people of Flint.
Changing my comment to suit your opinion does not become you.
Here is a basic lesson on water, lead and chemistry.
Before the sixties all paint was lead based and a majority of buildings used lead pipes. During the sixties and seventies, lead poisoning of children caused serious concerns leading to the ban of lead based paints and lead piping inside buildings.
Pealing paint chips found their way into little mouths leading to lead poisoning. It was too expensive to remove all lead paint, instead most owners repainted the buildings and homes with non lead based paint to cover up the lead paint. If it does not peal it cannot find a way to little mouths. If your home was constructed in the late seventies, it does not contain lead based paint. A vast majority of homes in this country fall into this category.
Strangely enough even baby cribs and toys had lead based paint during that era.
During the same period they found that some school children were found to have high lead in there blood. That was traced to the chewing of the yellow pencil covered with lead based paint. Those pencils were banned and were removed rapidly from the population. Because pencils do not last long, this pathway could be removed rapidly.
Every one here keeps saying the rich in the suburbs do not face such problems. That is just a myth not a valid scientific fact. It is true most suburban housing was built after lead pipes were banned and lead paint was no longer available. The problem of lead paint and lead pipes is strictly the problem of old cities most of them in the eastern part of the United States.
What happened during the sixties and seventies? If one lived in large old cities like Detroit (I did for two years) during the sixties, we were told to run the water for a couple of minutes before drinking it. This is what the United Nations Health Organization informed the general public in all Western Nations. Only the advanced western world had this problem, because the rest of the poor nations did not have a water supply and therefore no lead piping. Poor nations did not paint their houses (huts) and were saved from that pathway.
Why does the lead come out of the pipes? Depending on the water chemistry, lead can leech out of the pipes. Therefore in the stagnant water in the pipes at home, the lead concentration keeps going up. Overnight lead build up can be flushed out of these pipes if you let the water run for a few minutes prior to drinking. Strangely enough most people wanted cold water, it was common to let it flow until it got cold before one drank it.
LAUSD found this problem a few years ago in the drinking fountains. The did not have lead piping, but the solder in the joints in the water fountains contained lead. The custodial staff were then ordered to flush the fountains every morning. Yesterday they found they were using millions of gallons a year to perform the daily water fountain flushing. Now that California is in a severe draught situation, this waste of water is being noticed. Once again it was rumored that only the poor kids who did not bring bottled water were harmed. One never knows.
Every water district checks the chemistry of the water that comes out of the water processing plant. This is the starting point. They are also tasked to take samples at the user end every so often. These are state laws and the enforcement varies from state to state. Michigan State has one of the strongest laws in this area. If the water department employees were diligent that could have seen the problem early on and changed the water chemistry and solved the problem.
The water district employees are the people responsible for the quality of water at the start and at the user end. It is not the responsibility of the emergency manager, the Governor or even God.
What happened in Flint is that the people who were responsible (the people who ran the water processing and delivery system) did not do their job. It is as simple as that. They were not supervised properly.
The data on water quality at the user end as measured by the city employees has been released and it shows a wide variation in lead content in different parts of the city. One can only assume that the sample takers (demoralized low end workers in the water department) caused such variation. More data is needed to confirm this hypothesis.
Yes in the end all the people including the lowest level employee at the water department and at every level of management in the city, county and state have some responsibility.
The slow response of the management at all levels in this crisis bothers me. I have very little faith in the public sector to do its job.
But I object to the the solution to condemn the financial emergency manager and the governor without due process and recommending hanging them as written by some one in this blog.
I believe that due process is the core of the education work force. My question is if they believe in due process for themselves why not extend it to the rest of the public servants including the emergency manager and the governor?
Diane, I respect a majority of your opinions, but in this case I do not agree. I was a scientist all my life and I can see the whole picture.
Robert, you need to get an education and it is not too late.
Dianne, sarcasm does not contribute any thing to this blog.
Finally, if you live in an old building in an old city are you sure that the water you drink is safe? Do you buy bottled water to solve the problem and are you sure that is safe? Remember there are no regulatory controls over the bottled water suppliers.
Raj, have the decency to stay silent until people can forget your excuses for the deliberate decision to cut off the safe drinking water in Flint. Don’t repeat them. Flint was not a natural disaster. It was a criminal decision to remove safe drinking water to save money.
Diane,
I cannot understand you. You do not provide answers to my queries. You just want to keep putting words in my mouth. This is not a debate or exchange of ideas.
You now have the burden of proof.
Raj, we agree. I don’t understand you either.
Geez, Raj, do you think no one is capable of digging up your original comment? Here’s what you said:
“This is false. He [Earley] did not shut off safe water. He did not do this spite the people of Flint. He changed the source of water from Detroit to the Flint river and saved the bankrupt city about $10 million dollars. He or any one else in the administration know that the chemistry of water from the river increased leaching of lead pipes in the city of Flint. Flint river water does not have high lead content, it simply increased the leaching rate from the old lead pipes.
