
Flint Officials Could Have Prevented Lead Crisis for $80 a Day - jayess
http://www.mintpressnews.com/flint-officials-could-have-prevented-lead-crisis-for-80-a-day/213462/
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bobby_9x
The problem is the lead in the pipes. Flint was mis-managed years before
Snyder appointed an emergency manager.

Even kwami kilpatrick, the ex-mayor of detroit who is now in prison, said he
knew about the water problems when he was in office.

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artlogic
You've probably lived somewhere with leaded pipes. They are very common.
Across the country we are working to replace leaded pipes when we can, but the
problem is very complex. As it turns out, it's much more cost-effective to
treat water than embark upon giant infrastructure projects. Simply put, the
MDEQ, and the EPA should have known to treat the water, which would have kept
the lead from leeching into the water. Unfortunately, this wasn't done, and
now the pipes are damaged - perhaps beyond repair.

Despite the above, the water problems in Flint can't be attributed to a single
thing, but rather a culmination of failures in state and local government best
described as a problem of culture. Instead of a culture of openness and
communication, there are indications the state, and to a lesser degree, the
local government embraced a culture of only communicating good news and
spinning or squashing bad news - even internally.

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Tempest1981
So they didn't follow the rules, and bad things happened? Each of us can
probably think of a time when we didn't follow the rules, usually for more
minor things (speed limits, etc).

Something about politicians/bureaucrats makes them bold enough to think that
rules don't apply to them, but on a totally different scale. I would like to
understand why -- does anybody know?

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dalke
It's not just "the rules", but a cascading set of rules, and deliberately
ignoring or rejecting the feedback mechanisms which identity that "bad things"
happened.

It would be more like breaking the speed limit, ignoring the flashing sign
telling you your speed, outrunning the cop car, crashing through the barricade
set to stop you, not making the corner because you were going too fast, and
crashing into the schoolyard, all while on the phone explaining to the press
that the radar detector and speed cameras were miscalibrated and you were
going at the speed limit.

> "I would like to understand why."

That is too complicated for HN. Why are people loyal to a sports team, and in
some cases willing to overlook a coach's child molestation or player who is a
rapist or thief? Why did the US switch from the spoils system to a civil
service system? Why is there organizational retaliatory behavior towards
whistle-blowers or those that file sexual harassment complaints?

Even without a definite "why", I think these are all expressions of frequent
human tendencies. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_of_reciprocity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_of_reciprocity)
for one starting place.

