General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums.....if it was doing that to machines, what was it doing to humans?
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One of the most telling moments in this saga was when General Motors disconnected from the Flint River because the water was ruining its machinery, leaving some to wonder if it was doing that to machines, what was it doing to humans?
Critics contend that red flag alone should have motivated the administration to redouble its due diligence to get to the bottom of this.
http://www.mlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/12/flint_water_probe_may_unleash.html
Flint River is one of the filthiest rivers in Michigan. Over the years, it has housed raw sewage, tires, old refrigerators which residents have attempted to sift out and lead. In spite of this, officials declared it safe to drink in April 2014, when they switched the supply to the tainted river. Shortly after the April switch, residents complained the water emitted a foul odor and was cloudy in appearance, but local and state officials insisted the water was safe. In spite of these assurances, in January 2015, MLive reported the State Department of Environmental Quality had issued a notice of violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act for maximum contaminant levels for trihalomethanes or TTHM a group of four chemicals that are formed as a byproduct of disinfecting water. These chemical byproducts are linked to cancer and other diseases, and presented a separate issue from the lead. The water was so dirty that in October 2014, General Motors announced it would no longer use treated Flint River water at its engine plant out of fears it would cause corrosion.
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2015/12/rjss-news-on-environment-week-of.html
JonathanRackham
(1,604 posts)Why is it taking so long to fix?
This is not a political issue, it's government incompatence.
madokie
(51,076 posts)as I see it. They are who make the decisions that leads to this kind of shit.
JonathanRackham
(1,604 posts)madokie
(51,076 posts)I'm sick of this cutting taxes for the rich and then cutting services for the rest of us
JonathanRackham
(1,604 posts)Individuals are also responsible. The crap I find in the upland streams is amazing. I'm afraid to fish and drink water when I hike in the backcountry.
SharonAnn
(13,778 posts)Proserpina
(2,352 posts)Aside from certain healthy pockets, Michigan is a miserable red-neck, fundie state, trying to pull the covers of a previous century over its head.
It is also my native land, and Michigan can be so much more in the future. As it has been, in the past.
JonathanRackham
(1,604 posts)I'd love to canoe the upper peninsula. Obviously away from civilization.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Isn't Flint one of the cities taken over by Gov. Warren's municipal managers? Gotta cut costs somewhere, and dipping out of the Flint River was just one of those cost-cutting measures that would prove the Warren model was just the ticket for running things. Citizens can't be trusted to run their own affairs; too many of them were more concerned with not being poisoned by lead to enjoy an extra couple of dollars every month in reduced taxes. That kind of irresponsible thinking has to be stamped out.
Siwsan
(26,289 posts)Three different ones. All corrupt, IMHO.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)My swiss cheese memory can't keep all the little minions straight. I wonder where I got "Warren"? Rick Warren? Who can say.
-none
(1,884 posts)If it is government, how is it not political? Elected Politicians run the show in each state and are ultimately responsible for each agency. That makes it political.
JonathanRackham
(1,604 posts)Bureaucrats generally survive political transitions at municipal agencies. They trend towards entrenchment.
madokie
(51,076 posts)roll over this. It is no laughing matter that we can't trust our politicians/government on issues as important as water.
Whiskeytide
(4,462 posts)... of the FOX that gubmint can't competently handle the water supply ... so we should privatize it.
jomin41
(559 posts)Clean Water
Clean air
Good health care
Good education
Good food
Good job
Good cops
malthaussen
(17,216 posts)People are self-replicating, and surprisingly resilient. They cost a lot less to replace, too. Machines, OTOH, are important.
You just lack the corporate mindset.
-- Mal
sorechasm
(631 posts)because 'you had to pay to replace the mule'.
malthaussen
(17,216 posts)... in "Blazing Saddles." And then there's the whole derivation of "Chinaman's chance."
I've always thought the Neutron Bomb made the argument quite cogently.
-- Mal
Mopar151
(9,996 posts)Knees and ankles are, like, complimentary.... Without a standard fixed cost, it looks like the replacement cost of a miner is $Zilch.Zip, 'cuz recruitment, productivity loss, training cost and the like are buried in "overhead"/fixed cost accounts, not as variable costs like direct payroll.
ms liberty
(8,596 posts)Lead in the water. We know what lead does to people. WTF is wrong with the Republicans that they are promoting these insane policies? It just infuriates me.
ffr
(22,671 posts)-Neil DeGrasse Tyson (Cosmos season 1)
You've got that right!
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)But we have the greatest military in the world! We also have a bunch of hawks that can't wait to use that military whether justified or not.
Wouldn't this nation be amazing if we got our priorities straight?
jomin41
(559 posts)The amount spent on defense/intelligence/homeland security/hidden budget, just grows and grows and grows. Everything else suffers. More poverty, more debt, more despair.
Isn't it odd that even though social security has a dedicated funding mechanism, that is in surplus, it is somehow "running out of money". Yet the military, which has no such dedicated funding mechanism, never runs out of money.
marble falls
(57,204 posts)The Poisoning of Minamata
by Douglas Allchin
It started out quite simply, with the strangeness of cats "dancing" in the street--and sometimes collapsing and dying. Who would have known, in a modest Japanese fishing village in the 1950s, that when friends or family members occasionally shouted uncontrollably, slurred their speech, or dropped their chopsticks at dinner, that one was witnessing the subtle early symptoms of a debilitating nervous condition caused by ingesting mercury? Yet when such scattered, apparently unconnected, and mildly mysterious events began to haunt the town of Minamata, Japan, they were the first signs of one of the most dramatic and emotionally moving cases of industrial pollution in history.
http://www1.umn.edu/ships/ethics/minamata.htm
glinda
(14,807 posts)tolerance for toxins even than humans.
jalan48
(13,883 posts)ProfessorGAC
(65,168 posts)I don't know if the machine tools are made of stainless steel, but chlorine attack on stainless steel is a very well know phenomenon, but perhaps not in the automotive engineering fields. Probably not something mechanical engineers learn a lot about.
Now, if all the machinery is mild steel, then ionic chlorine is not much of a problem.
Stuart G
(38,445 posts)Kill people to save money,,,that is what they are about...