
EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes - dionmanu
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2017/03/17/flint/99301466/
======
rayiner
This is a disaster happening all over the country. The EPA estimates we will
need $385 billion by 2030 to modernize water infrastructure.

Putting municipalities in charge of utilities is basically a failed model.
Municipalities are too small a unit to be able to effectively take on the long
term obligations that come along with infrastructure like this, or cross
subsidize from richer residents to poorer ones. Even major cities like Chicago
are poisoning their kids (to a lesser degree) due to inability to properly
maintain infrastructure.

~~~
BurningFrog
Controversial opinion: Governments are inherently bad at managing anything
that stretches beyond the next election.

~~~
badsock
...in America. There's lots of developed countries where municipal governments
are generally well run as a rule, and while there's always grumbling things
never get this out of hand. Lead is posion, for pete's sake. Where else in the
developed world would poisoned drinking water be allowed for so long?

In Canada we had what we consider a big disaster 17 years ago:

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/inside-walkerton-canada-s-
wors...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/inside-walkerton-canada-s-worst-ever-e-
coli-contamination-1.887200)

The Premier (equivalent of a governor), was investigated by judicial inquiry,
his offices searched, people went to jail, there were payouts for damages -
and this is something that only affected a town of 5,000 people. More
importantly, it was fixed as fast as possible.

My point being: it's not that there aren't screw-ups elsewhere, it's just that
they're so rare that they cause a huge scandal and everyone runs around trying
to fix things. In America everyone just seems to just get angry at each other
and then do nothing.

So don't tar governments. They work well elsewhere. America's just doing it
wrong.

~~~
Arizhel
Exactly. The question now is: why is American government so broken, and the
corollary is: what can we do to fix it? Is American culture simply broken, so
that only utterly sociopathic people go into government? Is America just
completely filled with people who have been trained from birth to be
sociopathic, as evidenced by the way they vote?

~~~
specialist
Empowering (electing) people who cannot govern, and are in fact utterly
opposed to anyone governing, is having the expected outcome.

Because Freedom Markets[tm], booyah!

~~~
Arizhel
Yes, but that doesn't explain why our voters consistently elect such people,
while voters in other industrialized nations don't (nearly as much).

~~~
SapphireSun
America is the richest country in the world and as such attracts the best
propagandists on the free market.

American culture has a long individualist streak that distrusts authorities,
combined with our many entrenched sins regarding e.g. racism, leaves a
significant fraction of the population vulnerable to many effective forms of
propaganda... and that's just the right. Except for a few states like MA and
VT, the left consistently fails to field candidates that will fight for
ordinary people against monied interests because that's where their election
funds come from. In the past, leftists were associated with official enemies
of the state (e.g. communists, socialists) by major media organizations and
trusted authorities. Now most people here distrust their gut instincts about
fairness, inequality, the golden rule, and mutual caring.

Many forms of leftist organization were broken down and destroyed after the
upheavals of the 60s, with especially aggressive pushes by Regan, but this has
continued by both parties up to the present day with Republicans taking mainly
larger digs at the integrity of the public trust. This story continues with
rather emphasized savagery into the present day starting in 2017.

However, this is an interesting moment where it seems there is a big fight
brewing between truly breathtakingly rapacious greed and a significant
fraction of the public. It will be interesting to see who wins in the coming
decades - it may determine the fate of the planet's suitability for human
life.

------
pstuart
And how much did the city originally "save"?

This affair should be poster child for being pennywise and pound foolish with
our infrastructure.

~~~
maxerickson
Framing it that way misses an important part of the story.

It was the institutional and regulatory failure during the switch away from
Detroit city water that made the lead an emergency. Part of the reason that
happened is that Flint had depopulated and was basically a failed city. It's
not acceptable that it happened, but it didn't happen just because Flint was
trying to skimp on infrastructure 40,50,60 years ago.

~~~
diogenescynic
You're acting like this was forced on them from budget cuts. The city manager
was warned about exactly this happening and still went ahead and did it
because it was the city manager is appointed by their corrupt Republican
governor [1]. The city manager should not have been able to make those
decisions without a much more thorough vetting process.

