Flint Municipal Water - Part 3

[FacEngrPE]

Without knowing all of the facts, It is entirely possible one or both of the engineering firms advice was technically correct and the public officials refused to heed their advice.

This is the sort of trial that is hard on the jury. There defiantly were plenty of bad actors, and plenty of victims. The question in play was "are Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newman among the bad actors?".

 

[JohnRBaker]

The dust still hasn't settled in Flint:

Jury Awards Woman Who Allegedly Lost Her Job For Not Falsifying Flint Data

Residents of the majority-Black city were exposed to lead when the city pulled water from the Flint River without treating it.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/woman-awarded-100k-jury-flint_n_632a989ce4b0913a3dd606ec

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
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

 

[TugboatEng]

It appears that an emergency manager, Ed Kurz, had the final say. Why was there an emergency manager? Was he being used as a tool to bypass regulatory controls? Maybe we should be more leery of emergency declarations.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Ed Kurtz was one of the 'emergency managers' appointed by then Governor Rick Snyder. I addition to ostensibly being in charge of the fixing the water problem, which he was famous for saying later "My job did not include ensuring safe drinking water", he was appointed as the city's 'emergency financial manager'. He was part of a group of people the governor appointed who basically replaced all of the duly ELECTED members of the city council, including the mayor. Note that this was BEFORE the water crisis and it was this group of 'political outsiders' who ordered the public works department to stop buying water from the pipeline that ran up from Detroit and to start using water from the Flint River instead (at the time, the river was so polluted that even GM was using water from the Detroit pipeline for industrial use in the factories) and it was this change-over, without properly treating the water, which resulted in the lead being leeched out of the city's water distribution lines. The water being taken from the Detroit pipeline was properly treated to prevent the leeching from the lead pipes, but the untreated river water was a disaster. In the end, the cost of the chemicals that could have prevented all of this was only a few hundred dollars a month, but the decision was made that this money that could be spent better somewhere else.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
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

 

[CWB1]

Flint was taken over by the state for the same reason Detroit was - bankruptcy. The reason they shipped up water from Detroit for decades was bc the Flint River *was* polluted, but thanks to decades of remediation its one of the cleanest in the US today. The plan to treat and distribute Flint's own water as a cost-savings existed long before the state takeover. The issue at hand here isn't lead in the city's infrastructure, when the local treatment plants were fired up they didnt take into account the lead pipes existing in the 19th-early 20th century homes that dominate the poor neighborhoods. Folks with newer homes weren't affected.

Its easy to blame the city manager but end of the day he had staff engineers that should be held accountable.

 

[TugboatEng]

I wasn't trying to place the blame directly on the manager, I was questioning the use of emergency powers. Would there have been procedural safeguards in place without the state of emergency? I think this is a serious question as we're seeing the state of emergency used more and more frequently lately.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Another update, at least on the legal side, of the Flint water crisis:

Flint Water Crisis Charges Dismissed Against Republican Ex-Gov. Rick Snyder

Snyder is the eighth person to have a Flint water case thrown out.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/flint-water-crisis-charges-dismissed_n_63947318e4b09e0de49367f7

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
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

 

[hokie66]

"One person grand jury". Is that the way they operate in Michigan?

 

[drwebb]

I expect these kind of cases are pretty hard to prove to legal standards, but there is intense pressure (and sometimes political opportunity) in high profile examples for authorities to bring charges. If they get dismissed years later then there's little downside. Except for the individuals that were charged. But maybe for the guilty- or at least the culpable- that's some measure of justice.