There will never be any amount of money that could properly satisfy the pain and suffering of the people of Flint. This was willful neglect. It targeted minority population too and it seems that the former Gov Rick Snyder deserves more than 2 charges for his own willful neglect. I never followed up to see what his future holds. We are seeing another Flint type crisis play out now in an agricultural community in Calif. where the neighboring town refuses to pipe water in. A town populated by migrant workers from generations of farming families & they don’t have water. It’s a basic human right.
The spelling trolls…hmm…if I remember correctly in your previous piece where you offered a small sample, the spelling patrol person wrote a first declarative sentence with a question mark when a period was required…so it’s another troll hypocrisy. Of course grammar can change the meaning of any sentence where a typo is just a typo and has no impact on content.
The Flint crisis is such a dark topic. Paraphrasing here but as stated , “no level of lead is acceptable in a chills”
I know that I had a lot of twitter followers that specifically followed me because of my consistent threads regarding; NEPA, APA and EPA —I really tried my best on twitter to always source the data. The water issues (as you know) are incredibly complicated because of “water rights”, mitigating factors like farm run-off, “bad neighbor” clauses (that focuses on States and wind shifting particle pollution clouds. Which continues to exasperate water cleanliness —both ground water seepage & aerial pollution), factoring crumbling infrastructure, local capital infrastructure plans, as it relates to both public & private and P/P partnerships. The latter being the bane of my existence.
One of my clients (why I’m down at the State Capitol lobbying this week) owns the rights to a large aquifer. In recent years, my client asked me to research 70+years of USCS seismic data, overlay that data over “pollution clouds” and then project how the fragile & porous stone (that naturally filter the aquifer) could result in the total loss of the aquifer. As you can imagine my mind vault on that subject is kind of vast. I genuinely enjoy that kind of work & client advocacy. Not a chance they’d just sign over the rights to the State. But hammering out a potential 100+ year lease. ✔️ Lawmakers changing the language and didn’t contemplate proportionality and equitable distribution <—today was a really bad day for a particular Committee chair who thought they could slip in that clause —because I was at his office at 7:30AM with coffee and casually said “clear your calendar, you created this mess and our client sent in the cleaning crew -so let’s get to cleaning” I couldn’t believe they pre-session filed and thought I would notice the 3+ pages which impacted ROW easements and I was like hold on skippy did you think the ROW was an opening for the state to “own” the aquifer because last I check the state doesn’t own the land that the easements are on….all before 8AM today
Wow! I bet they assumed you would not have caught those 3 pages. I can just imagine the expression of someone sitting across the table from you open jawed at your ability to recall the details of such complex systems. Good fir the client not handing the Aquifer over to the state. The politics of water is a full time job. The town in California could easily be serviced with a simple fix yet the town council next door, voted against a couple miles of pipe…I’m oversimplifying but it is an easy fix. It’s definitely targeted & institutional racism when you juxtapose the demographics and politics of the two.
I bet any opposing counsel fears you turning up in their office! Even lobbying, the other people better be real prepared or they’re toast!
Thx! Looking forward to reading. Been in the news forever it seems and love being able to read some facts without the inevitable inaccuracies that appear in much of the media.
Holy crapola that is absolutely heartbreaking. I wish lawmakers would really understand how these issues & extreme in weather are interconnected to global warming. As for being a good neighbor —when it comes to water everyone becomes very “mine. mine. mine” centric. In the DMV (DC MD VA) the map of water pipes is incredibly complicated and there’s a lot of “hand offs” meaning County A’s water treatment is in County D but County B was offered right of first refusal and County C refuses to open easements…and it’s a constant push pull and trading so County A can pump their water from County D… odd question in water ponds have you ever seen the black plastic balls? If so then you are actually seeing a work project that I’m pretty damn proud of… the black balls act as a filter & reduce evaporation and they are environmentally friendly
I have seen the black plastic balls when I was last visiting my family. I saw them in Northern Cal and was blown away by what an innovative idea it was. They’re pretty cool looking en-mass and when the sun hits at a certain angle.
The black plastic balls reflect the sunlight away from the body of water and estimates that they help reduce natural evaporation by 15% to 35% —depending on the time of year and other factors; time of year -temperatures, earth’s (axis) position to the sun, stage of filtration in the treatment of the water. All while allowing some air in which creates a stable circularization. But the other thing these spheres do is by blocking out the sunlight this slows the photosynthesis that algae needs to multiple. When you take the sun away -the extra cost of chemicals to reduce the growth of algae means municipalities with water treatment plants don’t have to be as reliant on chemicals to “over treat” the water. But you’re correct when you juxtapose the demographics and socioeconomic factors water rights is a full time job. Sadly the greed of water pits communities against each other.
I love this innovation. It shows the possibilities of how we could problem solve and create climate friendly solutions. Very exciting you worked on this. What an amazing area. You’re like a renaissance woman!
This is happening all round me. All the tiny communities nestled right at the base of the foothills in the central San Joaquin Valley have been suffering for the past 4 years from the drought.
Excellent article. You’re work is priceless and I appreciate it so much. You’ve seen the PACER settlement already I’m sure. I hope you’ll benefit from that. ♥️
There will never be any amount of money that could properly satisfy the pain and suffering of the people of Flint. This was willful neglect. It targeted minority population too and it seems that the former Gov Rick Snyder deserves more than 2 charges for his own willful neglect. I never followed up to see what his future holds. We are seeing another Flint type crisis play out now in an agricultural community in Calif. where the neighboring town refuses to pipe water in. A town populated by migrant workers from generations of farming families & they don’t have water. It’s a basic human right.
