
Not just Flint: Poor communities across the country live with extreme polluters - privong
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/27/its-not-just-flint-poor-communities-across-the-country-live-with-extreme-polluters/
======
fennecfoxen
> what was particularly striking was... the highest polluting facilities were
> also more likely to be located in proximity to poor and minority
> neighborhoods.

This is what's "particularly striking"? There's only one substantial class of
people who would knowingly live near extreme pollution: people who can't
afford to move away. The most trivial of logic dictates that if anyone is
living near extreme pollution, there's a substantial probability they're poor.

Now, that said, news about this new study saying that the problem is bad that
quantifies the problem, tells us why it's worse than these EJ scholars
suspected, or even just a reminder that this is bad and these peoples' lives
should be improved, sure, go ahead... but the above statement of shock
detracts from that, I should think.

~~~
hkmurakami
Beijing came to mind as a counter example, but I'm not sure what conclusions
we can draw from it.

~~~
crdoconnor
Beijing's smog is just the tip of the iceberg. China has the same problem:

[https://www.vice.com/read/photographs-of-chinas-cancer-
villa...](https://www.vice.com/read/photographs-of-chinas-cancer-villages)

"These are entire villages where every other house contains someone dying of
cancer or some sort of respiratory problem."

Free trade sure is great.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Like it or not, people prefer wealth with a risk of cancer to rural poverty.
If they didn't, they would remain in their remote rural villages instead of
flocking _into_ the highly polluted factory areas.

Delhi is another example of this (it's 3x worse than Beijing right now). I
hate the place; this month it was so polluted that I couldn't see across my
office complex. But if you use violence to force the Biharis to stay home
(i.e., give up free trade) you'll have a riot on your hands.

Yeah, free trade is in fact better than dire poverty, which is the
alternative.

~~~
digikata
You're assuming people have perfect foresight into their risks moving to such
an area - they don't. Your also ignoring that sometimes the pollution moves to
where people already live. The reasonable choice is to work towards advancing
standards for everyone worldwide. Sometimes the advances will come organically
delivered by free markets, and sometimes they'll have to be regulatory
(closing down externalities ignored/un-priced by markets). The choice
certainly isn't free trade or dire poverty in the long run.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Anyone with eyes has a pretty good idea that they are walking into a toxic
soup. I left Delhi on the 22nd - this picture is pretty accurate:

[http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2343988/images/o-DELHI-AIR-
POLLUTI...](http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2343988/images/o-DELHI-AIR-POLLUTION-
facebook.jpg)

Or, back in July (before things got bad) I could do maybe 10 suicide sprints
in NY. Then I flew into Delhi and was down to 4 - breathing was just that
hard.

I know there are lots of jokes about Biharis, but they aren't as stupid as you
are making them out to be. They move to Delhi with good but imperfect
information about both the pollution and the economic opportunity.

I'm all in favor of pollution taxes and internalizing externalities. I'm just
saying that even in spite of that, the economic gains seem to drastically
outweigh the health penalties as evidenced by millions of people moving
_towards_ the pollution.

------
ams6110
The problem in Flint is not that the river is polluted it is that the pH of
the river water is causing lead from old pipes and fittings to leach into the
water. It's not really a good example of the general subject of the story.

~~~
partiallypro
I too was confused why they tried to tie the two events together. The lead
pipes had formed a coating (and this is true in other locations too) that made
them nontoxic but when they were flushed with acidic water (as the water
treatment plant did) they shed that lining and it began washing through the
lead and putting it into the lines. The lines had operated fine with water
from a different location that had different pH levels, but pH variation is
common without pollution, so blaming this on pollution is a bit nonsensical.

When it comes to the article, it makes sense that pollution would be in poorer
areas. Pollution lowers property value, which allows poorer individuals to
live there. Or the area could have already been poor and they are unable to
afford to leave.

I'm not sure who is to blame for the Flint crisis tbh, there seems to be a lot
of finger pointing and politicizing. I have yet to find a source that wasn't
biased one way or the other, which is sad. People just want answers and for it
to be fixed.

~~~
rickdale
_The lines had operated fine with water from a different location that had
different pH levels_

Actually one of the talking points is that no one will talk about lead levels
before they switched the water from Detroit to Flint river. But its not as bad
as it is now obviously. . . Does building this 'coat' back up work? How long
does that take?

~~~
partiallypro
I'm no expert, but I assume it takes long enough to where they are just going
to have to replace all the lead pipes and fittings.

That talking point you mention could be true, or it could be a way for the
state level government to dish it back to the local government. Who knows. To
me it seems like the municipality screwed this up more than the state, but
like I said it's virtually impossible to find an unbiased news source with the
whole story; they both no doubt have a role. Even this very story is
politically driven, it could be misleading in its urgency to drive
clicks/narrative. Happens all the time with various things in the news (like
the claim of x drug use among teens, etc.)

