The Truth About Flint
October 18, 2016 1:41 PM   Subscribe

Don’t believe the hype that you hear about the water being fixed. That water’s not fixed. This shit ain’t over. Just because it isn’t being talked about doesn’t mean it’s over. Light still needs to be shone on this.
-- Rasheed Wallace in The Players Tribune on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
posted by lkc (34 comments total) 36 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don't think it could be stated any more clearly. No bullshit.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:49 PM on October 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Oh Rasheed, you were (maybe?) my favorite Trail Blazer after Brian Grant left. I'm really glad he's using his fame to bring this more to the fore.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 1:50 PM on October 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Some of the folks in Flint can’t take showers because their water is still poisoned with lead. They have to boil water, pour it into the sink and then wash in it.

Well there's a horrifying thought. People boiling their water thinking it's going to somehow remove the lead.
posted by sfenders at 2:05 PM on October 18, 2016 [18 favorites]


And, to this day, the people of Flint still have to pay their water bills — they have to pay for water this is still unsafe and contaminated.

That’s right. They still want those people to pay their motherfucking water bills.


Its like executing people and then charging their families for the bullets used.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:14 PM on October 18, 2016 [19 favorites]


On my first visit, I saw a third-world country inside the United States.

Boarded up homes, shuttered business, no street lights on at night. You have maybe 12 to 15 homes on one block, but only two of those are occupied. Part of Flint was already in extreme poverty, but what I saw was something else: people missing clumps of hair, rashes on adults and children alike — all because of poisoned water. Imagine that: The poorest people paying the heaviest price.

posted by infini at 2:23 PM on October 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Sheed keeps it real. #ripcity
posted by gucci mane at 2:43 PM on October 18, 2016


Well there's a horrifying thought. People boiling their water thinking it's going to somehow remove the lead.

I'm hoping that there's been a bit lost in translation and it's bottled water, not tap: I.e. so they're boiling water to heat it up, not to make it safe.

Not that the confusion hasn't already happened, as you noted.
posted by ghost phoneme at 2:45 PM on October 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


Wallace might be my favorite player of all time; he had the talent and skill to dominate his era, but chose to be himself instead of playing to the Hype.

Probably the worst call ever was made against him (starts at 00:44 in the linked video).
posted by jamjam at 3:05 PM on October 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I read this to kill some time and I wish I hadn't, because I'm sure I can't help.

I've lived without running water in my youth and I've worked in an unhappy job where I knew I was indirectly and insufficiently supporting people without safe running water. This lead problem in Flint is a scandal beyond measure. I was wary of the tone of the piece early on but found myself getting angrier and angrier as I read on. If anything, the tone was too tempered! Lack of access to clean, safe water is something we fight against in third world countries, no more should we tolerate it in first world ones.

And, to this day, the people of Flint still have to pay their water bills — they have to pay for water this is still unsafe and contaminated.
A scandal in need of elevating to immediate national attention.
posted by comealongpole at 3:11 PM on October 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


I think the problem is one he kind of touched on - this was already brought to national attention. Everyone was outraged. But then people stopped caring, media stopped reporting it because it wasn't a new story anymore, and people stopped donating because it wasn't the next hot cause.

As a country, we're really bad at follow up.
posted by corb at 3:17 PM on October 18, 2016 [16 favorites]


Kevin Drum, who, for a stretch, was posting weekly lead levels:

These people desperately need to be told the truth:

What happened in Flint was a horrible, inexcusable tragedy.

Residents have every right to be furious with government at all levels.

But the health effects are, in fact, pretty minimal. With a few rare exceptions, the level of lead contamination caused by Flint's water won't cause any noticeable cognitive problems in children. It will not lower IQs or increase crime rates 20 years from now. It will not cause ADHD. It will not affect anyone's ability to play sports. It will not cause anyone's hair to fall out. It will not cause cancer. And "lead leaching" vegetables don't work....

The choices here are sickening. On the one hand, nobody wants to downplay the effects of lead poisoning, or even be viewed as downplaying them. On the other hand, feeding the hysteria surrounding Flint has real consequences. The residents of Flint should not be tormented about what's going on. They should not be flocking to therapists. They should not be gulping Xanax.

posted by jpe at 3:20 PM on October 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


What the hell is a "m/d"?

meters per day? [I know that's not it, but in SI "m" is either that or "milli-", neither of which makes any sense here]
posted by one weird trick at 3:32 PM on October 18, 2016


I think he means ug/dL, meaning micrograms per deciliter? m/d would be a nonstandard abbreviation but that seems to be how one measures blood lead levels?
posted by Wretch729 at 3:41 PM on October 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


I don't know much about them, but this whole-house filter system was one of the first results I found when I searched for "house lead filter".

