[HN Gopher] Flint water crisis costs Michigan $600M. Preventing ...
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Flint water crisis costs Michigan $600M. Preventing would have cost
$80/day
Author : rbanffy
Score : 76 points
Date : 2021-11-15 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| _the matter of attorney fees "will be addressed in a separate
| opinion and order."_
|
| Begging the question of why class action suits aren't handled
| similarly
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Begging the question of why class action suits aren 't
| handled similarly_
|
| They are. Your quote is incomplete. The opinion says the
| "Plaintiffs' motion for attorney fees will be addressed in a
| separate opinion and order" [1].
|
| [1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21102078/flint-
| settle...
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I don't see how that nullifies the distinction of this action
| vs typical class actions.
| thedday wrote:
| Who the heck is Levy?
| DerekL wrote:
| According to
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21102078-flint-
| settl..., linked in the article, Judith E. Levy is the judge in
| the case. The article should have explained that.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| _officials from Gov. Rick Snyder's administration decided against
| adding the inhibitors, even though the practice was mandated by
| the Environmental Protection Agency for cities over 50,000
| people._
|
| Apparently, the liberty buzz - the one that states get from
| refusing federal health orders - comes with a nasty hangover (one
| that can damage health and/or end lives).
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| This stuff makes for great quips and lots of internet virtue
| points but odds are this was just a line item among many that
| "needed" to be done to Flint's infrastructure to meet federal
| guidelines. They're not rich enough to do it all. There's no
| way for anyone with any authority to actually do things decide
| what is and isn't important because a) politics and b) every
| department thinks their stuff is most critical. Most of the
| time most of the stuff manages to get done without causing any
| sort of crisis but there's always the risk.
|
| Construing this as the inevitable result of some ill-advised
| liberty binge is simply lying. Flint didn't care about thumbing
| their nose at the EPA. Their mistake was being poor,
| incompetent and unlucky simultaneously. If they were rich they
| could have out spent their own stupid. If they were smart
| they'd have figured out there was a problem and treated it
| before it god bad. If they were lucky there never would have
| been a problem.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > They're not rich enough to do it all.
|
| But we're not talking about doing it all, we're talking about
| meeting its minimum legal requirements. If a city doesn't
| have enough money to do that, then presumably it should
| declare bankruptcy.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| There are plenty of municipal entities who can't afford to
| meet various minimum legal requirements. Furthermore, it's
| not always clear what severity is attached to various
| compliance requirements.
|
| Bankruptcy can cancel debt, but it can't create new
| funding. If the money isn't there, it isn't there.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Flint switched water supplies then failed to properly
| treat the new one. Severe budget constraints would have
| had them staying with the already not-poisonous supply.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| In general, it would have... Except in this case, a
| larger municipality more or less bought out Flint's stake
| in the old water supply.
|
| Flint didn't have the money to not get the old supply
| turned away from them.
| 8note wrote:
| That still sounds like somebody went on a liberty binge.
|
| Why are towns competing for clean water sources by how
| much they can pay to a provider?
| rbanffy wrote:
| I just love the way markets self regulate.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Appreciate the additional info.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Seems pretty clear that whoever was responsible for this
| specific cost/benefit calculation was wrong though?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Everything is 20-20 with hindsight. If a school bus went
| through a rusted out guard rail killing a bunch of kids
| you'd be hearing about that instead.
|
| There is no winning in these kinds of situations, you just
| try your best and hope to not be the unlucky one who
| presided over something that went south. Of course sucking
| at your job makes it harder to get it right but even if
| you're good the risk is always there.
|
| The ironic thing is the people of Flint can probably relate
| to this dilema a heck of a lot better than a bunch of HNers
| who have no frame of reference for this kind of thing.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Putting morons in charge of critical water infrastructure
| is literally a case study in municipal fuckups. "Don't
| poison your town" isn't a hard call, especially when the
| incremental cost is on the order of thousands of dollars
| per year, not tens of thousands.
