Flint Officials Could Have Prevented Lead Crisis for $80 a Day, Broke Federal Law InsteadBy Claire Bernish In his characteristic calm and collected manner, Amash quickly pulled the painful truth from just two members of the decidedly small four-member panel the lead contamination of the Flint water supply wouldnt have happened if the city had followed the law. First, Amash established that while the state spends $33 million on its notorious Pure Michigan advertising campaign, it has only shelled out$28 million to make sure the people of Flint have pure water. Without using his name, Amash also noted thenonsensical absence from the panel of the one person probably most culpable in this situation who wont take responsibility for it Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. Keith Creagh, Interim Director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, answered several basic questions from Amash to establish his departments role in the crisis, noting its highly unusual across this country [for a city] to go from one water source to another. Turning to Virginia Tech Environmental and Water Resources Professor and Water Interagency Coordinating Committee member Marc Edwards, the scope of governmental culpability in the Flint lead crisis quickly became clear. We know that not enough phosphates were added to the water to make it less corrosive, Amash began. Whats the cost of treating the water with the appropriate amount of phosphates? When the switch was made, there was actually no phosphate added at all. No corrosion control. Federal law was not followed, Edwards stated. No phosphates at all? Amash interrupted. Nothing. Had they done the minimum allowable under the law, which would have been to continue the phosphate dosing which in Detroit water, it wouldve cost $80 to $100 a day. Let that sink in. Remember the stated, ostensible purpose for switching the citys water supply from Detroits to that of the Flint River was to save money. Amash then asked whether Edwards had knowledge of or an opinion about why there were no phosphates added to control the corrosion.[I]snt that a normal step? he inquired. Edwards replied: Its the law. You have to have a corrosion control plan, and thats why we have the law. This disaster would not have occurred if the phosphate would have been added and that includes the legionella likely outbreak, the red water that you see, the leaks . . . In general, corrosion control, for every dollar you spend on it, you save ten dollars. But in Flints situation, for every dollar that they wouldve spent on it, they wouldve easily saved $1,000. So, my only explanation is that it probably did start innocently in the chaos of the turnover, and someone simply forgot to follow the law. Edwards also explained phosphates werent the only method for protecting the people from contamination through corrosion, but the fact remained there had to be a plan, as well as implementation, and Flint dropped the ball. This article (Flint Officials Could Have Prevented Lead Crisis for $80 a Day, Broke Federal Law Instead) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commonslicense with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, emailedits@theantimedia.org. OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! This isnt about dropping the ball, its about doing Satans work. We cannot rest until Rick Snyder and his cohorts are behind bars, even if it means firing all the cops in the state and hiring ones who will do the job of assisting in the justice system. Right now we have plantation cops and thugs, we need some with balls to arrest obviously viscous criminals. 