From Claire Bernish at theantimedia.org:
(ANTIMEDIA) “It’s outrageous that this sort of government-made catastrophe would happen anywhere in the United States,” Representative Justin Amash said Wednesday as he opened his allotted time period to question a panel before Congress about the lead crisis in Flint, Michigan. “The State of Michigan needs to provide comprehensive assistance to the people of Flint; and the state has the resources, I can assure you that as a former state legislator.”
In his characteristic calm and collected manner, Amash quickly pulled the painful truth from just two members of the decidedly small four-member panel — the lead contamination of the Flint water supply wouldn’t have happened if the city had followed the law.
First, Amash established that while the state spends $33 million on its notorious Pure Michigan advertising campaign, it has only shelled out “$28 million to make sure the people of Flint have pure water.” Without using his name, Amash also noted the“nonsensical” absence from the panel of the “one person probably most culpable in this situation” who “won’t take responsibility for it” — Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.
Keith Creagh, Interim Director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, answered several basic questions from Amash to establish his department’s role in the crisis, noting “it’s highly unusual across this country [for a city] to go from one water source to another.”
Turning to Virginia Tech Environmental and Water Resources Professor and Water Interagency Coordinating Committee member Marc Edwards, the scope of governmental culpability in the Flint lead crisis quickly became clear.
“We know that not enough phosphates were added to the water to make it less corrosive,” Amash began. “What’s the cost of treating the water with the appropriate amount of phosphates?”
“When the switch was made, there was actually no phosphate added at all. No corrosion control. Federal law was not followed,” Edwards stated.
“No phosphates at all?” Amash interrupted.
“Nothing. Had they done the minimum allowable under the law, which would have been to continue the phosphate dosing — which in Detroit water, it would’ve cost $80 to $100 a day.”
To continue reading: Flint Officials Could Have Prevented Lead Crisis for $80 a Day, Broke Federal Law Instead
I am only “ignorantly-familiar” with the Flint story. I use that term because I have not taken the time to do any “duh-diligence,” and am only responding to what little has been flushed through my mind from the lead-laden pipes of the media supply-lines.
Since this story first broke however, it seems, at least to me, to have begun when Detroit finally went financially broke in response to having first gone politically broke in the sixties. This political rupture, combined with the larger decline underway in America – in this case was specifically manifested in the auto industry. It displayed yet another testimonial of Thatchers tired and worn insightful dictum, “eventually you run out of other peoples money.”
One facet in America of when someone or some “thing” goes broke, is a declaration of bankruptcy. Part of such political/financial proceedings is the appointment of “responsible” administrators to preside over the various aspects and dispensing/disposal of said assets, liabilities, etc.
Flint is one of the “ground zero’s” in the demise of the American auto industry. As such it has long-since run out of the means for citizens who live there to earn the kind of living that used to be relatively common-place. One of the consequences of those who have chosen to remain there or who cannot leave because they have nowhere to go and little means to get there, is that many of them now, in one fashion or another, have relied on Thatchers “other peoples money.”
One of the ways they have been doing so is that many, many of these people have been unable to pay their water bills as they once did. As part of Detroit’s entirely rational attempt to cut its costs, the administrator who presides over such aspects of Detroit’s bankruptcy notified Flint’s officials that it would have to return to providing for its own water, thus enduring the costs associated with doing so.
Enter the inevitable politics associated with…… well,…… POLITICS!
The hallmark of politics and the inescapable bureaucracy that in response arises, is that it is almost impossible to assign responsibility and therefore logically difficult to affix “blame.” The closest one can usually come is when the acknowledgment, “mistakes were made,” is hauled out of the ensuing intellectual maze.
I have cited the preceding because:
1) The whole serious farce represents government at its “finest.” Political and financial decisions were made with NO regard for the well-being of those for whom government is supposed to exist in the first place.
2) Such decisions inevitably occur when the means for the sustenance of government’s inescapable bureaucracy are no longer available.
3) As the inevitable search for the culpable unfolds, politics – NOT reason or logic will prevail – particularly if, when trying to identify someone within the maze of “mistakes were made,” an appropriate “politically vulnerable” soul can be found.
The gist of the article to which I am responding, in my judgement, is to be found in the apparent pointing of the finger of blame at the hapless Governor. While I am in no way a supporter, he does have at least a modicum of my sympathy.
After all, he is a plump Pachyderm in a sea of starving Jack asses.
He is, and they are, indeed.