|
| Full wiki background:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak
|
| Case study: http://scceh.com/Portals/6/Env_Health/consume
| r_protection/dr...
|
| Literally everyone who has been within 100yds of a muni
| water system knows the stakes for this stuff.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| The only winning move is to live in a rich city.
|
| Something to keep in mind the next time HN starts ranting
| about working remotely.
| gumby wrote:
| I think you have not been following this situation. It wasn't
| something overlooked -- there were plenty of alarms ringing
| (articles in the local and national press, posturing by the
| governor and certain legislators etc).
|
| I agree what you mention can happen. That's not the situation
| here.
| [deleted]
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > They're not rich enough to do it all.
|
| That kind of indicates Flint shouldn't have switched their
| water supply if they couldn't afford to do it w/o lead-
| poisoning the population.
| vmchale wrote:
| There need to be criminal penalties for the sort of things he
| did.
|
| Neglecting infrastructure and poisoning water despite warnings?
| TheDudeMan wrote:
| Did you read the article?
|
| "Former Gov. Rick Snyder and eight others have been charged
| with crimes related to the Flint water crisis."
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| It's sad that you would classify liberty as "buzz." I take it
| you've never lived in an authoritarian dictatorship before.
| VikingCoder wrote:
| It's sad that you would compare "federal health orders that
| prevent children from being exposed to levels of lead that
| cause permanent brain damage" to authoritarian dictatorship.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Oh these pesky dictatorships that insist in keeping poor
| kids safe from brain damaging poisons... Who will pay for
| that?
| VikingCoder wrote:
| The problem with preventing harm to children is
| eventually you run out of other people's money.
|
| /sigh
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| How much lead is in the water you drink?
| mcphage wrote:
| Neither has Rick Snyder.
| [deleted]
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Not nearly as sad as pols who are only interested in
| liberties that generate a political high.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| This was purely performative, though. Any concept of liberty
| which allows for such neglect of critical public goods like
| water supply is morally bankrupt.
| rchaud wrote:
| When it comes to public health/public safety related mandates,
| normal people don't benefit from living in a state that refuses
| those orders.
|
| Politicians however can build a whole career out of it. They
| don't even have to stay in those states if a cushy role in
| Congress opens up.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Irrespective of cost, the flint water crisis is among the most
| egregious modern fuck ups in state governing. It literal pisses
| me off when I think about it.
|
| The worst part, justice was not served - those responsible were
| not held accountable. [1]
|
| [1] A great PBS doc, but start at 48:27 -
| https://youtu.be/6oVEBCtJgeA?t=2907
| rmason wrote:
| Michigan's emergency manager law has been on the books since
| the eighties and was passed by a Democrat, Gov. James
| Blanchard. Most Michigan governors have appointed at least one.
| When the people have elected a dysfunctional and crooked city
| government (or school board) it's a way to do an end run and
| fix things.
|
| Republican Gov. Snyder (a former VC) promised to fix Michigan
| and he appointed 18! What Detroit's EM, Kevin D. Orr, did was
| nothing short of amazing and it led to Detroit's comeback.
|
| Most of the rest of the EM's either succeeded or quietly
| failed, except Flint. The guy running Flint was a complete and
| utter disaster. They weren't even saving all that much money by
| switching to the river water.
|
| Where Gov. Snyder and his staff failed utterly is they tried to
| cover it all up. Someone should be held accountable for the
| coverup but sadly it doesn't appear that's going to happen.
| dymk wrote:
| I agree, this is an incredible feat of stupidity on behalf of
| the Flint government. It boggles my mind how badly they fucked
| up.
|
| But, does the water contamination cause incontinence or
| something?
