Kaplony
Palmetto State Deplorable
Posts: 25,393
Joined: Apr 2013
I Root For: Newberry
Location: SC
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RE: This was before the election but Bill Maher called it...
(11-16-2016 01:50 PM)Fitbud Wrote: (11-16-2016 01:15 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: (11-16-2016 12:50 PM)Fitbud Wrote: (11-16-2016 12:37 PM)muffinman Wrote: Remind me again why the water utility is not to blame for Flint, MI issues?
Because they were only doing what they were told to do.
Told by whom? When and how?
Seriously? We need to go over this again?
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/...appro.html
Evidently we do.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/201...y-blame-in
Quote: Snyder's involvement and the state's involvement came very, very late in a push that began decades earlier to stop paying the city of Detroit for water. If Detroit could have a water system, well, by God, why shouldn't Flint and Genesee? Why should they have to send money to Detroit — Detroit, of all places — if they didn't have to?
It was 1963 when Flint first took steps to build a water pipeline from Lake Huron, but a profiteering scandal hit the headlines and killed the project.
In 2006, the Genesee County Drain Commission ordered a feasibility study of a pipeline from Flint to Lake Huron, which said it would be cheaper than continuing to buy water from Detroit.
In 2006, Rick Snyder was still a venture capitalist, mulling over whether to raise a second fund for his Ann Arbor-based Ardesta LLC.
Quote:nd attacking emergency manager Ed Kurtz, who he said was solely responsible for cutting Flint loose from Detroit water and ordering the city to use Flint River water, instead. "There is no evidence that anyone other than the state is responsible," he said.
Hogwash.
Kurtz was the emergency manager, but he didn't make every decision at every level of governance or management in the city of Flint. The move to replace Detroit water had been underway for years before he got the job.
What Kurtz — and his replacement, Darnell Earley — did was sign off on various requests by the Flint city council and Mayor Dayne Walling regarding steps to replace water from Detroit.
Kurtz and Earley agreed to let the council and mayor do as they wished. Had they overruled them, the same angry voice accusing them now of having a heavy hand in Flint affairs would have been in an uproar over then, too, accusing them of having a heavy hand in not letting the elected representatives of the city make important decisions.
Here is some background:
In 2007, the Karegnondi Regional Water Planning Group was formed, later to become the Karegnondi Water Authority, which included the cities of Flint and Lapeer and the counties of Genesee, Lapeer and Sanilac. Its goal? Build a pipeline to bring in water from Lake Huron and get rid of Detroit water.
(Karegnondi is an Indian word meaning lake and was an early name for Lake Huron.)
In 2009, as the Genesee County Drain Commission filed for permits, the Michigan Environmental Council and the Flint River Watershed Coalition said they wouldn't oppose a Lake Huron pipeline.
Rick Snyder was still a venture capitalist. Flint had no emergency manager.
In March 2010, Genesee County Drain Commissioner Ken Hardin said he opposed the project based on the Flint's poor finances — a lonely voice of fiscal responsibility — but that April, the Flint City Council voted to formally join the Karegnondi Water Authority.
In October 2010, weeks before Snyder was elected governor of Michigan, the water authority's board of trustees met for the first time, with Flint Mayor Walling being elected chair.
In September 2011, an engineering report to the Flint City Council said that the most expensive option for providing citizens with water was continuing to buy it from Detroit.
The least expensive? Building a new pipeline to Lake Huron.
There was a middle option: Upgrading a water plant on the Flint River to the capability of operating 24/7.
In December 2011, the state finally entered the picture with the appointment of Michael Brown as first emergency manager for Flint. He was soon replaced by Kurtz.
In March 2013, Flint city council approved by the vote of 7-1 the purchase of 16 million gallons per day from the authority once its water was flowing.
Kurtz and Mayor Walling both signed off on that vote on March 29, and Earley signed off, too, after he replaced Kurtz in October.
In April 2013, State Treasurer Andy Dillon told Kurtz that Flint could do as it wanted and sign a contract with the water authority.
That September, the authority signed a contract for American Cast Iron Co. to supply 67 miles of pipe to connect Flint to the lake, and Genesee County began selling bonds for the project.
American Cast Iron then built a production facility in Flint's former Buick City site, creating jobs in the city and putting an iconic piece of land back to use.
Flint officials didn't credit the state's emergency manager, they were happy to accept the congratulations, themselves.
In April 2014, Flint began using the Flint River as its prime source of drinking water while it awaited completion of the pipeline to Lake Huron.
Genesee County was much smarter. It continued to buy water from Detroit while the pipeline was being built.
Last November, Karen Weaver was elected as mayor of Flint, replacing Walling, who had been ousted in large part because of ongoing complaints by city residents that not enough was being done about water that tasted and looked foul.
Weaver also joined the board of the Karegnondi Water Authority, but lost her bid to be chair.
Newly elected or not, she seemed to agree with her colleagues that replacing Detroit water with a source of its own was a splendid idea for Flint.
One last thought. What seems to have been lost in the frenzy is that Flint has a water department, whose employees are supposed to routinely monitor water quality, who are supposed to respond to citizens' complaints, and who should have known to treat the river water's corrosiveness, which caused the lead to leach into the water.
Miguel Del Toral, the EPA official who uncovered Flint's systematic problems with lead last February, said in an interview on Michigan Public Radio Friday morning that when he first was told Flint wasn't treating the water for its corrosion, "I was thinking that's not possible. I couldn't believe that was true. I thought there was a misunderstanding here or some kind of miscommunication.
"First of all, it's just inconceivable that somebody would not require the (corrosion control) treatment in the first place. So that was kind of the biggest shock, if you will."
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This was before the election but Bill Maher called it...
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