[zaroth]

So Reuters is finally getting around to doing their job; moving beyond a sensationalized story which sells ads, to the unglamorous work of uncovering the truth, that Flint isn't special at all and that the government knew that and has been covering it up.

It's a shame they couldn't get around to reporting the truth behind the sensation a year ago when public outcry was enough to get substantial Federal funding allocated to fixing this nation-wide.

First there should be a Federal law requiring disclosure of testing data nationwide, and the full sets should be put online in standardized formats.

Childhood lead rates should be shown next to walkability score and crime stats on Realtor sites. Home sellers should be mandated to report their local area exposure rates at the time of sale.

Second, setup a super-fund type cash pool which provides for remediation of the top X% of effected areas.

Third, new laws for mandatory testing and reporting, and fines and felonies for underreporting, misreporting, or falsifying reports of childhood lead exposure.

Here's to hoping that major infrastructure spending includes the unglamorous water mains replacements as much as the more glamorous monument-style projects.

[nashashmi]

As much as I would like to agree with you, this article shows that it takes time and organized manpower to do this kind of research.

For whatever reason, this kind of work and reporting could not be done instantly, either due to investigative funding issues, politics, priority, or sequence of research.

So giving credit where it is due, I am glad Reuters succeeded at publishing this data.

[gozur88]

Flint made news because the problem was new. Flint water used to be safe, and then it became unsafe.

There are a lot of problems nobody bothers with because they're not new problems.

[rileymat2]

Flint also made news because local control was subverted by the state to make the decision.

[drunkpotato]

Not the state as a generic entity, Republicans specifically, neocons with a very specific ideological privatization agenda practicing good old disaster capitalism by wrecking the state budget then claiming the need to privatize and cut budgets. It's important to point out what actually happened (is happening, will continue to happen), and not gloss over it by pretending it's a generic government problem.

[gozur88]

>Not the state as a generic entity, Republicans specifically, neocons with a very specific ideological privatization agenda practicing good old disaster capitalism...

That's biased enough to be wrong. Flint wasn't in receivership because of Republicans, and in fact the mayor, a Democrat, signed on to the plan to use water from the Flint river. A plan which, by the way, was conceived by the city's emergency manager, also a Democrat.

[dragonwriter]

This story is from Reuters, not AP; also, there have been stories about large numbers of places being worse than Flint since very early in the period when Flint's water issues were getting attention.

[hawkice]

> So the AP is finally getting around to doing their job

This is a report by Reuters.

[ScottBurson]

> Here's to hoping that major infrastructure spending includes the unglamorous water mains replacements as much as the more glamorous monument-style projects.

Yes! This is a very fixable problem -- and fixing it will create jobs in the short run, and reduce dependency in the long run. Definitely money worth spending.

[eric_h]

I wonder to what extent Michael Moore's Flint pedigree influenced the media.

I'm guessing it's decidedly non-zero.

Edit: this was not intended as a dig at Michael Moore or anyone else. The fact that he made a documentary featuring Flint means that more people than otherwise should be are aware of the place, hence, media stories about it are more likely to gain traction with the general population. Michael Moore humanized Flint. His making it recognizeable, I think, aided in the rise of this particular story, IMO.

I also think the name of the city helped its presence in the news cycle. Flint, being short and a homonym for another English word is far more memorable than say "Scarborough" (which, amusingly, was the first name that came to mind when I tried to come up with the most memorable unmemorable name for a town.)

[mturmon]

The problem is, this kind of speculation really goes nowhere. It's unprovable. And, even if there was a connection between peripheral awareness of Flint due to Moore and the legs this story has...so what?

[eric_h]

Fair enough. I disagree that it's unprovable, but I'm certainly not going to reach any solid conclusions by posting on a forum :)