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Flint Municipal water 89

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moon161

moon161

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Dec 15, 2007
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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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TenPenny (Mechanical) said:
All that said, those who made the decision to switch to an unsafe water supply carry the complete weight on their shoulders
Click to expand...

Basically, that would be Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. Since his administration's Attorney General is investigating the scandal, Snyder has escaped responsibility. In addition, the Attorney General wants to be the next Governor.

TenPenny (Mechanical) said:
I thought that the point of municipalities (and other layers of government) was to provide the basic services that everyone needs, with the costs spread over the tax base.

If the people of Flint 'can't afford' clean water, then surely they can't afford fighter jets and police cars, so do they just not deserve anything? No defense, no protection, nothing?
Click to expand...

As income inequality grows, the situation will get worse. In the next five years, more households in the US risk being unable to pay for water. If rates keep rising as they're expected to do, the number of households that can't afford water might triple, from 13% to nearly 36%, according to a Michigan State University study.

"A Burgeoning Crisis? A Nationwide Assessment of the Geography of Water Affordability in the United States"

A Burgeoning Crisis?

“We have left behind the American dream of my dad’s generation where there was the possibility of social mobility and the belief that anyone could make it. The things that were valued then – discipline, hard work and frugality – are not so important now. We have a culture that prizes celebrity, bling and narcissism.” Trump, she says, “is the apotheosis of generation wealth. With Trump you have wealth and celebrity achieving the ultimate goal. Trump is the natural evolution of the values of our culture.”

How the world fell in love with money



 
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Obviously, municipalities don't have fighter jets, but the federal gov't does, and if the people of Flint can't afford water, then they can't afford the protection offered by the military.

 
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Also, municipalities never stand alone when it comes to property tax revenue from tax base. I sat on local council for several years a few decades ago, and it is pretty characteristic that local municipalities, regardless of population, are awash in federal program dollars. The money is there for critical infrastructure, it boils down to grant application writing ability. There are firms that specialize in writing grant applications for LGU's, for a fee of course, that contract on a "no approval, no pay" basis. Bottom line, the money is there, it's poor management.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
 
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ornerynorsk (Industrial) said:
Also, municipalities never stand alone when it comes to property tax revenue from tax base. I sat on local council for several years a few decades ago, and it is pretty characteristic that local municipalities, regardless of population, are awash in federal program dollars. The money is there for critical infrastructure, it boils down to grant application writing ability. There are firms that specialize in writing grant applications for LGU's, for a fee of course, that contract on a "no approval, no pay" basis. Bottom line, the money is there, it's poor management.
Click to expand...

It is not exactly that easy.

Yes, there is money that is potentially available for NEW projects. The financial programs are for new projects generally run at the State level and each State has a say in how the financial programs are operated and each State's program is unique. There are also strings attached.

The EPA has developed a financial evaluation that more or less says that a resident should not have to pay more than 2.5% of the local MHI (Mean Household Income) for water. The federal government pays for the capital costs above the level that results in water service user fees being higher than 2.5% of the local MHI. It is commonly inferred that EPA would consider a combined annual water and wastewater bill of less than 4.5% of MHI to be affordable (2.5% for water, plus 2% for wastewater services and CSO controls).

Note that the GOP has been trying to end these funding programs. I also don't believe that communities are "awash" in funding opportunities. Anyone traveling around the United States would surely notice the poor condition of existing infrastructure due to limited government funds.

Many of the poor communities find that 2% of the MHI is a significant and an unaffordable cost to their residents for water. The community leaders for these poor communities also face significant backlash for having approved these types of projects.

For EXISTING facilities and for non-approvable but necessary capital projects, there is very limited government funding available, and the communities are on their own to come up with the funding. This is the situation that Flint was in and it takes an act of the State Legislature to assist poor communities. For these situations, it is not just the water utility that is financial distress, it all of the other community services as well.

Having to get an act of the State Legislature to fund a project is very difficult and so these types of projects tend to be emergency actions.
 
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The EPA's Inspectors General's report covering the agency's response to the Flint water crisis has been released:

Internal Watchdog Blasts EPA’s Response To Flint Water Crisis In Blistering Report

Supervisors in the Region 5 office are singled out for their inaction.


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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Link to the EPA report page:
I hope the EPA is a bit less trusting of local water agencies. I can see where the EPA would not expect a public water company to be run with the carelessness of a trailer park meth lab and a state agency to also turn a blind eye, but now they have been exposed to an example I do hope they do better.

More troubling is that I see no discussion about any other EPA Regions and what their setup is. All regions should have a common set of rules for monitoring the water quality and a common set of procedures for reacting to water quality complaints.

I do see the EPA is conduction training for all regions on the LCR requirements as one of the claims is that Region 5 thought they were required to defer to local authority to carry out LCR management, even if the local authority had clearly failed in confirming they were doing so.
 