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| michael moore is an ideologue you may or may not agree with.
| However, he's the man on the streets on this one. He's been
| covering it for decades.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_%26_Me
|
| https://michaelmoore.com/10FactsOnFlint/
|
| However, take that hat off and put on the opposite ideological
| hat. What really happened?
| daveslash wrote:
| Nice to see a Roger & Me reference. I also recommend it.
|
| Most of his other productions were taking aim at issues on a
| national level, and so they could be very polarizing. Roger &
| Me, which was his first production, is really localized on
| Flint, so it's hopefully less polarizing to someone watching it
| for the first time. Additionally, given what we now know about
| Flint, Roger & Me takes on a more poignant tone than it
| otherwise might have. _[Edit: Spelling]_
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Irony being that GM was able to switch its water sources away
| from Flint because they found the new Flint water to be too
| corrosive.
| afinlayson wrote:
| We gotta make consequences matter again. No one or no philosophy
| behind this have been punished. Small government is still a valid
| approach because the message of 600M is >> $80/ day doesn't get
| traction.
| TheDudeMan wrote:
| From the article:
|
| "Former Gov. Rick Snyder and eight others have been charged
| with crimes related to the Flint water crisis."
| Gunax wrote:
| So the fuckup isn't in switching the water supply, but the lack
| of anti-corrosion agents.
|
| I think people are learning the wrong lessons along their
| political ideology. If you favour small government, this is
| further proof that the state never does anything right.
|
| Or, the lesson is that the government will screw you over because
| they don't care.
|
| In reality, this is an engineering fuckup that will cost us
| dearly. The fault is in the systems that allowed this to occur.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Funny how that trick works.
|
| "Small-government" state Republicans take over Flint, fuck
| things up ruining the lives of tens of thousands over a few
| dollars a day, and when their pants are firmly down around
| their ankles... "further proof that the state never does
| anything right."
| Gunax wrote:
| And if it was successful, would you have concluded that the
| plan worked and changed your political stance?
|
| Most people would not. Most of us come to our conclusions and
| make the evidence fit (and not the reverse).
|
| If you run an experiment with possible outcomes 'A' and 'B',
| but both outcomes reinforce one's philosophy/model, then they
| aren't really testing one's model.
|
| I am not trying to advocate one way or the other, just
| commenting on how little reality actually changes people's
| perceptions.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Flint, Michigan is not a Republican stronghold nor did these
| issues happen only under Snyder. Michigan is well purple and
| has had a mix of both Democrats and Republicans.
|
| I don't think you can blame this on a particular party.
| fricneowbwo wrote:
| This is the reason I am not at all concermed about running up the
| federal deficit to fix infrastructure. We can put future
| generations in debt by taking out loans, or we can do it by
| sticking them with a massive repair bill.
| xmprt wrote:
| I wonder how you're supposed to price in externalities in cases
| like this. We all know that climate change and crumbling
| infrastructure will have real and devastating effects for
| future generations but unless we can somehow price in those
| effects today, we will likely not see any change taken to
| mitigate them.
| humanistbot wrote:
| FYI, those types of government spending often end up being a
| long-term net positive for the budget. We immediately get a
| decent portion of those funds back through taxes on the people
| and businesses hired to do that work. And on the businesses
| they hire to supply them, especially with all the "buy
| American" requirements built in. Then those businesses have a
| ripple effect through local economies. Those plumbers and
| pavers need places to eat, shop, etc., and those people pay
| taxes. Those cooks and clerks need good and services too. And
| so on it goes.
|
| This is called the fiscal multiplier:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_multiplier
|
| One estimate was that food stamps have a 1.73x multiplier
| effect, payroll tax cuts have a 1.29x effect, while the Bush
| tax cuts on the wealthy had a 0.29x effect.