There are about 100,000 people in Flint, so probably around 40,000 houses. At $200 each (servapure.com has bulk discounts!), you could buy one of these filters for every house in the city for just $8 million.

Replacement filters are around $50-$100 each, and so would represent an ongoing cost of a few million per year, depending on how long they last.

The US Congress has allocated $220 million to fix the problem, and this article complains that that's only a long-term fix that has no immediate effect.

And of course, if you live in Flint and have $250, you can just buy one of these and at least solve the problem for yourself.
posted by Hatashran at 3:51 PM on October 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


I was wary of the tone of the piece early on

I can see "grown-ass man" being problematic for some but please read on.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 3:56 PM on October 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


If God is good to me, before I die He will arrange for me to tie Rick Snyder down and shovel treatment plant sludge down his entitled, fat cat, Republican gullet.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 4:02 PM on October 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


I really wish that Flint was bigger (more enduring) national news, because there's something really important about it that has particular value to everyone especially in an election year: this is the result of Republican governance. This is not just an outlier, the result of one corrupt Republican doing horrible things; everything that happened in Flint is a direct result of the application of Republican principles. Always go lowest-bid, don't give the government the budget to fix things, ignore the poor except when you're demanding payment from them for services they aren't even receiving... and so, this.

This is what they will do everywhere (except where they actually live). People need to make that connection.
posted by IAmUnaware at 4:06 PM on October 18, 2016 [27 favorites]


I'll tell you when Flint will have unpoisoned water: NEVER.

You can take that to the bank.
posted by dbiedny at 4:26 PM on October 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Kevin Drum, who, for a stretch, was posting weekly lead levels:
Kevin Drum has some good things to say but he also made some terrible mistakes with data in his Flint reporting, like this:
"Here is this week's Flint water report. As usual, I've eliminated outlier readings above 2,000 parts per billion, since there are very few of them and they can affect the averages in misleading ways. During the week, DEQ took 103 samples. The average for the past week was 6.20." [Followed by a chart titled "Flint Water Lead Levels, Parts per Billion, Weekly."]
Those are not conditions which should cause you to drop outliers, Mr. Drum! If you have cause to believe the samples were incorrectly taken, processed, or entered, then by all means. Alternately, if dropping outliers doesn't change your results but does alter your assumptions, go ahead but explain it. Neither of those apply here!

Dropping the outliers allowed him to make pretty flat graphs that fit his mental model of what was going on. Doing so was bad science, bad reporting, and obscures an essential part of the problem that Flint's residents were facing.

What's perhaps more infuriating is that he, in a later paragraph, mentions the discarded outliers and asks questions to the sky about why there were so many of them. But that first (wrong) graph is still up there with the lede. :[

[Yes, I emailed them about being more careful with data analysis. No, I did not hear back. Yes, I'm happily an MJ subscriber and they do great work.]
posted by introp at 4:44 PM on October 18, 2016 [16 favorites]


Access to safe water should not depend on media attention. This is the reason we have government. Even when all of us turn our attention to something else, the machinery of government is supposed to continue chugging along taking care of the shit we told it to when we originally funded it. I can think of no better argument for an increased role of government and decreased reliance on voluntary donations than this senseless, continuing tragedy.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:35 PM on October 18, 2016 [13 favorites]


I don't know much about them, but this whole-house filter system was one of the first results I found when I searched for "house lead filter".

Well where were you when I needed you?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 6:51 PM on October 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


For two years, about 5 percent of the children in Flint recorded blood lead levels greater than 5 m/d. This is a very moderate level for a short period of time.

