2016 Jan 20^th

Governor Snyder’s “State of the State” message was primarily about Flint’s drinking water actually, Flint doesn’t really have drinking water and that’s the problem. The water they do have isn’t fit for drinking because it is contaminated with lead and ingesting lead is very bad for your health. Who put lead in Flint’s drinking water and why would they do that? The why is simple: Flint had been on Detroit’s water system but that contract expired and renewing it was too expensive so the State appointed city manager (or someone) decided to shift to the Flint River for the city’s water supply. Not a problem, although the river water would have to be treated because the chemicals in it would leach lead from the city’s elderly piping system. Treating the water would be expensive so the water went untreated and then Flint residents noticed some very peculiar looking and smelly “drinking” water. (This is essentially what happened although many would debate the particulars no one debates that the water was undrinkable.)

And then other people began to notice: the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tested the water, found dangerous levels of lead contamination and notified Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Michigan’s DEQ is a toothless outfit whose major effort is to make sure that no environmental regulations impede various commercial interests. They are great buddies with the Upper Peninsula’s mining honchos. The DEQ insisted that there was no problem. They famously told the citizens of Flint, who by this time were getting very upset, to “relax.” Relaxing is hard to do if the water coming out of the tap is too brown for a shower, much less to drink.

The up-front guy for the EPA, Emmanuel Del Toral, who first blew the whistle on the contaminated drinking water, was characterized by the Michigan DEQ as a “rogue agent.” By this time it was critical for the Governor’s Office and everyone connected with this fiasco to get inside the fort and pull the walls in after them. The record shows that EPA had notified the governor’s office and the DEQ of the problem with Flint’s water but the Michigan authorities did absolutely nothing. Eventually they even criticized the EPA for not informing the citizens of Flint directly. Whether the EPA was legally allowed to do that had been debated. The blow back from the state to the EPA was loud enough that the EPA went so far as to discredit their own water authority, Del Toral, who found and reported the problem.

Eventually the facts were indisputable and Del Toral got the apology from the DEQ that he deserved. Governor Snyder finally recognized that the lead was not going to disappear and began to get his national guard involved to distribute safe drinking water. He also fired some of the DEQ people who were responsible for the mess. It’s interesting that Michigan for this past year has a budget surplus of over 500 million dollars. How much of that money was saved by not treating the drinking water in Flint; how much will it cost to care for the brain damage that the untreated water will cause?