Has anyone been following the Flint water crisis?

Parent Cafe
1

I haven’t seen much of this on the national news so I’m wondering if anyone else has been following this…

In a nut shell (and in the most politically neutral language I can muster), there was a decision made in the city of Flint, MI to change Flint’s water supply from Detroit (Lake Huron) to the Flint River.

There were warning signs by both residents and activists which were systematically ignored. Eventually, a doctor ran her own tests to prove that children were being poisoned by lead.

Major problems:
-There was heavy lead contamination in the Flint River and this has lead to, frankly, the poisoning thousands of children. (If you don’t know, lead poisoning leads to serious mental and physical health problems and is known to cause significant developmental delays.)
-They switched from lake to river water without correcting for the corrosive nature of river water. This has led to extremely corroded pipes which will, eventually, collapse. This is a very, very basic step that anyone with any sort of training in plumbing or water systems would know.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/12/29/deq-director-wyant-resigns-over-flint-water-crisis/78027052/

2

Wow–that’s VERY scary! There will surely be lasting consequences! How long have the children (and families) been drinking this Flint River? Are there any treatments to help reduce the lead levels in people that can be used to help lessen effects of lead poisoning? Glad they are reconnecting/reconnected to Lake Huron, but this never should have happened and reaction was MUCH too slow with such a huge public safety issue.

3

It would interest me to know if any of those people in charge suddenly started buying bottled water for themselves and their families.

Their decisions were criminal. It appears there was enough gray area in the rules and procedures to evade criminal charges. I wonder if they protected their own families…

4

A week or so ago I heard the Flint mayor interviewed on NPR. She discussed the situation and gave her opinion on what needed to be done.

5

I’ve been following it because it is a topic that I’m interested in professionally (my realm of expertise is in safe drinking water.)

Couple of things:

The lead is being leached from the water line fittings, customers’ pipes and faucets because the water is more corrosive than it used to be. The act of switching source water should’ve triggered testing (and it likely did, which is why results exist) to see what the effects were going to be.

Lead and copper sampling are the only samples that water systems do that come from the customers’ tap. [Edited to add: coliform sampling may also be done at a customer’s home but it is more likely to be taken from an outside tap by the water system.] It’s problematic because of that - the water system has no control- the homeowners draw the samples from the tap not the water system. There is a protocol that customers have to follow- letting the water sit for at least six hours. Invalidation criteria is set forth by EPA, but some states will invalidate based on time- like if the customer lets water sit for three hours and then pulls a sample, or if they take it from a faucet that they haven’t used in six months. These are first-draw samples, meaning that the water that first comes out of the tap is what is pulled into the sample bottle. Water systems must use certain home sites, and these sites are used every single round of testing- every three years between June 1 and Sept 30. If a homeowner replaces plumbing then this can mean that the house no longer qualifies as a sample site. Lots of reasons to invalidate sample results but none within the water system’s direct control or knowledge. I say that only because it is a confounding factor to getting good sample results.

The calculation for compliance is the 90th percentile number - so if you have 100 results lined up in order from lowest to highest, sample number 90’s result will be used to determine whether your water system meets or exceeds the action level. As noted above, water systems have from June 1 to Sept 30 to get their preselected residents to take their samples. Not every house will collect their sample at the time they should, so it’s pretty typical for a large water system to turn in sample results in bits and pieces, and the 90th percentile number can’t be calculated until the required number of results is turned in.

A water system may try to invalidate a high sample result. At a minimum, they will take a look at what went wrong if a home they’ve been sampling every three years suddenly gets a huge hit in terms of a result. They’ll go back and talk to the homeowner and find out if the homeowner sampled correctly or not. It should be a huge red flag if a bunch of results come up high.

Pretty much all water systems took out their lead service lines ages ago, so the actual sources of lead aren’t in the water systems’ control (other than adding chemicals to reduce the corrosiveness of the water.). If your house is old enough, you have lead solder in your pipes. Many of the fancier faucets will leach some lead - it has to do with how the faucet metal is cast and coated. Even shut off valves under sinks have been found to be problematic in terms of amount of lead leaching from them.

I don’t know if there was an attempt at a coverup or any wrong doing or not. I don’t have enough info and I’m not the EPA investigator. I can see the moving parts with a certain amount of fear and horror, but I don’t know if it is criminal incompetence or malicious intent. Someone will unwind it (likely the EPA) and blame will be assigned. For now, it should serve as a case study of what not to do when changing water sources. I’m most curious whether the regulating agency considered the effects when approving the new water source.

I live in a water system that has corrosive water. Best practices for homeowners include running the water for several minutes until the water is cold and never using the hot water tap for cooking or drinking (and certainly never installing one of those ‘instant hot’ taps!) It’s the water that has been sitting in the taps the longest that is a problem, not the cold water coming from the street.

Sorry for the long post.

6

yes I have and it is beyond words. on a side note where I live a couple years back the water smelled like bleach just turning on the water. for the first time in my life I called the water department (and they answered the phone) 5 minutes later I got a call from a chemist from the department, he explained they were flushing the lines and they use a molecular structure with the equivalent of “bleach” or something like that. it does not effect humans and pets. I looked it up on the internet and it was true.(I always trust but verify) I did not drink the tap water for those two days but I did use the shower. another time I had a water issue on the weekend I called the water department and the police answered, I said I was calling the water department not sure I must have miss dialed…they said non emergency dispatch answers for the water dept after hours and weekends. I said ok never mind , they said no this is our job and asked the problem I told them they followed up called me back and called every 2-3 hours to make sure the problem was fixed. the point is that I do not live in beverly hills, I do not have a lot of money, I am not famous…and in my city they care and do it right. what is happening in flint should not even happen in the 3rd world and it seems like nobody who is charge really cares or it would have never been allowed to happen in the first place.