This seems potentially misleading? 5 μg/dl is not considered a "very moderate" level - that's the current definition of a level of concern. That value is set based on the assumption that it's a 97.5th percentile level - apparently it's 95th percentile in Flint. He's right about the broader context - also before leaded gasoline was phased out levels were probably above that for just about everybody, not to mention Flint is not the only place where children are exposed to way too much lead - but unless the assumption of no safe threshold for lead is incorrect it probably literally is lowering IQs in Flint compared to the average town.
posted by atoxyl at 7:30 PM on October 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


And my understanding is that the problem is not just limited to lead, the water is fairly nasty in general.
posted by fshgrl at 8:14 PM on October 18, 2016


Michigan ACLU sues schools after Flint water crisis
The ACLU of Michigan is suing school districts that serve Flint, saying there are inadequate services for the 30,000 children there who were exposed to lead through the water supply. The class action lawsuit filed Tuesday also alleges that the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is being violated by not providing ongoing screening or timely referrals for learning disabilities.
posted by XMLicious at 9:40 PM on October 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


Yet the startups and social enterprises being born on the campuses of Ivy Leagues much prefer delivering clean drinking water to the Africans in Africa. NIMBY much?
posted by infini at 2:54 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


And, let's remember, Snyder is still the Governor, and his handpicked dictators are still running Flint and other cities with a majority black population after he disbanded the democratically elected governments.

The conditions that allowed the Flint water to be poisoned are still in place and doubtless producing less obvious, but still deeply harmful, problems in minority communities.

Snyder and his cheerful gang of poisoners are not facing criminal charges, they are not suffering politically, and in fact are continuing to do quite well. The white people of Michigan who elected Snyder are not expressing any remorse over the racially motivated crimes he has committed in their name, polling seems to indicate that the Republicans will keep the state government after the 2016 elections, and generally it seems that the white people of Michigan are perfectly satisfied with the fact that their candidate set out, with malice aforethought, to cause as much pain and harm to people of color as he possibly could.

As long as black people suffer, it seems that a majority of white people will vote for their continued suffering, and no one will ever, no matter what, punish the perpetrators.
posted by sotonohito at 6:27 AM on October 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


And, let's remember, Snyder is still the Governor, and his handpicked dictators are still running Flint and other cities with a majority black population after he disbanded the democratically elected governments.

Flint was the last city in Michigan under emergency management when it ended eighteen months ago (there are still three school districts under emergency management).
posted by Etrigan at 6:44 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


My mistake, I thought he still had a few cities under his dictators.
posted by sotonohito at 7:45 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


My family still lives in Flint, I go back to visit about once a year or so. The thing I've really noticed on the last visit was how tired everyone seemed, like they had just given up. They use bottled water has the new normal and don't even seem to really notice anymore. It's very depressing to see the city you grew up in sink so low and the people be so dejected. I honestly cannot imagine a "fix" for this, it IS overwhelming. At this point I just encourage them to move.
posted by yodelingisfun at 10:22 AM on October 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


yodelingisfun,

do you think we could do a Secret quonsar for Flint this year? would it be welcomed?

not facetious, not hamburger
posted by infini at 10:58 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


how tired everyone seemed, like they had just given up.

This is part of what makes the, I'm sure we'll intentioned, responses like this:

The residents of Flint should not be tormented about what's going on. They should not be flocking to therapists.

So infuriating to me.

Why shouldn't people be traumatized? Even if only a few people suffer long term physical consequences, everyone got entered into a game of Russian roulette (officials knew anti-corrosion measures were needed before the switch), and then once they had an inkling about what was going on, officials dismissed their concerns. The people who are supposed to keep them safe actively made them less safe.
posted by ghost phoneme at 11:38 AM on October 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


Those are not conditions which should cause you to drop outliers, Mr. Drum! If you have cause to believe the samples were incorrectly taken, processed, or entered, then by all means. Alternately, if dropping outliers doesn't change your results but does alter your assumptions, go ahead but explain it. Neither of those apply here!

Dropping the outliers allowed him to make pretty flat graphs that fit his mental model of what was going on. Doing so was bad science, bad reporting, and obscures an essential part of the problem that Flint's residents were facing.


If only people remembered median! It's like all anyone remembers from math class is averages but doesn't remember that you're not supposed to use averages with skewed distributions.
posted by LizBoBiz at 1:14 PM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yet the startups and social enterprises being born on the campuses of Ivy Leagues much prefer delivering clean drinking water to the Africans in Africa. NIMBY much?

I wonder how many of those are covertly CIA-sponsored elements of programs designed to keep out the Chinese.
posted by jamjam at 2:28 PM on October 19, 2016


My mistake, I thought he still had a few cities under his dictators.
posted by sotonohito at 10:45 AM on October 19

Having read over your comment, I find nothing useful, truthful or even wise. Malice aforethought?
No thinks this, no one and luckily we have almost total freedom of expression here but those words would bring about a law suit.
Your sentiment is exactly the thing we DONT need in Flint.
posted by clavdivs at 6:02 AM on October 22, 2016


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