Flint family uses 151 bottles of water per day

WoW! I guess all in all this is not much; The Flint disaster is still very real, and they have no solution right now, at all. sadly. Imagine all of the children/adults collectively there in Flint that have rashes and outbreaks. USA Today reports a couple of days ago that the Flint water crisis could be as costly as 300 billion dollars to replace the lines....

Im thinking the water will get much dirtier (no pun intended) before this is all over. I cant imagine what these poor folk are having to go through...

An "arsenal" of cases of fresh water stacked in the basement and a graveyard of scattered empty bottles are daily reminders that life in Flint, Michigan, is anything but normal.

For Gina Luster, 41, seeing the stacks of bottles angers her. She says she feels like less than a good parent after watching her daughter, 7, and niece, 13, suffer from hair loss and skin rashes.

"It makes me feel like the lowest of the low. My self-esteem when it first began was so, so bad," Luster said on the verge of tears in her dining room.

"You pull up to a place where you need this water, and the line is a mile long and you're waiting in your car, praying you don't run out of gas waiting, and you've got your kids in the car and they're looking at you like 'What are you going to do about this?'" she said.

151 bottles of water in a day
CNN tallied the number of bottles the Luster family uses in a day and sorted how each bottle was used into eight categories. 36 bottles were used for cooking and another 36 were for washing hair. They used 27 bottles for drinking, plus 24 for doing dishes, and the rest were used for washing faces, brushing teeth and more. Each bottle held 16.9 ounces of water.

The grand total came to 151 bottles -- that's how much the family of three uses in a day.

151 BOTTLES OF WATER PER DAY

a reply to: ReadLeader

Looks like the mental impact from the contaminated water is worse than I feared.

Hillary is expected to beat Sanders in Michigan?

a reply to: ReadLeader

The waste from the bottles is just as bad as the undrinkable tap water.

Two disasters wrapped in one!

Good thing we have the smartest people on earth as our dear leaders................

a reply to: ReadLeader

And that really isn't a lot. I drink about 10 bottles of water a day. My housemate drinks several. Sometimes I put it in the keurig or give to the cats. I have a britta pitcher, but I like things like Figi water, Iceland Pure and hi PH water. I am feeling pretty water-spoiled right now.

I can't imagine the # if I could not use any tap water for anything. I feel so sorry for them.

Now it seems to me that there are solutions which don't require bottled water.....
Melted snow water or collected rainwater could be used for some purposes....
meanwhile I wonder if Mycelium could come to the rescue?
Somebody call Paul Stametz.....

Um, you don't need bottles of water for daily cooking if you're in a crisis. Wash your hair every other day and buy premoistened wipes to wash your face. In terms of survival, water should not be used for vanity or daily hygiene. Collect rain and invest in a quality filter. Doing dishes daily, should be switched to using paper plates and recyclable utensils. As much as I feel for them, this goes to show you how under prepared and reliable most citizens are on their government. It is absolutely pathetic how the Feds are reacting to this.

a reply to: ReadLeader

Wait wait wait.

Does the army, marines and EVERY other branch NOT have water purification systems and portable water systems that can distribute water to THOUSANDS a day?

Lets just pretend that Flint is Iraq, and we are invading this desert town, so we bring all this stuff so our troops dont go thirsty and die. EXCEPT soldiers arent there so all that water is given to OUR PEOPLE who are thirsty.

We have the resources being used by our government in ways we DONT like, but COULD use them in ways we do.

We can pipe all sorts of things for miles and miles, yet we cant get water to be injected into EXISTING pipes from clean sources?

REALLY?

Just tell congress they have oil and invade with all the bells and whistles. Then nation build.....

EDIT TO ADD;
You know what would be cool, if an army commander or a few in charge of one or more such water systems went rogue and took his unit there. WHO would be angry with the guy for stealing government property? The feds sure, but good freaking luck getting them to trial without a damned riot. The way I see it, ITS OUR PROPERTY.

Any real rebel patriots out there? Or does it have to open violent revolution or bust?

a reply to: ReadLeader

"151 bottles" sounds like a lot but that works out to be a little under 20 gallons: (16.9 oz * 151 bottles) / 128 oz = 19.93 gallons.