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3DDave (Aerospace) said:
Link to the EPA report page:
I hope the EPA is a bit less trusting of local water agencies. I can see where the EPA would not expect a public water company to be run with the carelessness of a trailer park meth lab and a state agency to also turn a blind eye, but now they have been exposed to an example I do hope they do better.

More troubling is that I see no discussion about any other EPA Regions and what their setup is. All regions should have a common set of rules for monitoring the water quality and a common set of procedures for reacting to water quality complaints.

I do see the EPA is conduction training for all regions on the LCR requirements as one of the claims is that Region 5 thought they were required to defer to local authority to carry out LCR management, even if the local authority had clearly failed in confirming they were doing so.
Click to expand...

Everybody has heard of Scott Pruitt. Have you heard of Cathy Stepp?

Kerry Schumann, executive director of the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters released a statement upon hearing about Stepp's new appointment:

"Before Cathy Stepp's appointment as secretary of the Wisconsin DNR, the agency was widely considered one of the best of its kind in the country. Under her watch, the agency’s environmental enforcement abilities were dismantled, its scientists kicked out, its website scrubbed of climate change information and, under the orders of the Walker administration, she shifted its focus from protecting Wisconsin's natural resources to handing out favors to polluters. It makes sense the Trump EPA is looking for people like Cathy Stepp, people who are willing to sell out our environment to the highest bidder. The consequences will be stark. With environmental rollbacks like the Foxconn disaster, the pending removal of wetlands protections, and the elimination of all our air quality standards in the state, Wisconsin will also have fewer and fewer protections from the EPA to help maintain water we can drink, air we can breathe, land that doesn't flood, and its public health."

Former state Department of Natural Resources Secretary Cathy Stepp has been appointed to be the regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 office.

Cathy Stepp is a Wisconsin politician and business owner. Born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Stepp graduated from Oak Creek High School in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Stepp was a partner with her husband, Paul, in First Step Builders, a small company that built about 25 homes a year. Appointed by George Bush to FreddieMac, she is a friend of Paul Ryan.


Absolutely zero qualifications for the job! With no university, no science background, and little business experience, one would have to say that Cathy Stepp is a modern day GOP Horatio Alger.


In 2011, soon after Stepp was appointed to be Wisconsin’s DNR director —with a $125,000 salary — she and her husband, Paul Stepp, bought 4 acres of land near Branson. They completed building a 2,000-square-foot, three-bedroom house there in 2014. They seem never to have alerted the Taney County Assessor’s Office about the home, though; since construction ended, they have continued to pay a tax bill of $28 a year for the acreage alone.

Glenda Giles, Taney County’s deputy assessor, expressed surprise when I asked her about the house in September. Since that conversation, the county has appraised the house at $115,220 and set property taxes at $1,117 a year. Giles said the Stepps would receive a corrected tax bill in November but would not be required to pay back taxes because the oversight was determined to have been that of the assessor’s office.

“We do have taxpayers who do come in and say, ‘We are building a house and our house is finished,’ because they want to know how much their taxes are,” Giles told me last month. “In this case, they didn’t notify us.” She expressed some disappointment about this. Stepp did not respond to questions about her Branson home.
 
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bimr: I don't think he's drained the swamp, I think he re-populated it with other lizards. Just a foreign observation.

Dik
 
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The actions of these politicians are something that happens in the third world.

One would think that after the lead fiasco that they would bring in a kick-butt project manager to resolve the problem. Instead, it appears that they are learning on the job. This is not rocket science.

At a point in time, the use of lead for service pipes was banned so it is relatively simple to canvas the City and determine with high probability which neighborhoods have lead service pipes.

The mayor's mandate to dig up every service instead of using hydro excavation is a waste of public funds and delays the lead removal project.

After years of inadequate funding, it appears that it is now necessary that the State takes over these City utilities and totally reorganizes and trains them from top to bottom. Otherwise the ongoing management problems will keep reoccurring.

The roots of inadequate funding started with State tax cutting. The public schools have the same problem. For example on July 19, 1993, with little debate the state eliminated $6.5 billion in school taxes for the 1994-1995 school year. In the span of one day, Michigan leaders decided to completely defund the public schools.

Michigan is now experiencing the unintended consequences of these actions.



 
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Political corruption is bringing the third world to the US (several different meanings I know).

Is it short sightedness, corrupt money, or just bad advise from people who know? It's a problem.

And it's on both sides of the political spectrum. Like a race to the bottom.
 
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Sorry folks....can anyone tell me how to start a thread? May sound ridiculous by I have absolutely no idea how to start a new thread/ask a question on this website. Thanks
 
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Just go to the top of the base Forum and select the 'Start New Thread' item, as shown below:

Screen_Shot_2018-10-24_at_4.07.45_PM_knrjw5.png


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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Or you can just go to the bottom of that page and start typing. Don't forget a sensible title, and whether your thread is news, tip, question...
 
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