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| >This is the reason I am not at all concermed about running up
| the federal deficit to fix infrastructure. We can put future
| generations in debt by taking out loans, or we can do it by
| sticking them with a massive repair bill.
|
| A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they
| know they shall never sit in. -Not me
|
| Everyone knows quality investment in the future always works.
| Especially in infrastructure. Building a new bridge across the
| detroit river will pay for itself. The caveat with your
| position is that you cannot indebt a future generation with bad
| debt. Only 5% of that infrastructure bill is really 'planting
| trees' but rather instead a bunch of ideological vote buying.
| VikingCoder wrote:
| > Everyone knows
|
| Apparently you don't have uncles and former co-workers like
| mine.
|
| I'm so sick of debating these things. I'm about ready to give
| up on government, and instead form Unions that force
| behavior.
| oftenwrong wrote:
| Except that those projects can be harmful in the long-term:
|
| https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/2/five-ways-feder...
| DantesKite wrote:
| By the way, this is a good lesson for everybody to invest in a
| reverse osmosis water filter.
|
| Engineering failures (either due to structural, legal, or
| political failure) happen all the time.
|
| Having clean water is obviously good and having a backup is even
| better, especially considering the consequences.
| josefresco wrote:
| Doesn't "reverse osmosis" waste or require a lot of water? I'm
| no expert but I seem to recall hearing about how inefficient
| the process was/is.
| tengbretson wrote:
| The efficiency of some of the better systems is about 4:1, so
| if you drink 50 gallons of water a day that could be nearly
| 200 gallons of water wasted.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Thats why you just r/o your drinking water, not your
| toilet/dish/clothes machine. Shower is kinda iffy, but
| you'll want to filter your hot water unless you drink from
| a separate tap.
| joshstrange wrote:
| People drink their heated water? I always thought that
| was a bad idea. Something about mineral build ups in the
| hot water heater or something? I only consume cold tap
| water and use my electric kettle to heat it up if needed.
| I only use hot water for bathing/showering, washing the
| dishes, and jump-starting the sous vide.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| My kitchen has one of those "pullable" taps on a flexible
| line. If you drink what first comes out, your cup is
| being filled with whatever it was set to during the last
| use.
|
| Then there's whatever residue is left from
| washing/rinsing with warm water.
|
| TBH, if I'm making a pot of pasta, I fill the pot with
| hot water to jump-start too, but I know my system is
| mostly pex. Maybe that's still risky due to the plastic,
| but there shouldn't be any lead deposited in the heating
| process.
|
| I'm in the Great Lakes area, so cold taps can be 5C in
| winter. If you're making OJ from concentrate (or Tang),
| it could take a while to dissolve at that temperature.
| omnimus wrote:
| I must say i am often surprised by practices in other
| countries. I've never heard of any of this stuff. I am
| probably completely uninformed or situation here must be
| very different. Like it seems you have to know so much
| stuff and have so many systems in place to have water...
|
| For example i live in appartent building with central
| water heater. I absolutely use hot water from it for
| pasta. Am is it wrong? And letting water to flow for 20s?
| Why?
| joshstrange wrote:
| Interesting, yeah I always run the sink for 10-20 seconds
| after using hot water to clear the line. My house isn't
| pex (I want to update it at some point) but I also
| thought it was more the water heater than my pipes that I
| was combatting but it's very possible that it's an old
| wives tale that I fell for decades ago.
|
| For pasta I have a convoluted system of putting a small
| amount of cold water into the pot and then doing 3-4
| rounds of the electric kettle (with occasional additions
| of cold water when the water in the pot reaches a boil
| but I still need more water).
| Scoundreller wrote:
| If your water system has been doing corrosion control,
| you're fairly well (but not 100% protected) against lead
| exposure from your old copper pipeworks.
|
| The big risk is _new_ lead-soldered piping and leaded
| (largely pre-2014 USA brass plumbing but [1]) fixtures,
| because even with corrosion control, it takes a while
| (months to years) to build up that protective layer.
|
| What people get wrong with pasta is they think they need
| a strong boil. While the steam is hotter than the liquid,
| most pasta is in contact with the water and your energy
| is going into evaporating more water off. Just use a
| spoon to stir occasionally and use a pot cover to
| condense the steam back in.
|
| [1] http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/11/06/nsf-61-lead-
| from-a-ne...
| Nasrudith wrote:
| I looked it up - the 4:1 is the ratio of waste water to
| purified water. I wonder if it is possible to apply it in
| grey-water applications at least - although situations where
| you need that much greywater are probably pretty rare.
|
| Personally I am of the point of view of "Upgrade the damn
| water infastructure already! There is ample demand for pure
| and better tasting water and it would benefit from scale
| compared to a household level."