Hopefully there is a non-partisan investigation from the Federal level on the
Flint fiasco.

~~~
rickdale
I agree. In one sense, there is no way this was an intended consequence. On
the other hand, it would be tough to convince me to drink treated flint river
water, and I thought that long before they switched the water. (I'm from the
area). My gut feeling is the state, the local, and everyone in between is to
blame. You are spot on with the politicizing too, its out of control.

------
sandworm101
But is Flint a pollution problem? From what I've been reading the real failure
in Flint was that they are still using lead pipes. It was a series of
decisions that sent corrosive water down old pipes, water that may have been
safe in non-lead pipes. That seems more a management and/or infrastructure
problem: Bad, but without the monty burns villain dumping stuff into lakes. So
I'm not sure there is a direct comparison to be made between Flint and
something like love canal.

------
ojii
Don't worry, the free market will solve it. Keep cutting taxes and remove
regulations.

~~~
bsbechtel
Actually, the failure of a government monopoly left all of these people
without a viable alternative. The Flint water crisis was a failure of
government, not the free market. It's actually what happens when the
government argues that basic necessities are so important, the government
needs to handle the provision of them to guarantee everyone has access, until
they can't handle it anymore.

~~~
crdoconnor
Water provision is a natural monopoly. If you hand over natural monopolies to
the private sector they raise prices and cut costs as much as the regulators
will allow them to and pocket the difference as profit.

State monopolies are often intentionally neglected or damaged by bought out
politicians as a way to make privatization and the subsequent profit
extraction more palatable to a suspicious public. That's also where all this
"free markets sure are great" propaganda comes from.

This is a similar process to what Russia went through in the 90s. They were
encouraged to embrace the free market by Harvard "economists" (free market
priests) like Larry Summers. They were told that this process would lead to a
new age of prosperity for Russia. It didn't.

The net result was to haemorrhage their economy and enabled the oligarchs to
walk off with billions of dollars in state assets at knock down prices.

~~~
bsbechtel
Actually, it's not. The idea of a natural monopoly is something that was made
up to justify state takeovers of certain key services. If a natural monopoly
actually existed, we wouldn't have Google Fiber expanding across the country,
because it wouldn't be cost effective to do so. In fact, Google Fiber's
biggest impediment to expansion has been government regulators. The same goes
with water provision - if it was a natural monopoly, we wouldn't have
alternatives such as bottled water available on the market (which thank
goodness we do to provide to the citizens of Flint right now). Using Russia as
an example of free market failures is like using Communist China as an example
of what the free market will do to wages if we don't implement a minimum wage
here in the States.

~~~
crdoconnor
>If a natural monopoly actually existed, we wouldn't have Google Fiber
expanding across the country

Internet access isn't a natural monopoly, it just has very, very, very, very
high barriers to entry. You actually can run multiple cables down the same
pipe easily enough (unlike water).

It still approximates a monopoly, as can be seen by the fact that the barriers
to entry have prevented even a company like Google with exceptionally deep
pockets from muscling in.

>In fact, Google Fiber's biggest impediment to expansion has been government
regulators.

Did you really think Verizon and Comcast were going to let their duopoly go
without a fight?

>The same goes with water provision - if it was a natural monopoly, we
wouldn't have alternatives such as bottled water available on the market

Bottled water is an entirely different market with a very limited level of
substitution with tap water.

>Using Russia as an example of free market failures

Is entirely appropriate since they were advised by elite "free market
economists" (the kind whom you would cite as justification for your opinions)
to follow the policy course that they did.

Unlike China, which followed the advice of its own (rather smarter)
economists.

~~~
bsbechtel
Fiber internet was installed in my parent's neighborhood a few months ago. It
involved multiple crews digging trenches through EVERYONE's backyard, taking
more than a month to complete. I don't know where they run multiple cables
down the same pipe, but it certainly isn't where my parents live.

Back to the original point, somehow or another, people managed to get water
before the City of Flint decided it was something they needed to control. The
City did not come into being because the City Government had started providing
water.

Furthermore, the citizens of Flint right now are being forced to pay for water
that they can't use, because it is part of their city utility bills. They
can't refuse service, unlike a natural monopoly where the customer could still
refuse to purchase the product if it wasn't sufficient to meet his or her
needs. This is the worst part of a government monopoly, and the risk we all
face when the government fails to provide a service it has promised us.

------
tn13
I am in Sunnyvale and my tap water is testing positive for pesticides.

