water in Flint, MI

HeavyG

Fred19Flintstone said:

HeavyG said:

Fred19Flintstone said:

Managing corrosivity?  So switching back to the high quality Detroit water will fix this???  Heck, why didn't anybody here think of that?

Flint did reconnect to the Detroit water system.

What will need to happen now is that the Flint water utility operators will need to engage in a fairly comprehensive water flushing program.

I have no idea as to the type of piping materials are used in the majority of the Flint water system (I would guess probably cast and ductile iron most of which is likely unlined) but there is likely no permanent damage that would mean that elevated levels of lead will be a continuing problem for Flint residents.

Older homes will always have a potential source of  lead in their water depending upon the brass fixtures in their dwelling and the type of service line feeding their homes.

I believe I said earlier that Flint reconnected to Detroit a while ago before this hit the national news.  It has improved the quality, but there's still lead in the water in many areas of the city.

I'm no engineer, but if the solution was a flush out, then I'm sure the national guard, state police, Red Cross, plumbers and every deputy in the County would not be all over the place passing out water and filters and plumbers installing said filters for those who need that.

Flint just reconnected to the Detroit supply a couple weeks ago. The problems in Flint have been in the news for at least a few months but only recently blew up a few weeks ago.

The first thing Flint had to do was to eliminate the source of their problem. They did that by simply changing back to Detroits water supply. Now that the problem of aggressive source water is eliminated there remains the problem of purging the system of all that bad water. That takes time. That timeline can be shortened by engaging in an aggressive flushing program. That too takes time to plan and implement a thorough plan to flush the ENTIRE system.

Until that occurs there will still be the need to drink bottled water. Not all water filters remove lead so most folks would still want to use bottle water for drinking/cooking.

Fred19Flintstone

Again, I'm no engineer, but if the fix was just flushing it out, it wouldn't be such a ginormous deal.  They're talking about replacing infrastructure.

YukonRon

Of course they are. They will use your money to do it.

gdenby

Jeepster47 said:

 Or, simply move?  And, don't say the folks are too deep in poverty to not move.

I really must disagree w. you on this. I know lots of people who can't make ends meet. No way you can move to a new place and pay the up-fronts for an apartment if you are at minimum wage, or below.

Most important to me, my elder daughter and SIL. Had jobs at 3 companies that collapsed one after another when the bubble burst. Moved to Detroit, land of opportunity. Lived in his sister's basement for a year. Found a place they could afford to rent, but then it went up for sale.

Thought things might be better back home. Not so much. The cost of moving, the new jobs being not quite as good as they supposed... I'm paying for their heat, and they're selling blood to pay for their day to day.

HeavyG

Fred19Flintstone said:

Again, I'm no engineer, but if the fix was just flushing it out, it wouldn't be such a ginormous deal.  They're talking about replacing infrastructure.

Flushing will remove the bad water/chemistry which was "gnawing" at their pipes/fixtures.

Flushing will not magically make other problems that are a result of their old infrastructure disappear. But the lead problem was not primarily a result of just having old pipes. Hundreds of communities have the same sort of old piping in their systems and do not suffer from the sort of lead problems that Flint experienced. Flints problem was a direct result of their faulty decision making process regarding the source of their water. 

Lead pipe is not used for transmission/distribution pipes. It was often used in the service lines that tap into the pipe in the street and carry the water into the building. Ideally those would be replaced over time but there is no real need to engage in an immediate replacement of all those service connections (that's not even possible). There are other sources of lead in older homes due to their fixtures and internal piping. There is just no way all those bits of piping and hardware are going to be replaced any time soon.

Fred19Flintstone

Flint's pipes aren't unique.  It's the Flint River water, the decision to use it as a drinking water source and the treatment procedures used that make Flint a special place to work and live.

nolaegghead

The corrosivity of the Flint River water is from high levels of chloride ions, from salt, most likely from human activity (deicing).  That's not unusual in water sources.  What is unusual is that they didn't treat it correctly.  The cloride ion concentration in the Flint water is 9 times higher than Lake Huron.

Skiddymarker

Was reading this yesterday, Glad all is well Fred - CBC reports agree with Nola, deicing is the likely culprit for the chloride ions. 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/flint-michigan-water-lead-tainted-contaminated-1.3410855

Fred19Flintstone

I wouldn't be surprised in the least if road salt used for de-icing was factor.  Salt is spread on all the main roads when snow & ice makes them slick.  In winter, just about every car resembles a margarita glass.  

Legume

Fred19Flintstone said:

I wouldn't be surprised in the least if road salt used for de-icing was factor.  Salt is spread on all the main roads when snow & ice makes them slick.  In winter, just about every car resembles a margarita glass.  

So, what you're saying is a little global warming would help the water issue in Flint?

