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A little over a week ago, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder
released hundreds of pages of e-mails related to Flint from 2014 and 2015. One of the attachments, an
assessment of Flint's water system by a private water corporation, is very significant.
In February 2015, almost a full year before the news of widespread lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan, gained headlines, the world's largest private water corporation, Veolia, deemed Flint's water safe. They
were hired by the city to assess the discolored water that many residents had been complaining about—
a General Motors plant had even stopped using Flint's water because it was rusting car parts.But while Veolia, a French transnational corporation, deemed Flint's water to be "in compliance with State and Federal regulations," they concluded that "aging cast-iron pipe" was creating "aesthetic issues including taste, odor, and discoloration."
Their report didn't mention lead, but
they recommended spending $50,000 to add corrosion control chemicals to Flint's drinking water
because iron was leaching from the city's pipes.The city didn't heed Veolia's advice, but regardless, someone should have known that lead was likely leaching into Flint's water as well
.
Comment: Never mind that the incarceration rate for drug offenses has already spiraled way out of control and solved nothing, and never mind that the entire 'war on drugs' is a sham for reasons too many to enumerate here, it is individuals like Maine Governor Paul LePage who may ultimately be the most dangerous to the fabric of society that we have to be on the watch for.
This is the same guy who sought to remove a mural in the state Department of Labor building depicting the history of the labor movement. He is one of the pathocrats; a political animal and pathological fascist who is not only hopelessly out of touch with the average person and the issues that they are faced with, but spreads ideas that are mostly punitive in nature and do nothing to uplift the people he is sworn to serve.