Yes, politicians are talking about it, and the news media is covering the story (somewhat), but that's only because it's an election year. Make no mistake, this is not just a crisis, but a scandal of monumental significance. The people of Flint are stuck having to deal with the repercussions of a level of government negligence, incompetence and malfeasance that borders on - if not resides in - criminal. They are outraged. They have a right to be.
But so do we all.
For years now, I've been saying (jokingly) that if I ever held the highest office in the land, I would be known in the annals of history as the "Infrastructure President."
My slogan for a GLOVSKY 2020! campaign: "Infrastructure, First and Foremost."
That wouldn't get me many votes, I don't think...not with so many problems and threats in our world today, and an electorate that lately seems to respond mostly to crazytown rhetoric and low comedy...and not just from Donald Trump.
But my mock slogan isn't really a joke. I believe it wholeheartedly. There is absolutely nothing more important to the preservation and perpetuation of an ordered, civilized, stable and strong society (not to mention that society's ability to cope with all those problems and threats) than infrastructure, specifically hard infrastructure. If we can't provide potable water, electricity, and safe places to drive and move product at all times, then nothing - nothing - else matters. Not our belief in a higher power, not our desire to enjoy art, read more, learn how to cook, make money or make love in the sun.
ONE MORE TIME: If we can't get to and from places safely and efficiently, at any time of the day or night, and always with clean water to drink and some method of lighting our way, we might as well just close up shop. And it's no secret that infrastructure in our country is aging, and aging fast.
On that point, it should not just outrage, but terrify every American citizen - black, white or purple, left wing, right wing, chicken wing or wing nut - that something so catastrophic was allowed to happen in Flint. It could be happening right now in any city or town in America, and really, how sure are any of us about any of the things we take for granted every single day, starting with our elected officials actually being competent, and hiring competent people?
The reason that the Flint, Michigan crisis is so shocking to me is two-fold: number one, all models point to potable (drinkable) water becoming increasingly precious in coming decades as the Earth warms and climates change, which more and more mainstream scientists are acknowledging has been and will continue to be the case.
Number two, I grew up on the shores of Lake Superior, among the largest freshwater lakes in the world, and in spite of the post-industrial mess that served as my playground growing up (which I've written about on these pages), the water there has remained clean and fresh. That's because, for better or worse, Lake Superior dumps itself into the other four Great Lakes. I'm not saying that doesn't suck for residents down under, but it simply is what it is. Growing up I assumed everyone had the kind of drinking water I did. Sadly, that's not the case.
I now live well within the Mississippi River basin, where water, even that flowing out of faucets, often has a green odor and/or taste to it. It's subtle but undeniable in some locations, and not at all what I've been used to most of my life. But people just accept it. Yes, it's kind of gross, they admit, but it's not harmful. You just plug your nose and close your eyes (if you're really squeamish) and take a drink, or buy a water filter (the latter being what most people do). And fact is, there are other places in this country where people would rejoice if the only thing wrong with their drinking water was a "green" smell. The simplest YouTube search will reveal that people in some areas have to deal with something much worse flowing out of their faucets.
Now this video is part of an anti-fracking documentary; in other words, it has an agenda. By no means am I pro-fracking, but in this instance, I'm not interested in being anti-fracking either...I just know the lady in this video is lighting her tap water on fire...and whether fracking is causing this or it's occurring naturally (as claimed by the fracking company here), the lady in the video is LIGHTING HER FUCKING TAP WATER ON FIRE! 8-/
Granted, she might be a rural resident, not part of any town's water "infrastructure", and this would probably make her especially vulnerable to exploits and irresponsibility on the part of the fracking industry, not to mention instances of methane occurring naturally. But the quality of the drinking water around any home where what is flowing out of a man-made faucet is creating fire balls in a man-made sink must be examined! It doesn't matter what's causing it or whether it's coming from a city water main or someone's country well.
This lady simply should not be able to light her tap water on fire.
Equal vigilance must be practiced with our roads, tunnels and bridges. Any bridge showing signs of distress must be examined and fixed, if and as necessary, and as quickly as possible. Roads leading up to these bridges need to be kept in working order, smooth and passable at all times. If there are little or no funds on the local level to get this done, it doesn't much matter. Funds have to be acquired somehow, from somewhere.
In other words, it must be treated as a priority, all the way up to the federal level. In 2007, the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis (which I'd traveled across countless times) collapsed during rush hour, killing 13 and injuring over 100, and that tragedy certainly sparked a renewed interest in what I'm talking about. But it can't just be big bridges carrying a lot of traffic getting the attention. It has to be the little bridges too, spanning tiny cricks on county trunks in out of the way places. And the vigilance cannot start AFTER a tragedy takes place. Moreover, response time beforehand is a big issue: if some structural defect is discovered during an inspection, that can't launch a five-year comprehensive study on how best to deal with it. It should be more like one year...really a matter of months until action is taken, the problem taken care of.
Ditto for our electrical grid. How safe are we, exactly, from major blackouts? Are there fail safes in place, any kind of Plan B ready to go, should a coronal mass ejection slam into the sun-facing side of our planet? Are there ways to keep the outage local, to ensure that whole geographic areas are never plunged into darkness all at once?
I do not know the answers to these questions (fine president I'd make...;-), but it would seem they always need to be getting asked, and asked again. A 2003 blackout in the northeast affected over 50 million people, and was found to have been caused by a computer glitch. In light of that, the question becomes: okay, if the power grid has entered the digital age like everyone and everything else, what steps are being taken to KEEP those computers running and communicating? I would bet it's a more complicated process than just running a McAfee scan.
And is it happening? Regularly?
At least the woman in the video above knows there's a problem, and seems to have a clear idea who is responsible. The people of Flint, Michigan weren't even fully aware of what was going on, and got bullshitted into complacency. They went on using and drinking their orange, foul-tasting tap water, sensing something wasn't right but placing their trust in repeated assurances from state officials who failed to communicate the extent of the problem and (again) failed to act quickly when it became clear something wasn't right.
That it was government that dropped the ball is what makes this crisis a scandal. Think about it: the Flint, Michigan water crisis wasn't actually the result, at least not directly, of big bad industry poisoning our land and water. It was government failure, government deception, government passing of the buck and shrugging of shoulders, which left countless families having to deal with a host of terrible illnesses, or the fear, at least, that these illnesses might beset their children sometime in the future.
And that same government - our collective government, and all its attendant agencies, organizations and "officials", whom we assume each and every day of our lives are on the ball and have our best interest at heart - oversees and regulates our water, our power and our roads and bridges in all 50 states. That should make us uneasy, to say the very least.
Without safe, reliable infrastructure, nothing else matters.
I'm Jared Glovsky, and I approved this message.
