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EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

detroitnews.com

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Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#61

Post by blurbleblurble »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33
blurbleblurble wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Finance, in this case, is a way of framing sustainability. If your city puts out less than what it brings in, it's not sustainable.

I agree, finance is being used here as a way of framing sustainability. But it's obscuring and distorting the entire basis of economy altogether, which is living ecology. If people are denied the basic ability to improve the livability of their communities because of allegiance to global market tab sheets, then money has replaced the very thing it is meant to serve: human beings.

All this talk of there not being any jobs is hypocritical balogne. There's clearly plenty of infrastructure work to do, not to mention basic life stuff, like raising and teaching kids, growing food, building community... But the global market has stripped life itself of its value for these people.

Your community and mine aren't far behind, from the looks of things!

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#62

Post by rayiner »

maxerickson wrote: post #8
pstuart wrote: post #4

And how much did the city originally "save"? This affair should be poster child for being pennywise and pound foolish with our infrastructure.

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.

It's even bigger than that. Detroit had to raise rates on Flint because a combination of depopulation and terrible management left its water system in dire straits.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#63

Post by sundvor »

clumsysmurf wrote: post #17

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-...

By shutting down the EPA?

Yeap, that would work.

/s

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#64

Post by koolba »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #48
malandrew wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

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.

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.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#65

Post by maxerickson »

rayiner wrote: post #62
maxerickson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's even bigger than that. Detroit had to raise rates on Flint because a combination of depopulation and terrible management left its water system in dire straits.

The article I link in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13899164 makes the case that it was more complicated than that, with Detroit making a long term offer at least competitive with the new water system Flint was going to participate in.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#66

Post by 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.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#67

Post by blurbleblurble »

koolba wrote: post #64
blurbleblurble wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#68

Post by wavefunction »

rayiner wrote: post #66

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 ma…

All that I know is we were able to afford the infrastructure originally under a higher tax regime. That suggests to me that we can afford to solve this problem, even if it means that the wealthy are contributing back to the country that provided the business and social environment to do so.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#69

Post by [deleted] »

bpodgursky wrote: post #19
diogenescynic wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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 nothi…

[deleted]

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#70

Post by [deleted] »

pharrlax wrote: post #44
jacobolus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

[deleted]
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