I moved the Koch entry down because I wanted to write a bit more about the Flint River.

There is a study published in a journal entitled "Environmental Justice." I suggest leaders and interested parties get a copy. A professor is linking economic decline to the decision of using contaminated water in Flint, Michigan.

I kind of expected this and it is one of the reasons I began this project which I didn't think would be this encompassing. But, at any rate, linking economic failure in Michigan due to the decline of the jobs in the auto industry did not cause the contamination of the water. 

Now, the socio-economic reality of the Flint residents were obvious when the crisis was finally realized by the country, but, there is no rational reason I have found yet for this to occur. 

Just to understand, this is similar to the work I've been pursuing, but, there is much more to this. Dr. Sadler published in a professional journal. I will be published right here and I'll explain everything as it goes along. 

I admire Dr. Sadler's willingness to bring about criticism that cornered people into this crisis. I think an abandoned city is more the accurate word. I have trouble with his analogy of the social factors of racial segregation, suburban sprawl and the resulting political fragmentation were major factors leading to the water crisis, he indicated. The problem is these factors were not unique to Flint, Michigan and yet other cities did not poison their people. So, while the analogy is interesting, it is more an excuse for social ills causing the lead poisoning of the water.

Give me a break. That picture is worth any analogy about social ills causing the water contamination. Not every city in the USA that is suffering from racial segregation, suburban sprawl and political fragmentation had a river converge on their water pipes. 

It takes all kinds.

December 7, 2016

Many believe the events (click here) leading to the lead poisoning of Flint’s drinking water began in April 2014, when it started drawing from the Flint River. Others believe it began in November 2011, when Gov. Rick Snyder appointed an emergency manager to take control of Flint’s government.

While those actions were immediate and important factors in the crisis, Richard Sadler, an assistant professor of public health and co-author of a new Michigan State University study, has found that in order to understand its real genesis, one must go back decades and examine a series of governmental, social and economic policies that led to the city’s decline and ultimately to the contamination.

“The main point is that, although we tend to think of the water crisis as proximately caused by the switch to the Flint River or the emergency manager law, we need to think about more distant political and economic causes,” Sadler said, who is also a medical geographer in the College of Human Medicine.

The study is published in the journal Environmental Justice in collaboration with Andrew Highsmith, the author of "Demolition Means Progress: Flint, Michigan and the Fate of the American Metropolis," a book about the city’s decline....