I saw the Netflix series, and they did not explain that as explicitly as you have. How much would it cost, do you think, to replace all of the lead pipes? The federal government has that kind of money to throw around - and the military can build stuff, did you know? [Insert Romans were soldiers AND builders; as were the Normans; as are the Russians actually]
It's a conundrum, especially as each batch of 'new' elected council-members want to leave their mark - and often those turn into over-budget projects 'for the community', that is: weird, architecturally designed structures to be library/'information hubs', while no-one attempts to make sense of the rabbit-warren that is the underground infrastructure. Those pipes are the easiest thing to forget to check, actually.
There are archeological sites in Turkey, where the Romans had built a white, shining city, and it was abandoned once the water infrastructure failed. People did not bother to live in a beautiful city where the water did not work. So, just think on that, for a second.
Problem is, that using a silica mineral in the water to 'seal' the pipes is not maintenance, it's a plaster. And such last-minute actions can have devastating consequences when administrations are busy scheming to take fund-raising money away from the police because of a Marxist plant in their midst believes that defunding the police will solve crime and release more money for 'something else'. And that's the problem. Possibly, the spiking crime can be an issue for the Federal government, if they choose to go there, just saying.
No-one is able to decode the history of those pipes from aging paperwork that is mostly a mystery, even to qualified building inspectors - people did not really keep records in those days, like we are used to now. The records will be single sheets of paper with unintelligible signatures and some ticks, maybe a site-map if you are lucky.
The historical pipes map would require a qualified team of auditors just to find all the paperwork, and even then the map would still be patchy. Furthermore, the technology is there to map the infrastructure from physical surveys, but the money isn't. [Hello Federal government - are you going to build a new city, or are you going to replace just the infrastructure and let the people re-build the rest?]
IMO, one needs to start again, with a new water network made to code - By all means remove the lead if you find it, but otherwise, just abandon it. Just as one would raze a building and start again - which is cheaper than doing it in bits, and less dangerous than relying on some old maintenance man to remember to biff in the plaster, while everyone drinks and showers in leaded water.
But fundamentally, it is the fault of lies, and cover-ups and narcissism within the city administration. OSHA standards are for cissies and all that. Not quite an insurrection to ignore, but murderous when one takes into account what lead does to human bodies when ingested.
If they don't make a new infrastructure in Flint, the city will only die. IMO, it is the only issue, and it's existential. If the people keep voting for cougar sloganeering Marxists (power to the people) or the more insidious let's restructure, 'efficiency and effectiveness'; been-to-Stanford, watched TEDx merchants, then more fool those voters.
What they need in the council, are planners, drainlayers, plumbers, and the will, and people's agreement, to dig up all the streets. Something about cleaning up the place so that people will want to live there and pay rates, and have a functioning city council that picks up the rubbish and administers the infrastructure. Forget about all the bells and whistles.
I saw the Netflix series, and they did not explain that as explicitly as you have. How much would it cost, do you think, to replace all of the lead pipes? The federal government has that kind of money to throw around - and the military can build stuff, did you know? [Insert Romans were soldiers AND builders; as were the Normans; as are the Russians actually]
It's a conundrum, especially as each batch of 'new' elected council-members want to leave their mark - and often those turn into over-budget projects 'for the community', that is: weird, architecturally designed structures to be library/'information hubs', while no-one attempts to make sense of the rabbit-warren that is the underground infrastructure. Those pipes are the easiest thing to forget to check, actually.
There are archeological sites in Turkey, where the Romans had built a white, shining city, and it was abandoned once the water infrastructure failed. People did not bother to live in a beautiful city where the water did not work. So, just think on that, for a second.
Problem is, that using a silica mineral in the water to 'seal' the pipes is not maintenance, it's a plaster. And such last-minute actions can have devastating consequences when administrations are busy scheming to take fund-raising money away from the police because of a Marxist plant in their midst believes that defunding the police will solve crime and release more money for 'something else'. And that's the problem. Possibly, the spiking crime can be an issue for the Federal government, if they choose to go there, just saying.
No-one is able to decode the history of those pipes from aging paperwork that is mostly a mystery, even to qualified building inspectors - people did not really keep records in those days, like we are used to now. The records will be single sheets of paper with unintelligible signatures and some ticks, maybe a site-map if you are lucky.
The historical pipes map would require a qualified team of auditors just to find all the paperwork, and even then the map would still be patchy. Furthermore, the technology is there to map the infrastructure from physical surveys, but the money isn't. [Hello Federal government - are you going to build a new city, or are you going to replace just the infrastructure and let the people re-build the rest?]
IMO, one needs to start again, with a new water network made to code - By all means remove the lead if you find it, but otherwise, just abandon it. Just as one would raze a building and start again - which is cheaper than doing it in bits, and less dangerous than relying on some old maintenance man to remember to biff in the plaster, while everyone drinks and showers in leaded water.
But fundamentally, it is the fault of lies, and cover-ups and narcissism within the city administration. OSHA standards are for cissies and all that. Not quite an insurrection to ignore, but murderous when one takes into account what lead does to human bodies when ingested.
If they don't make a new infrastructure in Flint, the city will only die. IMO, it is the only issue, and it's existential. If the people keep voting for cougar sloganeering Marxists (power to the people) or the more insidious let's restructure, 'efficiency and effectiveness'; been-to-Stanford, watched TEDx merchants, then more fool those voters.
What they need in the council, are planners, drainlayers, plumbers, and the will, and people's agreement, to dig up all the streets. Something about cleaning up the place so that people will want to live there and pay rates, and have a functioning city council that picks up the rubbish and administers the infrastructure. Forget about all the bells and whistles.