15 thoughts on “OFFS. Now Flint, MI has an Outbreak of Legionnaires Disease”
I'm beginning to think they should just evacuate Flint like the Soviets did after Chernobyl. That place is not safe for people and other living things.
Would also be proper if the building codes called from different architecture and mechanical requirements for buildings and things that have routine shutdowns, like schools and wings of convention centers like the one the one that produced the first episode during a Legionaries' convention.
Do you suppose Flint actually has municipal water lead mains and laterals, or just copper pipes soldered with tin-lead alloy, as was once the standard?
Are there instances of cities replacing miles and miles of lead supply lines and laterals all at once?
What could've been in the river water that leached out lead?
/ steps off irritating-urban-planner-questions-to-engineers soap box
I'll bet that much of the lead came from old lead-soldered copper pipes in all those old buildings. I'd be surprised if there's actual old lead supply lines – though with a city as underfunded as Flint there could be a few. They mentioned a high salt content in the surface water they were drawing from. That would eat through the mineral accretion inside the pipes, exposing the leaded areas. A combination of low pH would mobilize metals and keep them in solution.
The stupid thing is, there's methods of treating water to minimize leaching – water treatment plants do it all the time – from adding lime to balance the pH to introducing colloidal zinc to coat pump impellers and pipes. A comprehensive water analysis should have been done months before that water was drawn, with a mitigation plan in place weeks before the taps were opened.
This is criminal negligence, at the very least.
Old houses I've lived in in Chicago and Denver typically had galvanized steel water lines; copper was what you upgraded to. The steel pipe was mechanically indestructible but the ID would get smaller and smaller over the years.
It's not surprising that there are existing methods that would have mitigated or eliminated this problem, nor is surprising that political hack-buddies of Snyder had no knowledge, experience or (apparently) desire to provide them. Below, glass suggests unions as a problem and that may be so, but those union guys and municipal employees typically knew their business well enough not to poison their rate-payers.
OT: The 49ers just hired Chip Kelly. Why do they hate their own team? Is this some kind of scam?
I'm beginning to think they should just evacuate Flint like the Soviets did after Chernobyl. That place is not safe for people and other living things.
Nah. Move the state capitol. Make Snyder and the legislature work there. They'll fix that shit right quick.
Would also be proper if the building codes called from different architecture and mechanical requirements for buildings and things that have routine shutdowns, like schools and wings of convention centers like the one the one that produced the first episode during a Legionaries' convention.
/ steps down of engineer's soapbox
Regular inspections, cleaning & disinfection and post filter UV sir sterilization would be an acceptable fix also.
/ jumps up and down on vector ecologist's soapbox
Do you suppose Flint actually has municipal water lead mains and laterals, or just copper pipes soldered with tin-lead alloy, as was once the standard?
Are there instances of cities replacing miles and miles of lead supply lines and laterals all at once?
What could've been in the river water that leached out lead?
/ steps off irritating-urban-planner-questions-to-engineers soap box
I'll bet that much of the lead came from old lead-soldered copper pipes in all those old buildings. I'd be surprised if there's actual old lead supply lines – though with a city as underfunded as Flint there could be a few. They mentioned a high salt content in the surface water they were drawing from. That would eat through the mineral accretion inside the pipes, exposing the leaded areas. A combination of low pH would mobilize metals and keep them in solution.
The stupid thing is, there's methods of treating water to minimize leaching – water treatment plants do it all the time – from adding lime to balance the pH to introducing colloidal zinc to coat pump impellers and pipes. A comprehensive water analysis should have been done months before that water was drawn, with a mitigation plan in place weeks before the taps were opened.
This is criminal negligence, at the very least.
Old houses I've lived in in Chicago and Denver typically had galvanized steel water lines; copper was what you upgraded to. The steel pipe was mechanically indestructible but the ID would get smaller and smaller over the years.
It's not surprising that there are existing methods that would have mitigated or eliminated this problem, nor is surprising that political hack-buddies of Snyder had no knowledge, experience or (apparently) desire to provide them. Below, glass suggests unions as a problem and that may be so, but those union guys and municipal employees typically knew their business well enough not to poison their rate-payers.
OT: The 49ers just hired Chip Kelly. Why do they hate their own team? Is this some kind of scam?
JFC, what did Flint do to piss God off?
Nothin'. Just collateral damage from their state voting Republican.
There are some indications in the Old Testament that this God guy may actually lean Republican.
/climbs down off of rickety old library ladder
Is it fair to blame all this on Flint's most famous son, Michael Moore?
Don't read the comments. People are defending Snyder.
I hope they snap their own spines from the insane pretzels they have to twist themselves into to manage that.
Oh, and this also, as well:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/01/13…
Rachel Maddow is having rage stokes; here's hoping she recovers by air time.