Most old cities in this country have old lead pipes to distribute water. The change in the water source changed the chemistry of water which resulted in increased leaching of lead leading to bad consequences to the people of Flint. No one predicted this prior to the change. The water supply has been restored back to the Detroit water source. All old cities, i.e., all cities in the east coast use old lead pipes to supply water to homes. You or many of the people in the east coast are not immune from this phenomenon.”
Right there in the first sentence you uttered a blatant lie. And then you went on to say that no one could have predicted what happened. You still refuse to retract that even though GM refused to use Flint River Water for industrial purposes because it was too corrosive. The evidence is clear, Raj, that officials, including Early and Snyder, knew that there were potentially devastating consequences for switching the water, yet they did it anyway – all to, as you yourself admit – “save money”. How much money have they saved now, Raj? Please factor in the lawsuits, the remediation, the lifetime care for children poisoned by lead, the cost of the National Guard and the bottled water and all other related expenses.
That reminds me, it wouldn’t hurt me to order one of these.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/lead_test_kit.shtml
Lead in Drinking Water Test Kit
New York City water is virtually lead-free when it is delivered from the City’s upstate reservoir system, but water can absorb lead from solder, fixtures, and pipes found in the plumbing of some buildings or homes. It is possible that lead levels in your home may be higher than other homes in the community as a result of materials used in your home’s plumbing. If you are concerned about elevated lead levels in your home’s water, you may wish to have your water tested.
About the Kit
The Lead in Drinking Water Test Kit consists of two bottles, a mailing box, and instructions. Follow the instructions included in your kit on collecting water samples in your home, and return the kit in the supplied box. A business reply label is included and shipping is prepaid.
In Raj’s 9th paragraph, he says he was exposed to lead for a couple of years in Detroit. Um.
SMACK!!!!!
Obviously, this man is losing his cool. Hope it’s not because of contagious lead-poinsoing that highjacked the brain of ‘Sick-Note’ Michigan governor to cause erratic behavior…
“Poisoned”
Poisoned Snyder
Poisoned waters
Poisoned all our
Sons and daughters
This is what happens when all you care about is money. I dare them to talk about “accountability.” Jail is too good for them.
My nephew in Seattle told me he tries to get his comments onto the “hard drive” when he writes to Patty Murray. Since then I have copied his idea– I write to Governor Charley Baker (about his Christmas tree hug fest and his constant need to rehearse his fabulous sports career) all the time he is pushing his charter school plan because his “neighbor” has his ear and she is trustworthy. All the time the Globe calls the parents and teachers “political noise”. I also write to the Charter King Secretary Peyser (staff seem to take the comments but you never get a reaction). On the Board of Ed the only person who responded to a comment was the parent representative. I also have been writing to the Commissioner Mitchell Chester and you get a response in email “i gave your information to the chief of staff to M. Chester”…. Then, I addressed Measured Progress in NH because they brought in the Sir Michael Barber report hyper marketing the PARCC. My nephew said “you get it on the hard drive”…. But the parents in Flint did not seem to have any access to anyone’s memory bank or hard drive. We need more of the Michael Moore films to circulate (I signed his petition).
I listened to a long discussion of this on the (car) radio yesterday and there’s another aspect to it that is even crazier than pulling the water from the river.
They refused to treat the Flint River water to mitigate the corrosive effect. According to the Virginia Tech researcher that anti- corrosive treatment only costs $8200 a year. If the water hadn’t been so corrosive it might not have allowed all that lead to leach from the pipes.
The federal EPA knew they weren’t treating the water for corrosion, that’s against federal regs and laws, but instead of regulating the federal regulator negotiated- asked politely if they could possibly comply with the law, for months and months.
I don’t know, I’m no expert on water quality and I’m certainly not a chemist, but I have real reservations about this “anti-corrosive agent” anyway. I mean, if the water is corrosive, it’s because there are chemicals in it. They’re saying they can add more chemicals and somehow the water becomes safe to drink? I understand acids and bases and that they combine to form salts (if that’s wrong, please correct me – high school chemistry was a long time ago), but wouldn’t that make the water salty? And are all salts safe to consume? If someone knows the chemistry better than I do, please feel free to explain, but personally I’ll take the fresh water of the Great Lakes myself.
Dienne,
You’re right to be skeptical.
Here’s a link to the study done by Virginia Tech researchers.
“Test 3 was conducted, to see if adding orthophosphate to Flint River water would stop lead corrosion. About 50% of water companies in the U.S. add orthophosphate to their water to control lead corrosion, but it is not currently added to Flint River water.
From the data shown above in Figure 1, it is clear that Detroit water is much less corrosive to lead solder than the Flint River water. On average, Detroit water is 19 times (or 19X) less corrosive than the Flint River water currently in use. That is, the current Flint River water leaches 19X more lead to the water than Detroit water. This explains why the lead in Flint’s water in our survey, is so high, even when it was low before when Detroit water was being used.
