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GM Stopped Using Flint Water More Than a Year Before Emergency Declared
The plot thickens. As do the water glasses.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34873-gm-stopped-using-flint-water-more-than-a-year-before-emergency-declared
In October 2014, General Motors recognized the Flint water was corroding its engines. They got permission from the city's unelected emergency manager - who was appointed by Republican Governor Rick Snyder - to disconnect from Flint's water and go back to Detroit water. It would be another year before the people of Flint were finally allowed to disconnect from the corrosive Flint River as their water supply and hook up again to the Detroit water system. By then, the Flint River water had corroded the city's aging pipes, poisoning the drinking water with lead, which can cause permanent developmental delays and neurological impairment, especially in children. We speak with a GM autoworker in Flint about the company's actions once it realized that Flint's water was corroding car engines....
RONALD JAMISON: Well, from what I hear, it basically was saying that it was causing corrosion. And what that was causing, they were saying something to the fact that what they were putting in the water. And they were saying we got this stuff called rust inhibitor, that keeps engines from rusting while they're waiting to have oil put on them. And they went, I guess, tested it and found out, I guess, we were putting too much chlorine in the water. And so they told Flint that we're not - you're causing us to lose engines, because we have to tear them down and get the rust out before we put them - send them back....
AMY GOODMAN: So, how did you feel? I mean, you were a worker in the plant, but you're also a Flint resident. And that very water that was causing rust in the engine, you were drinking here in Flint.
RONALD JAMISON: Matter of fact, they took all the water fountains out of the plant. We have all water coolers throughout the plant.
RONALD JAMISON: Well, from what I hear, it basically was saying that it was causing corrosion. And what that was causing, they were saying something to the fact that what they were putting in the water. And they were saying we got this stuff called rust inhibitor, that keeps engines from rusting while they're waiting to have oil put on them. And they went, I guess, tested it and found out, I guess, we were putting too much chlorine in the water. And so they told Flint that we're not - you're causing us to lose engines, because we have to tear them down and get the rust out before we put them - send them back....
AMY GOODMAN: So, how did you feel? I mean, you were a worker in the plant, but you're also a Flint resident. And that very water that was causing rust in the engine, you were drinking here in Flint.
RONALD JAMISON: Matter of fact, they took all the water fountains out of the plant. We have all water coolers throughout the plant.
edit: The irony is, who do think poisoned the Flint River in the first place? Why, that'd be GM. I guess what's good for General Motors really is good for the country!
