From Michael Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:
It was the injustice of it all and that the very agencies that are paid to protect these residents from lead in water, knew or should’ve known after June at the very very latest of this year, that federal law was not being followed in Flint, and that these children and residents were not being protected, and the extent to which they went to cover this up exposes a new level of arrogance and uncaring that I have never encountered.
– Virginia Tech Professor, Marc Edwards
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past several weeks, you’ll be aware of the extremely sad and infuriating water scandal that has been exposed in Flint, Michigan. Marc Edwards, a courageous and ethical professor of civil-engineering at Virginia Tech University, played a major role in exposing this public health danger as well as the inexcusable efforts of scientists and public officials to cover it up.
Mr. Edwards sat down for an interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education and offered some very blunt words regarding the deplorable state of modern academia. Here are a few excerpts:
When Marc Edwards opens his mouth, dangerous things come out.
In 2003 the Virginia Tech civil-engineering professor said that there was lead in the Washington, D.C., water supply, and that the city had been poisoning its residents. He was right.
Last fall he said there was lead in the water in Flint, Mich., despite the reassurances of state and local authorities that the water was safe. He was right about that, too.
Working with residents of Flint, Mr. Edwards led a study that revealed that the elevated lead levels in people’s homes were not isolated incidents but a result of a systemic problem that had been ignored by state scientists.
The infrastructural problems go beyond the public utilities of certain American cities, he says. In an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Edwards said that the systems built to support scientists do not reward moral courage and that the university pipeline contains toxins of its own — which, if ignored, will corrode public faith in science.
To continue reading: The Professor Who Helped Expose the Flint Water Scandal
