Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health

news.cornell.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 34 posts

Re: Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health

#11

Post by roflc0ptic »

roflc0ptic wrote: post #5
jimbob45 wrote: post #4

>Since state austerity policies initiated a potable water crisis seven years ago in Flint, Michigan, public health monitoring has focused on potential developmental deficits associated with lead exposure in adolescents or fetuses exposed in utero. Here, we have the rare headline that actually undersells the story the body is telling. Wouldn't hurt to change the title to highlight the developmental issues the scientis…

Well. I think the developmental deficits are an already told story. What's "new" is study of adults showing they're also affected. It's kind of a "duh" thing, i.e. most people wouldn't be cool with drinking heavily lead tainted water, even if it's "less harmful" in adults or whatever. But the story here is that they studied it, and lo, the conventional wisdom that it doesn't harm adults doesn't pan out. Turns out poi…

I'm slightly regretting the moralizing tone here, but this is a case where it just seems obscene to me that we as a society didn't act effectively to intervene here. This was entirely mitigable, given adequate resources and attention. It's a horror show.

Re: Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health

#12

Post by bigmattystyles »

tyingq wrote: post #6

This did boil down to where the problem mostly wasn't with the supply, right? That is, the problem was with lead pipes from the water meter to the houses/apartments? Not excusing everything the city did wrong, but I can see why that would have complicated everything and made resolution such a long process.

It was the supply switch in combination with the state of the pipes. I believe the switch of the supply caused a layer of calcium coating the inside of the lead pipes to dissolve due to a different chemical makeup, leading to water then being exposed to lead. Had they not switched on the first place, they would have been ‘ok’. Not great for sure but they would have had time to deal with it. Which they probably wouldn’t have had money to..

Re: Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health

#13

Post by tyingq »

ceejayoz wrote: post #9
tyingq wrote: post #6

This did boil down to where the problem mostly wasn't with the supply, right? That is, the problem was with lead pipes from the water meter to the houses/apartments? Not excusing everything the city did wrong, but I can see why that would have complicated everything and made resolution such a long process.

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flint-water-crisis-everything-y... > This precipitated the tragic decision in 2013 to end the city’s five-decade practice of piping treated water for its residents from Detroit in favor of a cheaper alternative: temporarily pumping water from the Flint River until a new water pipeline from Lake Huron was built. Although the river water was highly corrosive, Flint officials failed to treat…

Helpful, thanks! So poor testing, and no attempt to make the source water less corrosive and so less likely to leach lead from the customer's pipes.

Re: Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health

#14

Post by ceejayoz »

tyingq wrote: post #13
ceejayoz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flint-water-crisis-everything-y... > This precipitated the tragic decision in 2013 to end the city’s five-decade practice of piping treated water for its residents from Detroit in favor of a cheaper alternative: temporarily pumping water from the Flint River until a new water pipeline from Lake Huron was built. Although the river water was highly corrosive, Flint officials failed to treat…

Helpful, thanks! So poor testing, and no attempt to make the source water less corrosive and so less likely to leach lead from the customer's pipes.

(and the subsequent lies about it)

Re: Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health

#15

Post by ceejayoz »

determinateproc wrote: post #8

How common is the use of water purifiers in the West? Here in India, in my observation, most middle class and above families own a household water filter of some sort (electrical or otherwise) and routinely fill up bottles for drinking purposes. Drinking straight from the tap is something very uncommon.

I'd imagine it varies from country to country and by locality a bit, but I've lived in Australia and several spots in the US; at each tap water was routinely drunk.

Re: Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health

#16

Post by oivey »

ceejayoz wrote: post #9
tyingq wrote: post #6

This did boil down to where the problem mostly wasn't with the supply, right? That is, the problem was with lead pipes from the water meter to the houses/apartments? Not excusing everything the city did wrong, but I can see why that would have complicated everything and made resolution such a long process.

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flint-water-crisis-everything-y... > This precipitated the tragic decision in 2013 to end the city’s five-decade practice of piping treated water for its residents from Detroit in favor of a cheaper alternative: temporarily pumping water from the Flint River until a new water pipeline from Lake Huron was built. Although the river water was highly corrosive, Flint officials failed to treat…

To expand on this a bit more, the corrosive water they swapped to permanently stripped off the inner coating (that I think was just mineral build up?) from the lead pipes, so now they leach endlessly. Most cities will have lead pipes somewhere in the water supply network. This situation is definitely entirely the city’s fault.

Re: Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health

#17

Post by emptyfile »

determinateproc wrote: post #8

How common is the use of water purifiers in the West? Here in India, in my observation, most middle class and above families own a household water filter of some sort (electrical or otherwise) and routinely fill up bottles for drinking purposes. Drinking straight from the tap is something very uncommon.

I'm not sure what the West is, but I live in eastern europe and I have no idea what an electric purifier would even look like. Someone might order bottled water at a restaurant, but I'm pretty sure everyone drinks tap at home.

From what I've seen Germans seems pretty suspicious of their tap water(or maybe just hard water?) and use brita filters a lot. There is no actual health benefit or harm avoidance for using them as far as I understand.

Re: Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health

#18

Post by the_lonely_road »

determinateproc wrote: post #8

How common is the use of water purifiers in the West? Here in India, in my observation, most middle class and above families own a household water filter of some sort (electrical or otherwise) and routinely fill up bottles for drinking purposes. Drinking straight from the tap is something very uncommon.

It will vary by household and with 330M people you will be able to find a group doing anything you can imagine so beware folks trying to prescribe their lives experience as representative of Americans in general.

In my household we do not trust the tap and would never drink from it directly. We have something called hard water here and came here from New Mexico where our tap was frequently brown. Both were “safe” to drink, but we choose to drink neither directly.

We buy 20 ounce water bottles from the grocery store which are filled from the “local” spring. We keep a Brita water filter pitcher in our fridge that we fill out of the tap and replace the filter on regularly. Generally we each open a new bottle in the morning and then refill it from the brita filter for the remainder of the day.

Re: Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health

#19

Post by schoolornot »

duxup wrote: post #3

Having clean water is such a linchpin of modern life. Worrying about obtaining it, staying safe, your health, your kid's health, family member's health. Yeah that's going to take a huge toll.

I'm sure many municipalities in the US offer it but if you live in New York City, the city is happy to ship you a kit to check the lead levels in your residence for free. There's even a map that shows you where the lead-based water lines are. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/dep/water/monitoring-for-lead.page

Re: Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health

#20

Post by bluedino »

determinateproc wrote: post #8

How common is the use of water purifiers in the West? Here in India, in my observation, most middle class and above families own a household water filter of some sort (electrical or otherwise) and routinely fill up bottles for drinking purposes. Drinking straight from the tap is something very uncommon.

In Michigan drinking from the tap is pretty universal, unless you live in a rural area with a well. Being in the middle of a couple large freshwater lakes gives you delicious water.

That said, water purification is big business. People have filtered water pitchers (think Brita) or large units that supply the whole house (Culligan)

Post reply on HN