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At Least 33 US Cities Used Water Testing 'Cheats' Over Lead Concerns (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In an exclusive report via The Guardian, investigators found there to be at least 33 cities across 17 U.S. states that have used water testing "cheats" in an effort to cover up potentially dangerous levels of lead. The investigation was launched after the toxic water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and found that 21 of these cities used the same water testing methods that resulted in criminal charges against three government employees in Flint. Such cities include Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee. The Guardian reports: "The Guardian investigation concerned thousands of documents detailing water testing practices over the past decade. They include: Despite warnings of regulators and experts, water departments in at least 33 cities used testing methods over the past decade that could underestimate lead found in drinking water. Officials in two major cities -- Philadelphia and Chicago -- asked employees to test water safety in their own homes. Two states -- Michigan and New Hampshire -- advised water departments to give themselves extra time to complete tests so that if lead contamination exceeded federal limits, officials could re-sample and remove results with high lead levels. Some cities denied knowledge of the locations of lead pipes, failed to sample the required number of homes with lead plumbing of refused to release lead pipe maps, claiming it was a security risk."
So thats why Americans are so fucking stupid. I thought it was the pathetic education system, but lead makes sense.
Explains Drumpf too.
After all, Dem's at the local level or state level are not allowed to be held accountable, only the first republican on the food chain as Snyder and W. can attest to.
No, I'm not trolling or kidding, I'm dead serious. If this is a widespread problem in the U.S., then could it be making people dumber and less emotionally stable?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
And the Republicans will try to avert blame however possible, even after having passed a law specifically to stop the city from removing the governor-appointed special manager.
And the Libertarians will point out that this would never have been a problem with private enterprise because if a company lied to you about the lead poisoning you could easily have paid some other company to install pipe to bring you water that isn't poisonous, and the fact that you didn't means that you were ok with being secretly poisoned so it wasn't a problem.
Is it reasonable to extrapolate the effects of radiation exposure?
Radiation effects are probably sub-linear, but since low dose data is sparse, linear extrapolation is generally used just to be on the safe side. There is some evidence that low levels of radiation may actually be good for you.
Most radiation in drinking water is from iodine, potassium, and cesium. The iodine is not much of a problem if you use iodized salt or get enough iodine in your diet. The cesium and potassium do not bio-accumulate. You pee them out.
Lead is a much bigger problem. Lead poisoning has caused trillions of dollars of damage to our economy, mostly from lowered IQ, crime, prison building, etc. That has gone way down since leaded gasoline was banned, but even today black children average about twice the blood lead levels as white children. We have a ways to go, and the people responsible for this latest disclosure need to be held accountable. We should be proactively checking water supplies, and directly measuring the blood lead levels of kids in high risk areas. That would be way cheaper than operating more prisons.
I know it's troll bait, but in point of fact Republicans should be held accountable. Republicans are so obsessed by "small government" and cutting budgets that horrible outcomes are inevitable.
Yeah! How can anyone in Chicago be expected to follow water testing protocols when they had a Republican mayor as recently as 1931? That small government obsession lingers over a place for centuries! You can't expect any government employee in Chicago to do a productive day's work until at least the year 3000. After that it'll surely be a golden age.
So much for looking to the "free market" for fair value. Your claim that the market empowers consumers is delusional. Without government oversight that can of beans would have a reasonable chance of killing you, either through bacterial infection or chemical poisoning. This is what is happening in China right now, where there is no meaningful government regulation.
Given the disproportionate influence of big business on government right now, trusting corporate America is like trusting meth freaks. The free market is a tremendous piece of propaganda. What really runs the economic system are factions of monopolists and cartels that have eliminated almost all competition. This is enabled and maintained by a corrupt government.
The only way this will change is if voters use their democratic power to take back control of the government. We need a government "of the people, by the people and for the people", not a government run solely for corporate interests.
Why is Snark Required?