How the government poisoned a black city in America.

If that's what happened, incompetence mostly. This is a local government issue; the vast majority of the voters were and are black and the vast majority of the elected officials were and are black.

What happened is that black officials elected by black voters bankrupted the city, liquidators took over who switched from the Detroit city government (also black-dominated and bankrupt) water supplier to a cheaper water supplier, and when the elected officials regained control they began a state of emergency in response to this suspiciously vague crisis.

The crisis is real but what happened was Flint stood up Detroit, wanting to switch to a new, better and cheaper supply. Detroit tried to block it politically. When that failed, Detroit served notice threatening to turn off the taps before the new supply was ready. Rather than going cap in hand back to Detroit, Flint decided on plan B; supply from the local river. The new supply had a higher chloride content which caused greater corrosion to lead pipes. The scandal will concern the extent to which folk at Flint knew or ought to have known this. Flint has now gone back to the Detroit supply but the Federal and State governments have forced Detroit to give better terms than they were originally planning to impose.

On further investigation the increased chloride/erosion story seems at least plausible, so the public health risk may at be real. But now it is just getting weirder: the city switched back several months ago, but still has the same problem (Detroit water is just less chloridated, not not at all), still is adding corrosion inhibitor to the water, presumably had exactly the same problem before the switch too. So while the switch may have really exacerbated a real problem, it's still a problem that probably long pre-dates the current City Council's births. Wiki says, "Research done after the switch to the Flint River source found that the proportion of children with elevated blood-lead levels (above five micrograms per deciliter, or 5 × 10–6 grams per 100 milliliters of blood) rose from 2.1% to 4%, and in some areas to as much as 6.3%.[39]".

I say weirder because the Time article seems to have only more spectacularly missed the point in its attempt to pin this on the Ku Klux Klan.

Absolutely disgraceful. Whoever is in charge of water and sanitation on the council needs to spend some time in a shared tastefully-decorated minimalist environment with edgy bars in the window instead of glass so that they can reflect on their negligence.

Was it high on Obama's to do list?
It's not all about race. It's about class and poverty.
Poor white people are **** on from a great height just like poor black people are.
Middle-class black people live well off lives just like middle-class white people.
Read Thomas Sowell or catch him on you tube. He explains it brilliantly.
Don't be drawn in to people trying to push a race agenda.

" It's about class and poverty"
ah yes, two things that have no intersection with race whatsoever (!)
lmao i love it when people with little to know understanding of racial discourse attempt to give their views. luv it

I have no technical knowledge but I suspect that once you have messed about with 100 year old lead pipes you wouldn't be able to go back to how it was before, if you were shipping tanker loads of Evian up the St Lawrence.

The city switched its water supply from Lake Huron to a local river in a cost-saving move by government officials. Soon after the switch complaints trickled in about the water's quality and smell but residents were reassured that the water was safe.

Tests also revealed elevated levels of chemical compounds in the water supply that can lead to liver or kidney issues. Nonetheless, officials downplayed residents’ concerns, saying that the water was safe to drink.

Two years later independent research showed that the drinking supplies were found to contain lead that had leached from old plumbing pipes. There were 87 confirmed Legionnaires' cases, including 10 deaths, from June 2014 to November 2015, compared to only 21 cases in 2012 and 2013. Michigan health officials said they can't conclude that the increase was related to Flint's water.

Flint pulled water from its river for 18 months until last fall but didn't use treatments that could have reduced corrosion and removed contaminants.Local officials declared a public health emergency in October in response to elevated levels of lead in children. Lead can cause behavior problems and learning disabilities in children as well as kidney ailments in adults.

Flint residents and civil rights advocates have linked the government’s slow response to the crisis to environmental racism, a term that refers to the proven correlation between the racial, ethnic and class backgrounds of an area’s residents and proximity to hazardous waste. Flint is a majority-black city where more than 40% of residents live below the poverty line.

Couldn't take this part seriously. Why the hell is it a race issue?

You don't think the Gov care less and are less willing to take action because of the race of the victims?

40% of whom are white. How evil do you think the government are exactly?

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But this city is mostly African American

And so are the city governments of Flint and Detroit.

Unless you are saying black people aren't fit to run things and Masser needed to come quicker to tell Uncle Tom what to do, that argument is going nowhere.

Proof?

Flint government

https://www.cityofflint.com/city-council/councilmembers/

Detroit government

http://www.detroitmi.gov/Government/City-Council

Actually having black leaders in gov doesn't alwAys mean change if those working in public services at the other end are racist. For example I posted stats showing that police take longer to respond for black people. And how much have local councils helped to investigate and deal with police racism after the deaths of African American men and women last year (in police hands)

The police chief is also black.

https://www.cityofflint.com/public-safety/police-department/

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