Flint Michigan Water

POSTON WIDEHEAD · January 20, 2016, 09:51:41 PM

Do we have any members affected by the bad water in Flint Michigan ?
This is awful.

sawguy21 · January 20, 2016, 09:53:20 PM

I am not clear what happened. How did the river get so contaminated and why was the problem ignored until now?

Jeff · January 20, 2016, 09:55:43 PM

Ill hold my opinion on how awful. I will say the blame is getting spread way farther than it should be. If you want some of the water, I'm crossing the river tomorrow on the way to the V.A. hospital.

Jeff · January 20, 2016, 09:58:08 PM

The city of flint tried to save money by switching from water pumped from Detroit to pumping untreated water from the flint through old lead piping.

POSTON WIDEHEAD · January 20, 2016, 10:16:41 PM

I've been watching this on the news for days. There are so many innocent people that didn't even know.

WmFritz · January 20, 2016, 10:41:45 PM

For $300.00 I'll send you a bucket. ;D

Ron Wenrich · January 21, 2016, 06:18:00 AM

How terrible is the water quality in that river? Where does Detroit get their water from that makes it so much better?

Jeff · January 21, 2016, 06:25:26 AM

Pretty sure the contamination came from Flint's decision to pump water from the flint river via an old lead piping system. Not so much the river as the delivery system.

square1 · January 21, 2016, 06:37:10 AM

The river water abraded the coating inside the supply pipes throughout Flint's infrastructure exposing lead, which in turn is now being leeched into the water being delivered to homes within the city.

Sad part, if true, is that someone decided to save a $100 a day and axed a treatment that would have neutralized the abrasive component of the water.

Roxie · January 21, 2016, 07:21:25 AM

Yes, they are now saying that the lead is the issue, but I have to wonder if the water supply was caustic enough to eat through the pipes to expose the lead, what would that same water do to the human body, lead issue aside?

WV Sawmiller · January 21, 2016, 09:25:53 AM

Quote from: Roxie on January 21, 2016, 07:21:25 AM
Yes, they are now saying that the lead is the issue, but I have to wonder if the water supply was caustic enough to eat through the pipes to expose the lead, what would that same water do to the human body, lead issue aside?

Reminds me several years ago I heard where someone tried to sue one of the major cola companies saying they got a pin in their soda. Soda company went to court and proved based on the > 6 month old packing date on the can could not be true. They proved a pin would have completely dissolved long before that time. Made me wonder about what I had been drinking (Just wonder - hasn't stopped me yet).

Ron Wenrich · January 21, 2016, 09:34:02 AM

Best way to offset the effects of cola is to add rum. ;)

Roxie · January 21, 2016, 10:27:56 AM

:D :D

Just Me · January 21, 2016, 09:01:09 PM

Quote from: Jeff on January 20, 2016, 09:55:43 PM
Ill hold my opinion on how awful. I will say the blame is getting spread way farther than it should be. If you want some of the water, I'm crossing the river tomorrow on the way to the V.A. hospital.

What he said, and I can't say what I really think about this or I will get banned.

square1 · January 22, 2016, 05:38:53 AM

Quote from: Roxie on January 21, 2016, 07:21:25 AM
...but I have to wonder if the water supply was caustic enough to eat through the pipes to expose the lead...

I was quickly corrected when I used the term "corrosive" to define the river water in a discussion. The abrasiveness of the river water effectively wet sanded the sediment barrier lining the pipes. Nonetheless, your point is well taken.

What I can't seem to find is, where did the city get it's water before hooking up with Detroit in 1967? Flint was at it's peak population around that time with a thriving automotive industry. I would think the water demands were far greater then than now. My understanding is insufficient water treatment capacity prompted the switch to Detroit, not insufficient water supply.

Was river water the source at that time? Were they treating it to reduce / remove they abrasiveness, or were the dajgers of lead poisoning not known at the time?

IMO, Michigan should take a page from the Chernobyl disaster recovery manual. Move out the people, fence off the city.... The financial drain Flint will become isn't worth the end result.

Sixacresand · January 22, 2016, 10:15:43 AM

I hope it does not drive up the price of bottled water around Flint. Sounds like somebody, church, humanitarian organization should set up a site for donations, determine a interim solution and distribute funds/devices to the citizens so they purify their water. Meantime, the government can fund and replace their leaded pipelines. Just my opinion.

Mooseherder · January 22, 2016, 10:34:31 AM

We haul every gallon of drinking water at this house because the well water isn't palatable. I get 30 Gallons at a time at the WaterPlex store. Gotta go refill today or tomorrow. Hauling water gets old. We use 3 and 5 gallon jugs.

Jeff · January 22, 2016, 11:15:29 AM

Quote from: Sixacresand on January 22, 2016, 10:15:43 AM
Sounds like somebody, church, humanitarian organization should set up a site for donations, determine a interim solution and distribute funds/devices to the citizens so they purify their water. Meantime, the government can fund and replace their leaded pipelines. Just my opinion.

If it is not being reported elsewhere, this is being done. It is all over the local news on most every station where people are sending and organizing support.

Ed · January 22, 2016, 11:33:46 AM

Just to add...the National Guard has been deployed to help with distributing water.

Good article on WHY it happened:

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/01/21/deq-director-flint/79145696/

Ed

thechknhwk · January 22, 2016, 11:51:00 AM

From what I read the water authority did not properly manage the PH of the water thereby disolving the lead oxide and iron oxide that coated the internals of the piping. That is why some images have surfaced of flint hydrants flushing thousands of gallons of orange water onto the street. More or less the pipes were always lead and iron but were covered internally with an inert layer of oxidization. Now that the PH is out of balance that layer was dissolved or disturbed exposing bare lead pipe and elevating lead levels in the water. So more or less IMO, due to the ineptitude of the water authority (Flint has not treated its own water for a long time) and the local politicos for leaving the Detroit water supply before the proposed replacement was in production. I have read some conflicting reports on this aspect. Some say that Detroit more or less cut them off by instituting astronomical rate hikes when they found out Flint was pursuing an alternate supplier.

http://www.legalreader.com/epa-implicated-in-coverup-of-flint-water-crisis/
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/01/12/epa-stayed-silent-flints-tainted-water/78719620/
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2015/10/how_the_flint_water_crisis_eme.html#0

zach613 · January 22, 2016, 10:47:51 PM

many of the old pipes are cast iron or other cast metals that used a seal that had lead in it, between the pipe sections and a three foot lead pipe as a goose neck to connect to the water shut offs to the houses and such. this was a normal practice for many years and dump truck loads of them get removed every year in many different city's as they upgrade the water mains to plastic.

Ianab · January 23, 2016, 01:59:03 AM

The pH of the water was what I was thinking too.

If you are getting bore water from limestone rock area it will have pH up around 8.0, and doesn't dissolve things easily, in fact it's more likely to build up a lime scale on things.

Then you change to a different source, with more acidic river water. Probably only pH of 6.0 or so, which is still "normal" water, but all sorts of stuff starts dissolving in water like that, like lead from old pipes.