Fred19Flintstone

Legume said:

Fred19Flintstone said:

I wouldn't be surprised in the least if road salt used for de-icing was factor.  Salt is spread on all the main roads when snow & ice makes them slick.  In winter, just about every car resembles a margarita glass.  

So, what you're saying is a little global warming would help the water issue in Flint?

Don't get me started!

Sardonicus

Please do.
  

JohnInCarolina

It's obviously all a hoax.

Sardonicus

Damned sunspots!

HeavyG

Kind of surprised an EPA official is resigning over the Flint fiasco:

http://www.mediaite.com/online/breaking-epa-official-has-resigned-over-flint-water-crisis/

nolaegghead

If we make about 100 trillion of these ice packs, we might be able to lower the Earths temp, and keep beer cold to boot.

YukonRon

nolaegghead said:

If we make about 100 trillion of these ice packs, we might be able to lower the Earths temp, and keep beer cold to boot.

Are they in stock or do we have to wait 6 months for shipping?

nolaegghead

They are in stock.  Of course the downside to this plan is it will cost 30 bucks per ice pack.  $30 x 100,000,000,000,000 = $3,000,000,000,000,000  Maybe we could close some tax loopholes to pay for it.

YukonRon

nolaegghead said:

They are in stock.  Of course the downside to this plan is it will cost 30 bucks per ice pack.  $30 x 100,000,000,000,000 = $3,000,000,000,000,000  Maybe we could close some tax loopholes to pay for it.

Or just wait for the RTIC Version at 1/2 price that does twice the work.

nolaegghead

YukonRon said:

nolaegghead said:

They are in stock.  Of course the downside to this plan is it will cost 30 bucks per ice pack.  $30 x 100,000,000,000,000 = $3,000,000,000,000,000  Maybe we could close some tax loopholes to pay for it.

Or just wait for the RTIC Version at 1/2 price that does twice the work.

No, we'll piss off @Lit.

HeavyG

nolaegghead said:

They are in stock.  Of course the downside to this plan is it will cost 30 bucks per ice pack.  $30 x 100,000,000,000,000 = $3,000,000,000,000,000  Maybe we could close some tax loopholes to pay for it.

Elect Trump and he'll just get the Mexicans to pay for them.

henapple

But they're plastic... Can they be made of hemp? Smfh. 

Fred19Flintstone

https://youtu.be/Dug-G9xVdVs

Skiddymarker

nolaegghead said:

If we make about 100 trillion of these ice packs, we might be able to lower the Earths temp, and keep beer cold to boot.

To chill the ice packs you have to remove the heat not only from the local environment, from the world's environment. Are you thinking about a sky pipeline (like a sky hook) to get rid of the heat? I have this vision of a 20,000Km duct pipe spewing unwanted heat and GHG into space.....

Fred19Flintstone

And pollute the solar system???  Shirley you jest!!!

Homebrewguy

Check out the following link for some more accurate information than is being covered by national media...

http://www.kettering.edu/sites/default/files/resource-file-download/WaterUpdateParentsAlumni.pdf

pgprescott

Very interesting @Homebrewguy. Puts a lot of the issues in perspective. Not exactly what the bomb throwers were saying. Crickets???!

nolaegghead

That's exactly what I've been saying.

edit - the Kettering report, not pgprescott's weird comment on it.  

Sardonicus

Hmmm.  Is that glee being expressed in your post, @pgprescott ?  Or relief?
(It's the latter, I'm sure.   )

Is it . . .
 . . . because Kettering University's letter to its customers cited 'only' 2% incidence of elevated lead levels?  
('Only' 2% of Flint's population extrapolates to less than 2,000 people.  Why worry, right?)

 . . . because 'only' 23 kids under the age of six tested so far have shown elevated lead levels?  
(No biggie, then.)

 . . . because only "some sections of the city have experienced [severe] problems"?
(As one poster said earlier, surely they can afford to move.)

Or is it . . .
 . . . because "The presence of suspended rust in water can turn it orange, red, brown, or yellow.  The presence of rust in water . . . does not necessarily indicate that the water is unsafe to drink"?
<whew!>

Either way, I'm certain that the residents and parents of Flint are reassured by Kettering's [macro] explanation that it's really not all that bad.
  

nolaegghead

My business is this business.  The lead leaching into the water isn't contaminating every end user, but the ones that do get the contamination, it was entirely preventable through treatment that was recommended through analysis, law, and ignored.  There is no question about what happened.  To try to water down (hardy har har) the severity of the issue to obfuscate a completely unnecessary poisoning of a large proportion of a 100,000 population American city is disingenuous at best, and unpatriotic and inhumane.  Flint has been marginalized, and that's sad...had this been Georgetown, the narrative would have been much different at the get-go.