Our Precious Water Cannot Be Taken For Granted – In Flint, Michigan People Are Sick From Drinking And Showering In Their Water – It Is A National Disgrace.

by Pamela Williams
The media is keeping quiet about the devastation in Flint, Michigan.  It is only being reported by a few news outlets. The stories of suffering from Flint residents seem to be unbelievable in a country like America, given its level of resources.  President Trump has spoken about rebuilding our Nation’s infrastructure, and now I realize how much this is needed.  Every citizen in this Country has a right to drink and bathe in clean water.  No child should be threatened with lead poison by worn out pipes.
One senior citizen reports she has lived in Flint since 1963 and now feels abandoned and confused after receiving a water bill for $1099.09, which officials from the water department alleged was issued to her, because she had been “undercharged.”  She reports:  “I’ve written letters, I’ve gone to the city’s Board of Review, I’ve called on my city council member- I’ve gotten nowhere,” said Mary Huddleston, a 76 year-old widow who lives alone.  She further states she barely uses any water at all.
Huddleston continued: “I keep making payments each month—just enough to keep the water on so I can flush my toilet, but I don’t wash much and only shower once a week. My hair began coming out from using the shower so I have to do it with bottled water that the city gave us. One day my water bill was $151. Then, after new meters were installed, it jumped to over $1,000.”
She has been diagnosed with several respiratory illnesses and said she believes the illnesses are a result of drinking and using contaminated water.  This elderly lady feels like she is being forced to pay other’s bills.  On top of that, it is a disgrace, an American tragedy that her water is still contaminated.  
Can you imagine not being able to take a shower when the sweat begins to cover your body from hard work or the heat of the summer?  I can’t, and I know I could not tolerate that situation for long.  I am one who does not take this luxury of granted.  I do consider every blessing a luxury, as so many in the world do not have clean water or enough of it.  After reporting on the crisis in Flint, I am more thankful than ever for my clean water.
A federal state of emergency was declared in January 2016, and Flint residents were instructed to use only bottled or filtered water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and bathing.  How in the world can one have enough bottled water to shower?  How many bottles would that take?  How can they afford or even handle all the bottles of water it would take to sustain their needs?  How they have suffered!
Residents have been told that they should use bottled or filtered water until all the lead pipes have been replaced—something that won’t be completed any sooner than 2020— in another three years.  “Flint will soon become a ghost town,” Huddleston said. “But I can’t go anywhere. I have nowhere to go. They talk about all this money being donated to help us. I don’t know where it’s going, but I sure haven’t gotten a call.”
 
President Trump has met with Mayor Karen Weaver, who has criticized state and federal officials for lack of response during the water scandal, said she was “thankful” that he reached out to her to “discuss the Flint Water Crisis.”
She went on to say, “I will be asking the President to do all things within his power to make our city whole and great again after the horrific man-made injustice that was caused here. I will not rest until the residents and businesses that I have the pleasure of serving are able to drink, cook, and bathe with water straight from the tap which is a basic Human Right!,” she said.  I certainly agree with her.  It is a basic human right to have clean water to drink and bathe in.
 
The following is a report from:  www.redstate.com/tony-sarc/2017/03/19/trump-epa-drops-bomb-flint-water-crisis/
Trump EPA Goes A Long Way to Solving Flint Water Crisis; Media Silent.
The following story ran in the DETROIT NEWS:  www.detroitnews.com/story/news/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2017/03/17/flint/99301466/
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $100 million to help fund infrastructure upgrades in Flint amid the city’s crisis with lead-tainted water.
The grant announced Friday was promised to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality by Congress in December.
It aims to help Flint accelerate and expand its work to replace lead water service lines and fund other critical water infrastructure improvements.
The city switched to untreated Flint River water in 2014, resulting in lead being leached from pipes into the water supply. Flint returned to Detroit’s water system in 2015, but residents still must use filters or bottled water while authorities make the system safe.
Mayor Karen Weaver said in a statement that the much-needed money will help Flint reach a goal of replacing 6,000 pipes this year.
 