The spelling trolls…hmm…if I remember correctly in your previous piece where you offered a small sample, the spelling patrol person wrote a first declarative sentence with a question mark when a period was required…so it’s another troll hypocrisy. Of course grammar can change the meaning of any sentence where a typo is just a typo and has no impact on content.
The Flint crisis is such a dark topic. Paraphrasing here but as stated , “no level of lead is acceptable in a chills”
I know that I had a lot of twitter followers that specifically followed me because of my consistent threads regarding; NEPA, APA and EPA —I really tried my best on twitter to always source the data. The water issues (as you know) are incredibly complicated because of “water rights”, mitigating factors like farm run-off, “bad neighbor” clauses (that focuses on States and wind shifting particle pollution clouds. Which continues to exasperate water cleanliness —both ground water seepage & aerial pollution), factoring crumbling infrastructure, local capital infrastructure plans, as it relates to both public & private and P/P partnerships. The latter being the bane of my existence.
One of my clients (why I’m down at the State Capitol lobbying this week) owns the rights to a large aquifer. In recent years, my client asked me to research 70+years of USCS seismic data, overlay that data over “pollution clouds” and then project how the fragile & porous stone (that naturally filter the aquifer) could result in the total loss of the aquifer. As you can imagine my mind vault on that subject is kind of vast. I genuinely enjoy that kind of work & client advocacy. Not a chance they’d just sign over the rights to the State. But hammering out a potential 100+ year lease. ✔️ Lawmakers changing the language and didn’t contemplate proportionality and equitable distribution <—today was a really bad day for a particular Committee chair who thought they could slip in that clause —because I was at his office at 7:30AM with coffee and casually said “clear your calendar, you created this mess and our client sent in the cleaning crew -so let’s get to cleaning” I couldn’t believe they pre-session filed and thought I would notice the 3+ pages which impacted ROW easements and I was like hold on skippy did you think the ROW was an opening for the state to “own” the aquifer because last I check the state doesn’t own the land that the easements are on….all before 8AM today
Wow! I bet they assumed you would not have caught those 3 pages. I can just imagine the expression of someone sitting across the table from you open jawed at your ability to recall the details of such complex systems. Good fir the client not handing the Aquifer over to the state. The politics of water is a full time job. The town in California could easily be serviced with a simple fix yet the town council next door, voted against a couple miles of pipe…I’m oversimplifying but it is an easy fix. It’s definitely targeted & institutional racism when you juxtapose the demographics and politics of the two.
I bet any opposing counsel fears you turning up in their office! Even lobbying, the other people better be real prepared or they’re toast!
Thx! Looking forward to reading. Been in the news forever it seems and love being able to read some facts without the inevitable inaccuracies that appear in much of the media.
The town I just referenced is detailed here. This article broke my heart…which seems to be a daily problem. I cannot understand for the life of me, how an entire town would refuse to share water with their suffering neighbor. There is no reason or rationale…here is the link. Reminds me of Flint. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2021-10-30/california-water-crisis-state-intervenes-to-help-town
Holy crapola that is absolutely heartbreaking. I wish lawmakers would really understand how these issues & extreme in weather are interconnected to global warming. As for being a good neighbor —when it comes to water everyone becomes very “mine. mine. mine” centric. In the DMV (DC MD VA) the map of water pipes is incredibly complicated and there’s a lot of “hand offs” meaning County A’s water treatment is in County D but County B was offered right of first refusal and County C refuses to open easements…and it’s a constant push pull and trading so County A can pump their water from County D… odd question in water ponds have you ever seen the black plastic balls? If so then you are actually seeing a work project that I’m pretty damn proud of… the black balls act as a filter & reduce evaporation and they are environmentally friendly
I have seen the black plastic balls when I was last visiting my family. I saw them in Northern Cal and was blown away by what an innovative idea it was. They’re pretty cool looking en-mass and when the sun hits at a certain angle.
The black plastic balls reflect the sunlight away from the body of water and estimates that they help reduce natural evaporation by 15% to 35% —depending on the time of year and other factors; time of year -temperatures, earth’s (axis) position to the sun, stage of filtration in the treatment of the water. All while allowing some air in which creates a stable circularization. But the other thing these spheres do is by blocking out the sunlight this slows the photosynthesis that algae needs to multiple. When you take the sun away -the extra cost of chemicals to reduce the growth of algae means municipalities with water treatment plants don’t have to be as reliant on chemicals to “over treat” the water. But you’re correct when you juxtapose the demographics and socioeconomic factors water rights is a full time job. Sadly the greed of water pits communities against each other.
I love this innovation. It shows the possibilities of how we could problem solve and create climate friendly solutions. Very exciting you worked on this. What an amazing area. You’re like a renaissance woman!
My God, what an interesting conversation! Thank you both.
This is happening all round me. All the tiny communities nestled right at the base of the foothills in the central San Joaquin Valley have been suffering for the past 4 years from the drought.
Excellent article. You’re work is priceless and I appreciate it so much. You’ve seen the PACER settlement already I’m sure. I hope you’ll benefit from that. ♥️