Water systems are government controlled. If anything gets in there that isn't supposed to be in there, that's their responsibility. Water should be tested. Pretty sure that's part of their responsibility of owning the delivery system. Actually I do know if the filter is helping, that's why I recommended a specific brand. It's called research. You're drinking the water. You can trust the government if you want. Take responsibility and buy yourself a water filter. People should automatically want to filter their water knowing how incompetent government is. You won't catch me defending Flint. This is what happens when you elect incompetents.
Groundwater? Groundwater is pretty good most of the time. A big part of the population gets its water from rivers. The other part of river water equation is that is where many cities dump their factory chemicals and human waste. Consequently many people are drinking recycled human waste if the town upriver is dumping their crap in the river and the town downriver draws its drinking water from the same river. Here are the test photos for a number of cities tap water across the US, bottled water and water filtering systems. US tap water varies a great deal, from pretty good, to filthy. Just depends on the local. For example, Malibu came in as very dirty, compared to Riverside, CA. https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/6035/
Our government is infested with people who want to eliminate regulation of water quality and who have taken serious steps to prevent water quality detection, let alone mitigation. Saying our government is "incompetent" is correct to the extent that corporate dollars, the war on taxes, and Republican "I can do whatever I damn well want"-ism DEMAND that it be incompetent. The word "incompetent" really doesn't capture what's going on.
They can be and should be worked on at the state level. You really want more control of things like this and bringing it closer to home will do that. Feds just complicate what locals can do better.
In communism, the feds run everything. If they can't do a good job under capitalism, where they stand to individually make more money than they would through communism, why do you think it would be better? Would they have to do it so they don't get sent to Siberia? Wouldn't the threats to do it properly or else, give everyone an eff you attitude?
Bull. Any state can demand better water quality practices. That level of regulation isn't being prevented. So, unless you are lobbying for WORSE water quality, you're idea here is a fail. There are several serious problems with your idea (if you ARE interested in good water quality): One is that corporations can threaten to go somewhere else if the issue is state regulation. That doesn't work for federal regulation. Another problem is that our natural resources are shared across state lines. Your state by state approach would leave major rivers protected only by the worst offender along the entire river course. These rivers end up being "protected" by a mishmash of regulation, each part of which can change at any time. Another is that duplicating the issues related to the setting of standards is more expensive and unlikely to work. This involves serious scientific testing - capabilities that individual states simply do not have. It's highly likely that I'm not complete here.
1. They do get most from rivers, usually. 2. Most folks drink recycled waste. When you flush, it goes to a treatment plant and then the treated liquid waste that is safe for the environment, goes to the rivers and streams. All is well, except, they don't filter out meds and birth control pill hormones and so forth. Therefore, as you live closer to the city, you drink more of those. Most cities are closer to the mouth or confluence of rivers. 3. I think you meant "locale". Using the word, local, just made my previous post more poignant. The locals who pay for their water need to get after their local authorities and pay for better water treatment. It doesn't have to be perfect water, but things need updated. They should be done over a long span of time, or as long as someone is living there. It doesn't all have to be done at once. Doesn't everyone pay some fee for updates or maintenance of the system? Wouldn't it be best to get involved, locally? Then, talk at the state level. The feds aren't needed, if you do a good job at the local and state levels. I don't see how it's better for the feds to oversee such an enormous issue, but I get it.
It's difficult to get the profit motive aligned with good water quality practice. If you have ideas how to do that, go for it!
Didn't realize you were a communist sympathizer. I hate communism. It drives the will out of the people, much like socialism.
That's not even slightly good enough. Individual parties have NO CHANCE of tracing the harm to the source - something that is very difficult to do even for scientists. Plus, it has nothing to do with attempting to align a profit motive with clean water. All you're suggesting is leaving it to tort, with individuals attempting to win against corporate offenders in some other state!!!
The feds are doing a lot. For example, they identified Flint as a problem. The catch was they didn't have the authority to go further. You can't block them and then blame them for not doing enough. And, today we have an administration that is highly oriented to making sure our environmental protections fail. My bet is Trump will have success at that. After all, making stuff fail is relatively easy, and right now it is highly popular among Republicans to remove protections on our environment. If "fail" is what you want, Trump can do it!
I mentioned it to someone else, who made the assertion that this happens because of capitalism. Do you agree with him/her? If you want to get in on it, go right ahead. Don't be afraid. I'm not. Let's do it bro. Let's get it on brother.
The locals knew. The local government knew. Why isn't the state responsible? Well, I guess they were accused. What happened? Why couldn't those Flint citizens sue the state or local agency they paid all those years? What do you mean? Who blocked them? Or do you mean in the future, if they were taken out of the equation, you could not blame them? I didn't think I did that. I think you connected too many dots. Whoa, it's Congress that makes laws. Isn't that in the Constitution? Regulatory agencies do not have that power, either. The rest of that was just nonsense.