1:
[http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2016/02/flint_wate...](http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2016/02/flint_water_supervisor_warned.html)

~~~
bpodgursky
The city manager was only appointed after Flint became effectively a failed
city, and the state took over management.

In the US, cities manage their own municipal services including water
supplies. The state only intervenes when the city runs out of money to provide
basic services to their inhabitants -- and this happens very rarely.

If Flint had had a functioning government, the state appointees would have had
nothing to do with the water supply.

It's a tragedy what happened, but at the point a city is unable to provide the
most basic of services to its citizens like clean water, I think we need to
consider whether it is worth pumping money into a city, or just call it quits
and provide relocation funds to the remaining inhabitants, to get them to a
region with actual economic activity.

~~~
macawfish
Relocated like cattle to another pasture? I can't for the life of me
understand this philosophy that financial economy under-girds life.

~~~
malandrew
So you're proposing we throw good money after bad?

The city failed. It it's not financially feasible to fix it so it is self-
sustainable at a level of investment that can be paid back in a reasonable
amount of time, relocating is a perfectly acceptable proposal.

People have every right to stay there if they can afford to do so, but if they
are going to ask others for financial help bailing them out, it's not in the
least bit unreasonable for those spending the money to do so to dictate how
that money is spent. If the city has no hope of recovery, then saying the
money can only be used for relocation is perfectly acceptable. What's not
acceptable is expecting others to support your unsustainable city in
perpetuity.

~~~
macawfish
I'm proposing we throw good money into basic human necessities instead of
investing in weapons, and that our measures of success be linked to human
health and wellbeing, not to level of absolute exploitation.

~~~
koolba
Who said anything about weapons?

The point being argued is that rather than spend $100M to fix a broken city,
spend it to relocate the former residents elsewhere.

~~~
macawfish
The President of the United States just proposed to raise the defense budget
by $54 billion. That's 540x this fix in a single year.

~~~
malandrew
While I don't agree on our defense spending budget and I'd love for us to cut
back, there are a few things worth pointing out.

1) money spent on defense is orthogonal to the argument being made. Your point
is a good one, but it still doesn't refute the point that it's good money
following bad money.

2) While I don't think it's the best industry that we could be investing in,
many people see defense spending as investing in the American people. One of
the chief exports of the US is war, defense and weaponry. Lots of countries
our customers of the US and there are lots of towns and cities that would be
economically hurt (to the point of dying like Flynt) depending on how our
defense spending was cut.

------
refurb
_where lead-contaminated water damaged service lines._

This is wrong isn't it? My understanding is they changed water sources, which
changed the pH, which resulted in lead being leeched out of pipes.

~~~
lisper
Yes, you're right: the original piece got the causality backwards.

------
clumsysmurf
Flint is one of thousands of places in the US with poisonous levels of lead. I
wonder how this administration plans on dealing with it:

[http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-
lead-...](http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-lead-
testing/)

~~~
stouset
> I wonder how this administration plans on dealing with it.

That's a pretty bold assumption you're making in that statement.

~~~
huehehue
fwiw I don't really see anything inflammatory in the parent's statement, or
any indication that they feel the current administration is any more/less
equipped than previous ones to deal with the water crisis.

~~~
jacobolus
The parent comment’s implication is that the administration does not have any
plan for dealing with the problem. It was phrased in a sarcastic/jokey way,
which doesn’t always read clearly on the internet.

~~~
pharrlax
I wonder how you came to that conclusion.

(I am not implying you did not come to that conclusion.)

~~~
stouset
To be fair, his interpretation was my original intent. The "bold assumption"
being that this administration has a plan or has any interest in developing a
plan to deal with lead in thousands of municipalities' drinking water.

------
dmode
Good thing this was approved by the previous administration. The next Flint
will most likely receive a tank to protect itself from rioters, given the EPA
cuts and further bloated defense budget

~~~
d--b
Flint is the symbol of mid-West's de-industrialization. Since this
administration has vowed to give these people's jobs back, you can be sure
that they're going to make sure Flint is better off in 4 years than it is now.
So giving them federal money to fix their water pipes is a great way to be the
good guys. They're going to be able to hire a bunch of people to fix it, and
solve a health problem at the same time.

I'd be more worried about my water quality if I lived in a region with a lot
of shale oil drilling...

~~~
polack
I think you have missed the fact that this money was given during the Obama
administration. Since Trump have cut funding to the EPA it's hard to believe
that all the "Flints" out there will have it better after 4 years...

~~~
adventured
EPA 2016 budget: $8.16 billion

How many Flints were you planning to repair with the minuscule discretionary
part of that?

The EPA has never had the budget required to build and rebuild hundreds of
billions in infrastructure.