RedState is reporting the media is silent in order to make President Trump look bad.  They report the following:
While the funds were granted by Congress and President Obama in December, Trump’s EPA had the opportunity to cancel or reduce the order.  Congressional leaders have hinted that the order was a plan to get Trump’s administration started on the right foot.  What is important to note though is the complete lack of coverage on this topic.
How many total articles and/or pieces do you think were done by CBS, NBC, ABC, or any of their subsidieries?  How many articles do you think appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times or Los Angeles Times?  If you guessed anything other than ZERO, you’re wrong.
People may argue that this was a decision made by the Obama Administration, but so was lowering the mortgage insurance rate and putting a halt on DAPL.  Trump reversed both of those decisions and was eviscerated by the media.  On top of that Trump’s EPA had to still make the final approval of the funds.  Had Trump reversed it, how many articles do you think would have been written about it?  How much time would the media have dedicated to it?
Yet the media is so against giving Trump even the slightest victory, they won’t even cover the news of this approval.  The same media who lied to the American people about “evidence” they had of Trump colluding with the Russians to affect the outcome of an election, has literally ZERO problem with promoting negative stories and burying positive ones, in the interest of influencing the public’s opinion of Trump.  They couldn’t spare a fraction of a second to appropriately inform the people of a real event because they KNEW, it might play positively for Trump.  Anyone unwilling to admit that this is the case, would also have to admit that had he denied the funding, there wouldn’t have been a story, which we all know, is completely friggin’ insane to accept.
 
I agree with RedState’s report of how the media reports all things negative about Trump, but fail to report anything positive.  Lets continue to explore the Flint Water Crisis.
 

There are more problems Flint is facing now. The situation has slowly improved since the toxic lead outbreak in the city’s water supply in 2015, residents are still dealing with the aftershocks of the contamination. The people of Flint are still being told not to drink the water and to continue using filters. And although the city said it would aim to replace at least 6,000 lead water lines this year, thousands more remain, said Weaver.
It sounds insurmountable; nevertheless, the people of Flint must continue to fight for clean water. The city ‘s problems didn’t stop with the lead-tainted water. Secondary problems have appeared as a result of not having enough clean water available:

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  1.  Residents last year faced an outbreak of Legionnaire disease, leading to several deaths, as well as a rash of shigellosis, a bacterial illness frequently associated with poor hand washing hygiene.
  2. The state recently pulled financial credits it was providing residents to pay for water. They are now being asked to pay full price for water that is still not safe to drink and requires filtering.
  3. Officials have been charged.  Corinne Miller, the former director of epidemiology at the Department of Health and Human Services is on probation.    

This is an absolute outrage!  By the way, I want to point out it has been difficult to find up-to-date information on the current state of this problem.  The media is basically being silent, and this is one of the most important stories that is facing our Country.  And adding to the horror of it all, it seems the officials in Flint failed to do their jobs.
 
The following is being reported at:  www.epa.gov/flint
Flint Drinking Water Response:  EPA Awards $100 Million to Michigan for Flint Water Infrastructure Upgrades
EPA has awarded a $100 million grant to MDEQ to fund drinking water infrastructure upgrades in Flint. The funding, provided by the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act of 2016, enables Flint to accelerate and expand its work to replace lead service lines and make other critical infrastructure improvements.
At least that is good news, but I am afraid that is only the beginning in the help Flint needs to repair itself.
 
The following article caught my attention, and I thought IWB might be interested in it:  
mises.org/blog/flint-water-disaster-shows-why-we-need-markets
Economists think differently, and in the case of Flint, note what can happen when producers are not motivated by profit, causing them to focus on factors other than consumer satisfaction. Since government provision of goods necessarily operates outside of the profit system, individuals operating in the public sector must be motivated by other factors, such as the maximization of power, benefits, and budgets. The real scandal in Flint was that its water system placed actual water consumers far down its list of priorities, which makes sense given that (i) its funding depended more on satisfying state and federal regulators and (ii) its culture rewarded job security and fat payrolls.
Mises noted in Human Action,
Bureaucratic conduct of affairs is conduct bound to comply with detailed rules and regulations fixed by the authority of a superior body. It is the only alternative to profit management. … Whenever the operation of a system is not directed by the profit motive, it must be directed by bureaucratic rules.
The rules then become ends in themselves. In contrast, Rothbard wrote (in his 1961 essay, “The Fallacy of the ‘Public Sector’”),
The productivity of the private sector does not stem from the fact that people are rushing around doing “something,” anything, with their resources; it consists in the fact that they are using these resources to satisfy the needs and desires of the consumers. Businessmen and other producers direct their energies, on the free market, to producing those products that will be most rewarded by the consumers, and the sale of these products may therefore roughly “measure” the importance that the consumers place upon them.
Such statements emphasize the vital importance of the private provision of things that matter, and the risks of relying on public provision. No one cares about shortcomings in the public provision of, say, state road maps or space travel, because hardly anyone uses them. But when it comes to mail delivery, defense, basic property protection, education, health care, and water, the persistent sense of crisis exists due to the obvious if unacknowledged lack of consumer sovereignty. 
Which is why the Flint water crisis matters, because it calls into question the public provision of anything. This is why the feds had to get involved, pump millions of dollars in coerced capital into the region, finance public broadcasting documentaries, and make it go away. Unfortunately for Flint water dependents, the institutional structure remains. 
The horror of it all is that the same structure exists at most of the water systems in the United States. Which brings me back to Westley’s Law.  
It exists largely because those operating the structure are held to lower standards than what we observe in the market. Water boards and water provision become ends in themselves, with the implicit understanding that there are few alternatives to dissatisfied consumers.
Yet, one can easily imagine a competitive market for water that could replace the now dominant socialized system. Why don’t water firms compete for consumers while maintaining and investing in a shared infrastructure that delivers water to homes and businesses? This is essentially the system that emerged in telephony in the 1980s, and the changes unleashed in innovation, delivery, prices, and output continue to astound. 
They astound so much, in fact, they apparently must never, ever be applied to other utilities, including water. 
But there is hope. Last week, five individuals — including Michigan’s director of human and health services — were charged with involuntary manslaughter for failing to alert the public about the outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease linked to Flint’s contaminated water. Holding public officials criminally accountable for nefarious outcomes is crucial to stem the growth of government in general. 
 
