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The Hurley Medical Center, in Flint, released a study in September that confirmed what many Flint parents had feared for over a year: The proportion of infants and children with above-average levels of lead in their blood has nearly doubled since the city switched from the Detroit water system to using the Flint River as its water source, in 2014.
The crisis reached a nadir Monday night, when Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency.
“The City of Flint has experienced a Manmade disaster,” Weaver said in a declaratory statement.
originally posted by: Grimpachi
a reply to: dashen
Where did you read the water was corrosive and stripped the lead? Seems like the lead in the pipes is the real concern looks like they have a huge project ahead of them switching them out. Michigan isn't very well off financially, but I am sure they will find the money as they should.
I noticed the water was switched over last year. Considering government that's fairly fast for such an announcement.
IMO I think having old lead water pipes is the real issue leading to the problem.
Last month, Flint Mayor Dayne Walling said the city was speeding up plans for making the city's water less corrosive.
The city has not yet spelled out what actions will be put in place to better control corrosion, but Richard Benzie, chief of field operations in the DEQ Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance, has said plans typically involve the addition of supplements such as phosphates at the treatment plant.
Walling has also asked the state for $10 million to begin a program of removing lead service lines in the city, but the DEQ says it would likely take up to 15 years to complete the job of replacing them -- "Even if many crews were contracted."
Any Michigan community that draws its municipal water from a river or inland source rather than from one of the Great Lakes will likely face this problem to some extent. River and inland-source water contains higher concentrations of chloride ions than does water pumped directly from one of the Great Lakes. Why? Perhaps surprisingly, one of the primary reasons is the overuse of salt to deice our roads in the winter. As salt molecules dissolve in water, the negative chloride ions are separated from the positive metal ions. These chloride ions become concentrated in runoff, which makes its way into our streams, rivers, and other waterways.
The negative chloride ions are corrosive, so when the high-chloride water is pumped through lead pipes (or iron and copper pipes joined together with lead solder), lead leaches into the water. It's as simple as that.
originally posted by: ANNED
I don't understand the problem.
I have lived in rural areas with high lead in the water.
I always used a good filters that are NSF certified to remove lead.
Yet just below the surface of this controversy lies not only a network of aging water and sewage pipes, but also the troubling state of the local democracy, which has disintegrated under Michigan's Public Act 436, known as the "emergency manager" law. Like a handful of other economically troubled Michigan cities, Flint is governed by a state-appointed emergency financial manager. He has unprecedented authority to, for example, single-handedly decide where the city’s water supply comes from or ignore City Council resolutions. In response to the vote, Flint’s emergency manager, Jerry Ambrose, called the decision “incomprehensible” and indicated that the Flint River would remain the city’s source.
originally posted by: Grimpachi
a reply to: xuenchen
State and city government waterworks. I agree.