That's about as much water as a 5-6 minute shower with a conventional shower head. That's about 1/5 of the water consumption of the average American per day (100 gallons as noted in article) divided among 3 people.

I see where by now millions of bottles of water have been donated but it seems like it might be a better use of financial resources to install under sink or even whole house filtration systems.

a reply to: ReadLeader

Have they never heard of a water tank?

I'm living at my brothers house atm up in the mountains where there's no main line to the towns water source and it really isn't the humanitarian crisis there making it out to be... people just need show some initiative and collect rain water, problem solved!

You can shower and wash your dishes everyday, without the need to wait in lines for hours for hundreds of bottles of water.

a reply to: tadaman

Through this whole thing, I have been flabbergasted by one fact.

People like you, and many others can come up with extremely helpful solutions to get flint through this disaster.

But NOT ONE of our #$@%#$ politicians in this state has the brains to actually do something NOW.

It has been heartbreaking to watch.

Have people not heard of dry shampoo before? You don't need to wash your hair with water ever single day...

If it were me, I'd be looking at ways to cut my water usage. Just having to deal with all the empty bottles would be a pain...I can't even imagine...

151/day, that sounds like they need bigger bottles..

Seriously, can't the national guard or whoever owns the Potable water trucks just drive a few into various corners of flint and connect them to the water mains for the home owners?

a reply to: theantediluvian

Hell, or build a Roman-style aqueduct to the town:

a reply to: chiefsmom

You guys should contact EVERY military base in the state and surrounding states, speak directly to the commanders of these bases and in not so discrete terms ask them to get their asses there for "training purposes", since desert warfare is the norm now, and we need to "practice" purifying water.

Then I would write to Trump and ask him for a publicity stunt, where he pays for the costs of such.

The fact is, there are warehouses full of equipment that can help you guys, just sitting around waiting to be deployed again.

Better than just leaving them for Iraqis in near new condition, I mean ISIS.

a reply to: ReadLeader

The saddest part about the Flint situation is that not one person will be held accountable. Maybe a year down the road someone may lose their job, but is that justice for purposely poisoning thousands of kids? Not in my house. Nothing will change until people are held accountable. Maybe I'm naive but making clever signs, protesting, or voting are feckless endeavors.

a reply to: MadeUSA

You are absolutely right. Nothing with change so long as people take those small, yet still significant steps.

There was a time when the community would get their pitchforks, march to the local pub, all have a drink. Then march to the officials house and demand change, or else.

Too bad the protectors of the public good (police) don't see it that this is still their job to arrest these assholes. As it is a public safety matter. Don't they drink the same water?

Then I would write to Trump and ask him for a publicity stunt, where he pays for the costs of such.

My hubby said the exact same thing last night. He would win MI in a heartbeat.

just IMHO - but anyone else see the utter absurdity of using 0.5 litre bottles ???

a reply to: tadaman

The problem there is that it is the distribution pipes, themselves, which are creating the lead, not the source (although I'd become Bear Grylls and drink my own piss long before I'd touch a drop of surface water from the upper midwest.) There are really only two options (and both are cost prohibitive at this time)
1. Reconstruct the entire distribution network of pipes. I've seen this estimated at a $1.5 Billion cost, and it would take a couple of years minimum.
2. Install combination reverse osmosis/charcoal filters at every point of service. 40,000 households plus 2,500 (guessing) businesses... $1,000-$2,000 for purchase plus install... $42.5-$90 Million plus some manner of monthly voucher to recoup filter and upkeep costs for the users.

Might be time to just bulldoze Flint and start over somewhere else.

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
just IMHO - but anyone else see the utter absurdity of using 0.5 litre bottles ???

Oh, I totally see it... but I guess its just easier to bitch and moan about how the government won't help them and then waste all their funds on hundreds of 600ml water bottles everyday, just to prove their point!

I don't care what anyone says... if you can afford to spend that much on water bottles, then you sure as hell can afford to connect a water tank to your rain gutters.

Even if the government is evil & competent... lol.