------
littletimmy
As a non-american, this is so strange. Doesn't the US have pollution laws that
say you cannot pollute near where people live? That seems to me like a very
fundamental responsibility of the state.

~~~
dalke
Your posting history suggests to me that you know the answer already. At the
very least, you have a much more intimate knowledge of US laws and politics
than your question, which is posed as a complete outsider, implies.

For example, you post about political "ponerology (study of evil in politics)"
(
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10548272](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10548272)
), and bring up economics often. You also have a non-trivial knowledge of US
political history, as with this comment at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10404379](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10404379)
:

> That's false, because the Democratic party today encapsulates both the old
> Republican and the old Democratic party. Hillary Clinton is essentially an
> Eisenhower Republican (if you place her into any European country she's in
> their conservative party), and Warren/Sanders are the left wing group.

> The republican party of today is essentially a business lobby masquerading
> as a party. Place it into any European country, and it will be a far right
> extremist group.

Did you learn American political history from going to school at Dartmouth? I
think it's odd you didn't learn about any of the pollution laws during that
time.

You also have pretty firm ideas on the topic already, based on your comments
at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10142290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10142290):

> The US is a dystopia, no surprises there. What a shame that all humans are
> anymore are an outpost of corporate greed.

and at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10440304](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10440304)
:

> The more I think about it, the more I believe that the United States is the
> worst place to live if you are poor.

> There are places that are poorer, hell I'm from a third world country. But
> I've never seen anyone in the third world show utter contempt for the poor.
> No one keeps reminding the poor that it's their fault. We call them
> "unfortunate", Americans call them "losers".

(I'll note that two people, one with experience from India - where you are
from - and Bangladesh, and the other with experience from Islamabad,
disagree.)

I see you are familiar with being downvoted, such as like
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10411502](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10411502)
where you propose "We should engage in a culling of humans." Then again,
perhaps I am simply part of the "political-myopia of tech culture" that you
bemoaned about at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10516056](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10516056)
.

~~~
littletimmy
Well, no. I do not know anything about US laws. I do know stuff about US
politics and history, however. I also know stuff about British history, but
not British laws. What's the point of this long list you've compiled?

~~~
dalke
I don't think it takes an Ivy League education to understand the point.

I start with the observation that your question here expresses an outsider
naïveté which does not match your historical comments. I give evidence. I
demonstrate that you have close knowledge of American culture - enough to have
made firm statements on the topic. Indeed, you have made statements which
already answer the question you've asked. I also commented that others have
disagreed with your views, including through downvotes and personal
experience.

I also gave details so that others might be able to answer your question while
taking your views in mind.

~~~
littletimmy
You're being ridiculous. My question was about US laws, which is non-general
information and also constantly changing.

I claimed I have no knowledge about it, and asked if someone else did. What is
your problem with that? You aren't even contributing to the conversation. Do
you honestly have nothing better to do than to attack random people on the
internet? Please get a life.

~~~
dalke
I cannot seriously believe that you think the US doesn't "have pollution laws
that say you cannot pollute near where people live." The existence of those
laws is general information, including
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_environmental_la...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_environmental_law)
, and relatively constant.

Your comment history shows that you think the US is a distopia, and "the worst
place to live if you are poor." If you really believe that, then why are you
asking the question when you know the answer? The WaPo article title even
includes "Poor communities across the country live with ‘extreme’ polluters",
which is in line with your understanding of the US.

I do not see how I can contribute to the conversation when there appears to be
a strong dichotomy between your question and your background understanding.
But another way to contribute is to help other commenters understand where
you're coming from. And of course, some conversations are not worth pursing.

Why would I think you are attacking random people? I never said that, nor is
it something I believe. Though telling me to "Please get a life" does come
close to being an attack, no?

~~~
littletimmy
Dude, you have an inordinate amount of time on your hands and you're obsessed
with me. I don't want a stalker. I'm out.

~~~
dalke
Again with the personal attacks? And egocentric to boot.

FWIW, nearly every HN commenter, or at least those who post as often as you or
I, has an inordinate amount of spare time.

Also, I see you've used "I'm out" before. As I mentioned earlier, you derided
the 'political-myopia of tech culture' here on HN. Later in that thread,
maxerickson at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10519360](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10519360)
wrote:

> I was pointing out that what you said about value was not an argument
> against economics (because economics doesn't care about what form value
> takes).

> You keep looking for a word other than value to describe this thing that you
> think should happen because then I can't point out that you can analyze it
> economically, but this is not a way to argue that education should not be
> analyzed economically, it is a misunderstanding of economics (it was really
> clear when stated as "Value" is not only monetary, but "we should do it just
> because" is still an imputation of value...).

You decided, incorrectly IMO, to describe it as "a last-word-mine argument",
and ended the thread with "I'm out".

My interpretation of both exchanges is that you don't like it when people
point out apparent inconsistencies in what you wrote.

(BTW, for those in the future who, like I, sometimes review someone's back
history before commenting - hi!)

~~~
littletimmy
You got the last word in, congrats! Hope your life is more meaningful now.

------
xufi
Not surprised. I was reading about a town in Kentucky where they polluted the
local air by having all these old facotries that were still being in use