7

Maybe now the Flint River will get some attention. Lead in the water isn’t good for anyone including the animals and plants that live there.

8

Is the lead in the river water or is the more corrosive river water leaching lead out of the old pipes and fittings?

9

Stories like this make me grateful I use a reverse osmosis filter for drinking water. In the past 15 years since we’ve been using one, there’s been local water issues with cysts, various types of contamination, and most recently that ridiculously stupid EPA mine cleanup spill. I trust our water from the pipes 99.9% of the time but it’s that 0.1% that’ll get you.

10

My water system is the worst. I never thought of drinking tap water without filtering.

11

Romani, look up Rachel Maddow’s coverage of it online, she has covered it extensively and is extremely concerned about the situation.

I drink from the Detroit water supply, which is very well regulated and have never had a problem with it. It’s really inconceivable that Flint decided to go their own way without fully investigating the ramifications beforehand. What seemed like a decision to save a little money has now turned into a disaster for an already struggling city.

I think there’s going to be more to this story in the long run, about who profited from the decision initially.

12

I’ve seen most of her coverage. I didn’t want to include it because she’s very liberal but I happen to think she’s absolutely spot on.

I was watching it with my dad over Christmas. He’s a master plumber and from Detroit so all of this hits close. He, like me, is furious. This idiotic decision will have decades of repercussions.

I sincerely hope people face criminal charges for what they’ve done to these already extremely disadvantaged children.

13

Many water filters don’t get rid of heavy metals. Reverse osmosis does, but other filters don’t.

The lead was not in the river; it’s in the pipes. River water has a different pH than the Great Lakes water. The lead is in the pipes, but the corrosive water is leaching the lead out of the pipes and putting it in the water to poison kids. This is a known consequence of using river water as drinking water. That is why experts told the city not to proceed with switching to a different water system without treating the river water so that it wouldn’t leach lead out of pipes.

The unelected emergency city manager ignored the experts, proceeded to switch to the river water, and then continued to ignore experts who warned him that the water was poison.

He ignored the local pediatrician who tested blood samples from local children, determining that since the water switched over, three times as many kids had dangerously elevated levels of lead in their blood.

He ignored the McArthur-winning drinking water expert, who had a press conference on the front lawn saying he had tested the water and it was dangerous.

He ignored the EPA.

When the (powerless) city council voted to switch back to the safe Detroit water, the city manager sold the pipes, so that switching back is now impossible.

A local car plant can no longer use tap water in its manufacturing. The tap water is now so corrosive that it corrodes the manufacturing process.

14

@greenwitch I believe it is the corrosive water that is leaching lead out of the pipes. They tested the river water at the source, and found it to be safe to drink (and also tested a small number of homes). However, much of the piping for the older homes and schools in Flint is galvanized steel, these homes and schools were not tested until it was clear that it was a problem.

15

Read this article for the ongoing price these kids are going to be paying (who already were so vulnerable before this disaster). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-barber/lead-poisoning-linked-to-_b_3423272.html

16

@Cardinal Fang, excellent synopsis. I will add that the emergency manager is a Michigan thing, where the governor can override a local mayoral election and appoint a city manager who is accountable only to the governor.

The state EPA, the emergency manager and the governor repeatedly told Flint residents to “relax” and that there was nothing wrong with the drinking water. This verges on criminal behavior in light of the extensive warnings from non-state agencies from the very beginning.

17

My son recently did a science project which included taking water samples at several points along a river system that has coal fired electricity stations along the river. The electricity companies store the coal ash by the river and the pits are not lined and there have been numerous instances of metals leeching into the river. Out of interest we tested our drinking water as our home is located several miles from one of the stations.

The results did show increasing levels of a few elements, like chromium, manganese but all were below EPA levels. Surprisingly our home water was high in lead at .16 vs the EPA limit of .15. We tested the acidity of our water and found it to be very corrosive which we believe is causing the same problem they indicated in Flint. The well water is causing our faucets and perhaps the submersible pump to corrode and leech the lead. It looks as if the rain water is acidic due to acid rain which may be caused by the emissions from the power plant or just the overall acidity of the rain?

We purchased a filter called ZeroWater which purports to take the lead out of the water.

18

The point is that changing from lake water to river water was a known situation, with known problems, and known remedies that the city did not apply. Experts were warning the city from the first that they were doing something that would poison children. Experts were testing the water, and the children, and declaring that the water was poisoning the children.

Yet the emergency manager’s employees and the governor and his employees repeatedly assured the residents, falsely, that the water was safe. They repeatedly refused to ameliorate the dangerous situation that was poisoning children, even though remedies were available-- like switching back to safe Detroit water, or treating the river water before putting it in to city pipes.

Deliberately and negligently poisoning children is a crime. Covering up crimes is itself a crime. People should go to prison for this.

19

Oh gosh. In rereading the OP, I noticed my awkward phrasing that lead to an incorrect statement. (This is why one should not start threads at 3 AM!)

I meant to say that the lead poisoning started when the water switched to the Flint River and not that the river itself is contaminated.

Thanks, CF and others who have corrected that!

20

Did the emergency manager make money in switching?

I have a katadym filter. We don’t drink tap water around here. I didn’t know there were still places with drinkable tap water. My kid was routiely tested for lead. With filtered water, the lead level was 0 or unmeasurably low.