The "Flints" in the US will be better off when the US starts focusing on
infrastructure as a critical spending necessity again.

------
joshmn
Anyone feel like this is a political move to say "hey, we're good people, keep
us around and make sure your congress(wo)man knows hears about it"

Not a bad thing by any means, but heaven forbid it took them this long.

~~~
hawkice
This was put into effect under Obama, it seems, by the Water Infrastructure
Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016, an act introduced and sponsored by a
Texan Republican.

[https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-
bill/612...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-
bill/612/text)

------
nafizh
As I suspected this was signed by President Obama.

------
dbg31415
Relevant:

* The Real Reason Your City Has No Money — Strong Towns || [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money)

* Why Many Cities Have No Money | Hacker News || [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13370310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13370310)

~~~
CountSessine
Strong towns makes a compelling argument that the reason we've invested so
poorly in infrastructure that we can't possibly hope to maintain is that we
don't conduct government business using accrual accounting. I wonder - do
local governments anywhere use accrual accounting? It would be so much harder
for government to spend money we don't have with good accounting practices in
place, which leads me to believe that this is uncommon.

------
overcast
"The state of Michigan is contributing matching funds of $20 million for a
total award of $120 million."

So, not really matching?

~~~
dragonwriter
"matching funds" can (and very often do) have matching ratios other than 1:1;
it's the general term for a required proportional cobtribution.

~~~
overcast
Then I would have clarified that sentence, by saying matching funds UP TO $20
million. If my employer says they are matching my 401k contribution, I'd
expect that is 1:1, not a hidden, oh we really only meant 20%. I'm just being
pedantic.

~~~
neuronexmachina
You'd be assuming poorly, then. The most common 401k(k) matching is actually
50%.

~~~
overcast
So you would just go into a 401k plan assuming 50%? My company has ZERO
matching for 401k. You'd be assuming poorly, then.

------
Dowwie
Is anyone using an under-sink water filtration system? If not, why?

------
svsjc
Looks like Trump administration is really doing something for the poor of
flint.

~~~
gloverkcn
Except it was Obama pressuring congress. The legislation was passed in
December

[http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/17/politics/epa-100-million-
flint...](http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/17/politics/epa-100-million-flint/)

~~~
svsjc
If he had done this in last two years when the problem came out, the election
result may have been different.

~~~
sumedh
How about first admitting that you were wrong in crediting Trump for this?

~~~
gloverkcn
I've now seen this devolution in argument a number of times. Here, Facebook,
and Reddit

Trump Supporter: Look what Trump Did!

Answer: Obama Pressured Congress, the bill was passed in December

-Obama waited till he was on his way out so what's the point. He was ineffective.

Answer: Actually the legislation was drafted much earlier, but republicans
didn't want to pass it. Obama used his office to raise the profile of the
crisis to help convince Republicans to get on board.. Congress hands out
Money, not the President

-So Obama fixed his own mistake in poisoning Flints water. A lot of good the EPA does.

Answer: Actually it was a Republican governor who assigned "emergency
managers" to take over Flint. He superceded the democratically elected Mayor.
The new managers shifted the water source from Detroit to the Flint Michigan.
The EPA told them they needed corrosion controls, but the response was by the
managers was there was no law requiring the controls. Flint was a financial
disaster before, but the emergency managers came in and started doing whatever
they wanted regardless of the outcome.

\- So the EPA just let it happen.

Answer: The EPA escalated up the chain of command. The argument went on for
six months, but they didn't hold press conferences with news organizations,
which was probably their last option.

-Because the EPA is ineffective, and that's why it's funding should be cut! Totally Useless!

The final answer from Trump supporters is either a) you can't stop another
Flint Water issue so just get rid of the EPA, or b)getting rid of all
regulations will allow the free market to naturally fix the issues.

It's no longer possible to have rational discussions. Anything positive is
directly attributed to Trump, and anything negative is the fault of Obama.

~~~
sumedh
I think you replied to the wrong guy, you should reply to user
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=svsjc](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=svsjc)

------
perseusprime11
This is great news from my vantage point. a +1 for Trump and his team for
taking care of this mess. Throwing a lot of money may not be the right
solution but it does fix a lot of pipes.

~~~
mattnewton
From the article: > The funding was approved by Congress in December and
signed into law by President Barack Obama, but the EPA had to review and
approve a formal request from state officials detailing how the city intends
to use the grant money.

