Water and Flint.

Water rights and assorted related issues have been in the news lately, we here in Portland are generally kept abreast of Nestle's assorted attempts to gain access to our water supply, at fantastically low prices, just as they have done in California, where the company has literally acted like a cartoon villain during the recent and ongoing drought in that area of the country.

But what is really bringing the issue into the national stage is Flint, MI. Flint is by no means the only community effected by quality or access issues, but it might just be the most egregious example of mishandling, incompetence and perhaps corruption at literally all levels of government though.

First what you should know is that Flint is a poor as hell city, and for most of the crisis was under the control of a group of emergency supervisors appointed by the state who must sign off on all budgets.

You probably know the basics, that in 2013 the city decided to switch its water supply from the Detroit Water and Sewage Authority to the toxic and horrible Flint River, presumable the oversight committee agreed to the change while cackling maniacally and rubbing their hands together at the thought of kids getting lead poisoning. Especially when you consider that as early as 2011 there were studies being done that said the river would not be a good source without an upgrade to the cities water purification infrastructure, and no such upgrades were done.

But actually the beginning of the problem may have been the only decent decision anyone made, see they never wanted to switch to the river for water, the idea was to change their water source to the newly created Karegnondi Water Authority, which tapped Lake Huron for water, this was intended to be a cheaper and cleaner long term solution that was to go into effect in 2016. Then politics toook over.

The DWSA, for reasons that are unclear but probably stem from the fact that a Detroit based utility probably doesn't have a ton of money itself, objected quite vigorously to the switchover, I assume because losing the money would really hurt, negotiations were unproductive and Flint decided to switch, so the DWSA gave the city a twelve month notice.

This happened in 2013, the new source was due in 2016, see the problem?

The backup supply was the Flint River, and my guess is that the government hoped to sweep any problems under the table until the change to the KWA could happen, by which point people wouldn't care. Except they we drastically ignorant of how bad the water actually was. From what I can tell there were assorted chemicals present in unsafe concentrations, and an additive meant to prevent bacteria was also present in far too high quantities and played a major role in leaching lead from the cities hundred year old pipes an into the water that everyone drank and bathed in on a daily basis.

My guess that they wanted to just wait it out is based on the suppression of studies and reports of bad water in Flint, as well as an intention to wait on a pair of six month tests to be done before deciding on anything, as these tests were supposed to begin in late 2015, well, you can draw your own conclusions. the DWSA offered to reconnect Flint back in early 2015, but citing what had to be blatantly falsified records, the city manager informed Governor Snyder that it was not needed.

Keep in mind that during this whole time the EPA had been waging a quiet war with the DEQ in Michigan over water testing, and that several independent and state testers were also coming out with evidence showing that no, the water that is coming out of the taps orange is actually really bad for you.

The city has returned to Detroit's water supply, but the majority of citizens still cannot drink their water, the damage has apparently been done and basically the entire lead pipe system needs to be replaced.. For his part, Governor Rick Snyder, who will probably live to see himself be the villain of at least one made for TV movie, as promised to do anything in his power to fix things, which apparently isn't that much, he's allocated some money, begged the federal government for more, and given the Flint citizen credits of 65% on their water bills, yes the people of Flint are still being expected to pay for the privilege of having poison pumped directly into their homes.

Snyder is a piece of shit and I hope he gets lead poisoning.

I suspect it is virtually guaranteed that the people of Flint will have some pretty terrifying health consequences down the road, there has already been a suspiciously large number of cases of legionnaires disease, including ten deaths, in the city and surrounding country, the fact that every member of the government up to and including the governor chose to hide or ignore it is the saddest aspect of this whole mess, they failed the primary responsibility of a public servant, that of keeping their constituents safe, and in a just world they would be fed to wolves, but we don't live in a just world. and honestly come 2020 I would not be surprised to see Snyder running for president and using the current crisis as an example of his strong leadership.

Public utilities are too important to be made tools in a political battle, especially water, for one thing, the Flint River should never have gotten so contaminated that this could happen, for another the whole kerfluffle that caused them to start using the river in the first place was exclusively a politically motivated budgetary decision. It was dumb as hell at all levels and until required utilities stop being managed like for profit businesses it is all but guaranteed to be repeated, hell it is being repeated in several different places right now.

We know, we don't think, we know, that if something is made for profit, then profit concerns will always come first, even over the safety of the public, that is why government exists, to ensure the safety of the public even if it doesn't make money, the only solution is nationalizing of all utilities and taxes being the revenue source for it, of course that means everyone, especially business would have to pay taxes, which is a problem, but I think the experiment called local control has well and truly failed, people are dying, an the poor are suffering disproportionately, this is exactly a problem the government is supposed to be fixing and leaving it to the locals would mean that Rick fucking Snyder and his ilk get to continue fucking things up for everyone.