In conclusion, I am grateful to know the officials were charged with involuntary manslaughter…it is a start.  Money is all our officials think about, and in the day of Judgment, they will pay a high price for this with their souls.  I pray that the people of Flint can endure until they have the clean water they deserve.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPXZJS7KOro
 
Published on Mar 23, 2017
For 3 Years Obama Left Flint with Poison Water… Look What Trump Did in 2 Months
CHECK SOURCE HERE:goo.gl/YaiNwO
Residents living in the city of Flint, Michigan, have endured third world country living situations for nearly three years. Unable to pour a clean glass of water from their taps, they’ve been forced to live with poisoned looking nasty brown water spilling from their faucets. They can’t drink it. They’re forced to bathe in it. They’re living in squalor while their democrat leaders do nothing. To make matters worse, former President Obama did absolutely nothing for them either.
Democrats running the city and they fail AGAIN to help the poor people who they pander to for votes at every election. The democrats always pander towards the poor people, giving false hopes of overcoming poverty, and then throw the impoverished back in the hole they crawled out of to vote.
No shock there, right? Typical democrat nonsense.
That’s why it’s shocking and amazing that President Trump stepped up to do, in barely two months, what former President Obama failed to do in several years.
President Trump was able to deliver some much needed and long overdue help to the residents of Flint, Michigan to help them fix the dreaded and disgusting water crisis. Under authority granted the agency by the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016, the EPA just issued a $100 million grant to the beleaguered city of Flint, Michigan, to help in the effort at replacing the city’s badly corroded and lead-tainted system of water pipes. Some progressive critics of President Donald Trump have pointed to his proposed budget cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency as proof that he is a terrible president who doesn’t care about ensuring that Americans have clean air and water. “The people of Flint and all Americans deserve a more responsive federal government,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in an agency news release. “EPA will especially focus on helping Michigan improve Flint’s water infrastructure as part of our larger goal of improving America’s water infrastructure.”
Democrat Mayor, Karen Weaver, stated she was excited and grateful to receive the funds. The democrats in her city are the reason that Flint is in this predicament. I’d like to know what Mayor Weaver has done to help her city. I haven’t heard much about Flint’s water problem since it was first introduced to the masses, and then now that we hear it might be fixed after years of suffering.

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3 thoughts on “Our Precious Water Cannot Be Taken For Granted – In Flint, Michigan People Are Sick From Drinking And Showering In Their Water – It Is A National Disgrace.”

  1. This is in no way a “national disgrace.” Its a FLINT disgrace, thanks to decades of their democrat-progressive leaders, and the stupid locals who voted for them.

    Reply
  2. Flint was 3 times the lead level allowed. At the same time Pittsburgh, PA in the old districts, had 9 times the lead level and Altoona, PA had 27 times. This is from an ole mans memory so I may be off. Not the fact that other cities are WORST!

    Reply
  3. Wow! I live in North Central Saskatchewan and our little town gets it’s water from a few wells… no treated river/lake swill. It’s is filtered and treated with chlorine and that’s it… no fluoride and no other chemicals added. A simple carbon filter and it’s as good as any of that cr@p they sell in the stores.
    Going over in the summer for lawn and garden use can be an issue even with the extra allowed for the season but dropping a sand point 12-15 feet down gives you an endless supply, just have to make sure no chance of cross connections.
    I couldn’t imagine worrying that my tap water could make me ill.

    Reply

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