Can someone tell me why a whole bunch of government functionaries do not share the blame? I mean, Snyder, being head honcho, probably should tie cinder blocks to his feet and wade into the Flint River, but a whole bunch of people managed to ******** this up - technically over decades - and the decision to switch supplies itself was not exactly solely Snyder's. http://reason.com/blog/2016/01/21/the-government-poisoned-flints-waterso-s
Did I not say Snyder should wade into the Flint River with cinder blocks strapped to his feet? To directly answer your question, that depends on when you're talking about. A whole lot of forces, most of which are government - regardless of party - have conspired over literally half a century to get Flint to where they are now. More recently, MDEQ didn't really give a shit that Flint did not treat the water for anti-corrosive properties - and tried to bury that they didn't give a shit - which is sort of ********ing essential since most of the pipes in the system are lead. MDEQ, like most state- and federal-level departments are full of lifer appointees and career bureaucrats. So, where does the buck stop? ******** if I know.
I wasn't trying to be a smarty pants. A couple have already resigned over this and there will be more to come. It's becoming apparent that the buck made quite a few stops.
The initial mistake here is bad, but the cover-up is really abhorrent. How can people try to hide that water being consumed by children is contaminated by lead? Irreversible damage was being done every day. If I was a parent of a child in Flint, I am afraid of what I would do.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2016/1/21/governors-emails-show-debate-over-flint-water.html We have emails, and they are interesting: "Of course, some of the Flint people respond by looking for someone to blame instead of working to reduce anxiety," [Then Snyder's–chief of staff Dennis] Muchmore wrote. "We can't tolerate increased lead levels in any event, but it's really the city's water system that needs to deal with it." In a Sept. 25 email, Muchmore said he could not "figure out why the state is responsible" before noting that former state Treasurer Andy Dillon signed off on the city's plans to build a water pipeline from Lake Huron, which required a temporary switch to the Flint River during construction. So, he explained, "we're not able to avoid the subject."
Ted Cruz is here to save the day** https://www.facebook.com/WendyLynnDay/posts/10153991264436614 **Spoiler, he's not. He's donating water bottles to Anti-Abortion protesters in Flint.
she deserves quite a bit of credit: http://news.yahoo.com/flint-water-crisis-doctor-who-exposed-212608610.html Dr. Hanna-Attisha is now working alongside those who questioned her credibility
I can't take muchmore of this story. Depressing on so many levels that this could occur in America in 2016
Well catching up on the Rachel maddow show it seems the state of Michigan (read Snyder administration) Is challenging the legality of EPA's order to get stuff sorted out .. As if things could not get more depressing ....part of me wants the federal government to disregard state law and send "emergency managers" who will have the combined authority that the governor and co. Presently hold (yes I am kidding , since I do not hate democracy ) It was also mentioned that a documentary called "not safe to drink" will be aired this weekend across public radio stations ...
Snyder needs to go. Making mistakes is one thing. The original sin of not treating the water is a mistake by the departments in charge. Fair enough. You fire the people responsible and try to move on. But once the mistake happens and you ignore the people that start coming forward it's no longer a mistake. At that point it's ignoring your constituents. The smoking gun is there with that e-mail in the summer from his own team member that there was a problem in Flint. And yet they still did not acknowledge it until it started becoming a media story. The 2nd phase of this colossal fvck up deserves criminal charges, not just resignations. You put some politicians in jail for covering up and tolerating lead poisoning in children and I bet you nobody in that state will ever pull this crap again.
Well said and I so wish it would happen. Unfortunately, almost every government employee is basically above the law. VA officials falsifying records and basically killing veterans--no consequences. Fast and Furious giving guns to Mexican drug lords, losing track of them and ********ing it up, attacking whistleblowers, people get killed--no consequences. Mayor covers up police killing for a year and quietly bribes family to get re-elected--no consequences. Complete incompetence/negligence at every level of government wrt to Hurricane Katrina--no consequences. EPA pollute river in New Mexico or Arizona (I forget)--no consequences. Destroy email records against the law (Lois Lerner, that NY police commissioner)--no consequences. No wonder many people do not trust the government.
Animas River in Colorado. The federal EPA is responsible for creating a potential Superfund situation there. They probably should tread lightly for a while.
My problem with this whole story is that we have a supposedly technocratic governor and President, yet everyone in politics just wants to exploit the disaster for the outrage fundraising emails. Snyder was bound to make mistakes in returning to fiscal stability, and his screw-ups merit a day in court. The EPA knew about the problem a while ago. But couldn't everyone just admit they ********ed up and fix the mistake? Pay the afflicted when the case goes civil, learn the lesson, and stop ginning up the outrage. Outrage does jack-shit for people with lead poisoning.
Exactly but you know that when this becomes a class action case and after 10 years of legal stalling.... before the appeals. Most of these people will die of old age while the lawyers still get their "share".
The problem, when it comes to screw-ups with heavy bureaucratic involvement, is that there is little to no ability to effectively extract damages, and when it does happen, it's basically paid for by the aggrieved via taxes. This is the fundamental problem libertarians have with all-encompassing bureaucracy and a main objection to technocracy. Lack of accountability and/or a system of deep patronage and cronyism when they deign to make overtures to private-ish solutions. Bad news. And this only discusses the symptom, which is the environmental situation.
Lenient bankruptcy laws ceteris paribus are a good thing. Easy bankruptcy allows people to rebuild their laws, firms to start new enterprises while mitigating long-term losses, and a way to avoid having the state pay off lots of bad debt all at once. I'm sure economists who took more than one week on bankruptcy can elaborate. But I get what you're getting at, so I'm not disagreeing, just clarifying.
If debtor's prison was good enough for our forefather's cronies... I mean, without it there'd be no Georgia.
That's the strongest argument against a Trump presidency, isn't it? This is a man who managed to go bankrupt owning and operating a professional football team once upon a time...
The EM is appointed by and answerable to the governor, not to the people of Flint, and because of that anyone whose success or failure depends on being responsive to that small constituency was removed from the decision-making chain. This is exactly why the Emergency Manager law (which the Republican dominated legislature rammed through) is such a problem. It's a nothing more than a political consolidation tool masquerading as fiscal policy and, in abrogating representative government, it amplified the selective deafness in Lansing: they could/would not hear 100,000 mostly Democratic, mostly poor, mostly African American residents of Flint voicing their concerns until they began to feel political pain. It's not as if the state-level machinery suddenly woke up to the fact that they were poisoning children in Flint and decided to do better. A lot of people had to do a lot of yelling for a long time to get heard. The outrage is therefore a key piece of the solution. And it's appropriate that it's political, because the origin for this whole mess was inherently political.