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Assuming the filters don't add extra pollutants, the "bad"
| water would only have 25% more of whatever is in the input.
|
| If the input is just barely not good enough for drinking,
| the "bad" water is probably still good for showers.
| shagie wrote:
| > I wonder if it is possible to apply it in grey-water
| applications at least - although situations where you need
| that much greywater are probably pretty rare.
|
| Use it to flush the toilet or do laundry.
|
| This is a very light gray water. It isn't "water that went
| down the sink" or "water that was used to wash clothes".
| It's "water that has a slightly higher concentration of
| what isn't in the RO water.
| VikingCoder wrote:
| Right, like is there a RO system that provides tap water
| for drinking, and returns the "waste" to your hot water
| heater for everything else?
| shagie wrote:
| I want to say "that's not a function of the RO system,
| but rather an added complication to the rest of the water
| system in the house." It is similar (to an extent) as the
| collection of rainwater for similar non-potable
| applications.
|
| This means running multiple water systems through the
| house. Hot, tap cold, non-potable, filtered. One could
| combine the tap cold and non-potable to simplify the use.
| But it's the same problem (and solution) of using rain
| water as non-potable and RO waste water as non-potable.
| DantesKite wrote:
| Yes. The way most RO filters are designed, they waste a lot
| of water, because of all the pressure the tank imposes.
| Specifically, as the tank becomes full, it takes more and
| more water to go against the backpressure.
|
| I use Brondell Circle RO which developed a different design
| that wastes less water. Much less water. They wrote an
| interesting white paper about it. You don't have to read the
| whole thing. Just look at the graph on page 5 to see how
| efficient this system is:
| https://www.brondell.com/media/wysiwyg/water-
| filters/circle-...
|
| It's by far the best designed filter I've ever used. Changing
| the filters is so simple because of the lack of high water
| pressure. Previously water would spill everywhere and
| tightening and loosening the filters was such a nightmare.
| Like an mini-explosion.
|
| It's also less susceptible to structural breakdowns (water
| will bore through any material over the span of months. It's
| how my old system failed).
|
| Nobody has really innovated on the RO design as well as they
| have. It stayed stagnant for a number of years and it was
| something I complained about constantly.
|
| For example, one of the other innovations they've done (that
| most other companies don't automatically do) is automatic
| flushing so the RO filter last longer. You can install this
| on old RO systems, but normally, you have to do it manually.
|
| Other companies have also tried building a tankless version
| of the RO system, but the problem they ran into is as the
| water empties, there's less pressure, so the water dribbles
| out. Brondell built a flexible reservoir so the pressure
| always stays constant.
|
| It's a beautiful piece of engineering and I wish more people
| heard about this company.
|
| https://www.brondell.com/circle-reverse-osmosis-water-
| filter...
| tyingq wrote:
| It reads like the additive would have fixed almost everything for
| every house with lead plumbing. I'm not surprised an additive
| would have improved the situation, but I'm skeptical it would
| have avoided all of the $600M spend.
|
| A similar article with more detail...I'm still reading it.
| https://www.materialsperformance.com/articles/material-selec...
| neolefty wrote:
| My understanding is that it was a loss of institutional
| knowledge that came from the passage of time and from
| arrogance. The engineers who knew why the additive was required
| were fired or ignored or both. Could also be a lack of
| documentation?
| tyingq wrote:
| Oh, what I meant was that they switched water sources also.
| It's not clear to me that "new source + additive" would have
| been as non-corrosive as "old source".
|
| Edit: The article has a chart that says just one additive
| would have improved things, but still left the water 3.5x
| more corrosive than the original water source: https://www.ma
| terialsperformance.com/uploads/images/Articles...
| [deleted]
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