In recent days Flint, Michigan has been in the news because the city’s water has not only become undrinkable but also hazardous for use in bathing or dishwashing. Too save money, the cash-strapped city the city discontinued using nearby Detroit’s water supply in April 2014 that was supplied from Lake Huron and switched to the Flint River. Flint, like most of Michigan’s rust belt including Detroit, has lost tax revenue because the auto industry and most manufacturing began to go belly up in the 1970s.
Not long after the city began drawing water from the Flint River, residents began to complain about the foul smell and taste of the water. Scientists conducted a test and discovered that there were levels of lead that were dangerous to one’s health. The lead was not found in the Flint River itself but leached from the lead in pipelines that had corroded under the impact of the river’s excessively chlorinated water, about 8 times as much as that found in Detroit’s and likely the result of road salts flowing into the river. To complicate matters, by interacting with the pipelines, the chlorine had dissipated as part of a chemical reaction and lost its ability to suppress bacteria. Flint has had a spike in Legionnaire’s Disease, with ten fatalities since the switch. Undoubtedly there is a connection to this epidemic and water contamination. Thus, the water had a double whammy of lead and toxic organisms. full: http://louisproyect.org/2016/01/16/flint-michigan-and-the-second-contradiction-of-capitalism/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
