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Flint Municipal water 89

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moon161

moon161

Mechanical
Dec 15, 2007
1,181
So, Flint has been MI lead poisoned and exposed to legionella bacteria because the water supply was switched from Detroit municipal to the Flint River. Since the polluted river is corrosive and iron rich, lead was leached from pipes and solder into the water of thousands of homes, and legionella bateria (legionaire's diseased) apparently thrived on the dissolved iron.

It was done to save money, it stayed that way because people who knew of the crisis sat on the information and obstructed inquiry.



There HAS to be a (ir)responsible engineer in that chain. What are their duties, did they fail to perform? Would whistleblower action have been appropriate?
 
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Look for some news in the Flint water crisis soon, but I wouldn't hold my breath thinking that it's going to result in anything positive being said or done:


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
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
 
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AWWA paper discussing the water treatment plant operations. The title of the paper is "What Happened and Why", but the paper focuses more on what happened, not why.

One can look at the graphs and see that over the operating time, the pH of the treated water gradually decreased, which then caused the corrosion and the corrosion products to gradually increase. The paper does not state why the water treatment staff decided to decrease the pH.

The paper also offers that adding the corrosion inhibitor probably would not work because the pH was so low.

The paper states that the water is difficult to treat. However, licensed water professionals operate similar water treatment plants treating water like this all over the world without the problems that occurred at Flint. Flint had also operated the water treatment for over a decade without problems.

The operation of the Flint water treatment plant would be a good topic for a case study on organization behavior.
 
 http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=ec90853c-498b-4dbb-81ce-e03a576775f1&file=AWWA.pdf
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"Four officials in charge of Flint's water, including two who reported directly to Governor Rick Snyder, have been named in the fourth round of charges announced by the Michigan attorney general's office as it investigates the city's water crisis.

Two of Flint's former emergency managers and two water plant officials were charged Tuesday for felonies of false pretenses and conspiracy -- the allegations are that they misled the Michigan Department of Treasury into getting millions in bonds, and then misused the money to finance the construction of a new pipeline and force Flint's drinking water source to be switched to the Flint River."

"But Earley and Ambrose couldn't get a bond for Flint to buy in to the new KWA pipeline, because the city had no credit rating and was $13 million in debt.

So they used a loophole -- a clause reserved for dealing with "fire, flood, or other calamity," to borrow tens of millions to pay for the KWA.
They masked the request as being for the clean-up of a troublesome lagoon of lime sludge (a by-product of water treatment). But the money went to the KWA -- which would not have been able to move forward without Flint's portion of the money."


The next step may be an indictment of the Governor.

In an 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.
 
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According to the BBC, only the two lesser employees were charged with felonies.

Dik
 
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Most sources are reporting:

All four defendants face felony charges of false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses. In addition, Earley and Ambrose were also charged with willful neglect of duty and misconduct in office.

Misdemeanors don't have these type of prison sentences:

Former Emergency Managers Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose were each charged with two felonies that carry penalties of up to 20 years — false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses — along with misconduct in office, also a felony, and willful neglect of duty in office, a misdemeanor.

Howard Croft, who was Flint's director of the Department of Public Works, and Daugherty Johnson, who was the department's utilities director, were each charged with false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses. Earley and Ambrose each face a total of up to 46 years in prison. Croft and Johnson each face a total of up to 40 years in prison.
 
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bimr:
Thanks for the added info...

Dik
 
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Interesting comments:

Schuette's office OK'd Flint order in alleged tainted-water crimes


"Schuette alleges the "sham" administrative consent order, which one of his (Schuette's) assistants signed off on, also had the effect of forcing Flint to get its drinking water from the Flint River — with disastrous results — until the KWA project was completed."

""A more basic question is why did (the Michigan Department of) Treasury approve the KWA project when it knew that Flint would be unable to finance it?" Hammer asked.

Another apparent conflict is the Treasury Department giving Flint the OK to leave the Detroit water system for the KWA, when both Flint and Detroit were under state-appointed emergency managers and it hurt Detroit financially to lose Flint as a major customer for its water."
 
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From the AP, "More than 1,700 Flint-area residents and property owners are seeking more than US$700 million in damages from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its handling of the city's crisis with lead-tainted water.

The Detroit News and The Flint Journal report the agency didn't respond to an administrative claim filed last year, clearing the way for Monday's lawsuit in U.S. District Court."

Dik
 
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...and, "Negligence arises when one person owes to another a duty of care and breaches that duty, and reasonably foreseeable harm arises as a result of that breach."

We'll see how the legal guys sort this out...

Dik
 
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The Federal Tort Claims Act (June 25, 1946, ch. 646, Title IV, 60 Stat. 812, "28 U.S.C. Pt.VI Ch.171" and 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)) ("FTCA") is a 1946 federal statute that permits private parties to sue the United States in a federal court for most torts committed by persons acting on behalf of the United States.

Instead of suing the United States for torts committed by persons acting on behalf of the United States., it appears that the lawsuit is suing for torts committed by the agency (EPA). Are agencies considered to be people too?
 
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The faces of Flint:

URL]


Siblings Julie, Antonio, and India Abram collect their daily allowance of bottled water from Fire Station #3. Located on Martin Luther King Avenue, it's one of five firehouses that have become water resource sites in Flint, Michigan.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
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
 
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At least something good is coming from this fiasco. The kids are getting some exercise. Are they school uniforms? Snazzy.
 
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Mott Middle College high school, a general education program operated by the Genesee Intermediate School District, opened in 1991 on the campus of Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, with a grant funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Mott Middle College specializes in overlapping an Associates Degree with a general education high school diploma.
 
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From CBC News, "Residents of Flint, Mich., continue to suffer the physical and emotional effects of a tainted water crisis, and now there's fresh insult to their injuries: climbing water bills."
 
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From the AP, "Michigan and the city of Flint agreed Monday to replace thousands of home water lines under a sweeping deal to settle a lawsuit by residents over lead-contaminated water in the struggling community.

Flint will replace at least 18,000 lead or galvanized-steel water lines by 2020, and the state will pick up the bill with state and federal money, according to the settlement filed in federal court. It will be presented Tuesday to U.S. District Judge David Lawson for likely approval."
 
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