We can actually still see the high lead in the Flint River water test by eye (i.e. as white particles suspended in the water). Lead levels in our test with Flint River water, were slightly above hazardous waste levels (5000 ppb), which is still lower than the worst levels of lead we detected in the home of Flint resident Lee-Anne Walters.
Orthophosphate still does not seem to help stop lead leaching in Flint River water, which is also consistent with expectations based on experiments in high chloride water.
There is a slight improvement, but even with phosphate, Flint River water has 16 times more lead compared to the same condition using Detroit water. We will continue to run these tests, but at present it does not seem like orthophosphate will provide a quick answer to the very high lead levels in Flint water.”
//end quotes
As soon as Virginia Tech got their results, they suggested that Michigan officials switch back to the Detroit water immediately.
The real issue here is that Michigan officials switched from a known safe water supply to one of dubious safety (at best). The Flint river has been used for discharge of industrial waste by factories for a century, so corrosion of lead pipes and/or lead solder is actually only one potential issue.
Who the hell knows what is in the sediment at the river bottom just waiting to be picked up and sent to people’s houses? Drinking water from such a source is a crap shoot.
The story from the pediatrician is pretty amazing too. She was interviewed on this radio program and she happened to go a dinner party. A women she knew from high school was there, and that woman once worked at the EPA. The former EPA employee told the pediatrician that if the water was corrosive she needed to check children’s blood levels. The pediatrician had childrens’ lead levels because they routinely check that btwn the ages of 1 and 2, so she had their samples to compare.
It’s just scary all these events had to occur- a chance meeting! a conversation! she had the baseline samples!
My God, it’s like rolling the dice every day for Flint.
These politicians and their assistants need to be charged, convicted and jailed. Period.
And executed . . . . Lethal injection, with lead in the compound.
The spin machine is still scoffing …
Dienne
January 21, 2016 at 11:18 am
I don’t know, I’m no expert on water quality and I’m certainly not a chemist, but I have real reservations about this “anti-corrosive agent” anyway. I mean, if the water is corrosive, it’s because there are chemicals in it.”
I don’t think that’s a given- the water might be corrosive because of the nature of the water- the composition, pH, etc.
That was the impression I got from the Virginia Tech researcher- that “more corrosive” doesn’t mean “more polluted”.
Flint wasn’t “treating” water prior to the decision to pull from the Flint River. They were just delivering water that was pre-treated in Detroit, so the anti-corrosive treatment issue came up a lot in the ordinary context of “treating water”.
They were out of compliance on the corrosive level of the water, and everyone involved knew that. Apparently it’s REALLY UNUSUAL for city water systems to be out of compliance for treating on corrosion. It (apparently) should have been a huge red flag that the state government was failing.
This is another aspect of lead levels. It’s been hotly debated for the last couple of years:
“The Brennan Center has released a lengthy report examining the reasons for the big crime decline of the 90s and aughts, and one section highlights the work of Jessica Reyes and others linking crime levels to gasoline lead emissions:
Reyes, and other researchers, have found that lead is connected to aggressive behavior and behavioral problems because it affects brain development of children….Reyes found that the decrease in lead caused a remarkable 56 percent of the decrease in violent crime in the 1990s….This theory had been previously suggested by another economist, Rick Nevin, in 1999. He illustrated a similarity in the trends between violent crime and gasoline lead 23 years prior.”
It’s just such a shame that we reduced the lead entering childrens’ bodies in the air and we’re going backwards on water.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/lead-and-crime-brennan-center-weighs
“The governor has apologized.”
Well, as long as he said he’s sorry, it’s OK. 🙂
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
They knew, and they did nothing. 😦
YEP! Tis all connected.
But good amurikans just love themselves war and being macho so they have self placed blinders so as to not rock their amurika is the greatestest meme.
Raj, you are right up there with Bill Ballenger , Gov. Snyder, and all of the MI legislature. You try to rationalize the actions that public officials will not take responsibility for and attempt to deflect culpability. You say the people responsible for delivering the water are responsible. If you are referring to the Flint Water Dept., their hands were tied. The Flint EM made the decision to switch to Flint water to save a dime. The DEQ did not do their job and even falsified water tests. The state Treasurer signed of on the whole thing. There is more than enough evidence to investigate if the Gov. office was aware to the problem and turned a blind eye to the citizens of Flint. You cannot deny the policies and philosophies of the party in control are directly responsible for what happened. Funny, there has been no call from the MI legislature to investigate the MI DEQ, Darnell Earley, and the governor’s office and their negligence in this entire disaster.
The current emergency manager of Detroit Public Schools is Darnell Earley (salary of $225,000). In his previous position, he was the emergency manager of Flint.(salary of $185,000), where he was responsible for making the decision to use the Flint River as the water source for the people of Flint. That’s a $45,000 raise. I would say it’s unbelievable, except that sadly, it’s very believable (and reprehensible).