{"id":3669,"date":"2016-01-19T07:57:45","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T13:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=3669"},"modified":"2016-01-19T08:01:09","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T14:01:09","slug":"the-flint-water-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-flint-water-crisis.html","title":{"rendered":"The Flint Water Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Republicans say it\u2019s Democrats\u2019 fault, given that they were, after all, the ones who ran Flint into the ground. \u00a0Democrats (and media) say it\u2019s the fault of the villianous Republican governor.<\/p>\n

I had been negligent in digging into the details, but here\u2019s an article that popped up in my facebook feed that lays out the story in detail: \u00a0\u201cThe real tragedy in Flint<\/a>,\u201d by a local (Saginaw) blogger, Greg Branch.<\/p>\n

The long and short of it is this: \u00a0Flint\u2019s plan to take water from the Flint River would have worked just fine \u2014 the river isn\u2019t particularly polluted \u2014 had the city\u2019s water department been diligent enough to identify and follow the proper protocols for treating river water, and had the relevant Michigan agency, the Department of Environmental Quality, been negligent in their supervision.<\/p>\n

There are well-documented protocols for corrosion control for municipal water systems. They were not followed in this case \u2013 from what I can see, because the agency charged with monitoring that activity, the Michigan DEQ, simply didn\u2019t require it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And why didn\u2019t the DEQ require it? \u00a0Branch speculates that this was because they were asleep at the wheel, and a mix of indifferent bureaucrats and political appointees. \u00a0Some further details are in this October Detroit News article, \u201cMichigan DEQ vows changes in Flint water crisis<\/a>,\u201d which reports that<\/p>\n

staff members applied the wrong standards of the Lead and Copper Rule that governs testing and monitoring for drinking water. The result was that proper controls regarding corrosion were not put in place when the city began drawing its water from the Flint River in spring 2014.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s a lot more to the story, but for an initial read, this is worth your time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans say it\u2019s Democrats\u2019 fault, given that they were, after all, the ones who ran Flint into the ground. \u00a0Democrats (and media) say it\u2019s the fault of the villianous Republican governor. I had been negligent in digging into the details, but here\u2019s an article that popped up in my facebook feed that lays out the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Flint Water Crisis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Republicans say it's Democrats' fault, given that they were, after all, the ones who ran Flint into the ground. \u00a0Democrats (and media) say it's the fault\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-flint-water-crisis.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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