I just had a long chat with an old friend, now retired, who used to be the chief chemist at a large southern city’s water treatment plant.

I asked him about this Flint, MI lead in the water thing, and how it happened. His take on it, that in order to save money, they decided to use Flint River water instead of buying treated Great Lakes water from another municipality. In itself, this was not an unusual or irresponsible action. In a situation like this, the usual procedure is to build a water treatment plant to treat the river water, tailored to whatever the characteristics of their sources and their delivery system are.

Apparently, no, or only rudimentary, treatment was done, which was why the water smelled and tasted and looked foul coming out of the city’s faucets. He mentioned this is no big deal, since most water sources in the US today require some treatment, and the technology is such that almost any water can be made fit to drink, if you are ready to pay for the necessary technology.

I asked him about the lead contamination from the pipes (which would be undetectable to consumers without specialized testing procedures). He mentioned this is a routine concern, is routinely tested for, and he cannot imagine that it was never considered. (River water can become contaminated temporarily from industrial spills or even natural causes). When I asked him then how could this possibly have happened, how could lead wind up in kids? His answer was quite direct, and delivered without hesitation. “They obviously didn’t give a shit, and probably thought they could get away with it.” When I asked him if there were people who are supposed to make these assessments and report them to civic authorities, he answered, “That used to be my job. There probably were, they probably did and they were probably ignored. And if they pressed it, they were probably fired.” His guess was that either they talked themselves out of the possibility that there might be long term effects and that the discoloration was short term and only cosmetic, or would eventually flush out and people would get used to it. And although he could not imagine how the possibility of long term heavy metal poisoning could have not been considered, he is convinced that they probably felt the effects would not be visible for a long time, and they would be dead and gone by the time it became known. He feels the decision was made on purely political and economic grounds because the victims were unlikely to have the resources to do anything about it even if it became known.

That is the expert opinion of a qualified and experienced professional in the field.