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Comment by snovv_crash | Hacker News Reader

This doesn't mean anything until there is more accountability for those responsible. Look at Flint, and now Oakland too it seems.

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What kind of accountability are you looking for in Oakland? You're looking at a history involving a battery factory, lead paint, and freeways that stretches back 60+ years. Who is there that can be held to account today?

What does "those responsible" even mean?

There are a lot of people that directly share some of the responsibility for failing to properly treat the Flint River water after the switch (and for switching in the first place).

But for instance, are the people that voted to start bankrupting the city in 1985 also responsible for the crisis?

How about the people that failed to replace their lead water supply lines after it became clear how dangerous lead can be?

And on and on.

Are you advocating that no one be held responsible? Of course things can be complicated, but in light of the evidence, it isn't as hard to disentangle as you suggest.

Not at all. In a case like Flint there will be people with clear culpability for the poor decisions that were made.

But there are millions of lead service lines elsewhere in the US (the pipes from the street to the house).

Who's "responsible" for them?

Wouldn't the answer to this question depend on which pipes you're talking about? Are you arguing that Flint is the only place where lead had a cause?

Kind of amazing that somebody twice asks "who's responsible?" and instead of an answer to a straightforward question, they're accused of claiming nobody is responsible. Why not just answer the question?

> a straightforward question

It's not a question with an objective, simple and thus straightforward answer.

All the more reason not to attack the person asking it.

Contamination in Oakland is primarily from its history of elevated freeways. Responsibility for that contamination is diffused. How are you going to pin it on any one party in particular?

Do you have a source? There has been no leaded fuel (for on-road use) in over 20 years.

No need to pin it on one party. Rather than worrying about liability, better to worry about who's bearing the cost of the externality, and what the future costs of mitigating or not would be, with expenses to be paid from a general fund. Going forward it's better to price externalities in at the early stages.

There are literally thousands of cities with various levels of unsafe water. I had some extended familiy members whom all stupidly lived in the same house, drank/bathed/etc using the tap water near Durango, Colorado... and they all died prematurely of various terrible diseases like numerous forms of cancer.

Water isn't the only issue either. Our city has higher levels of lead than Flint does, but it's consumed through means other than water. http://www.pahomepage.com/news/18-pa-cities-lead-higher-lead...

Given the premise how can you you possibly come to the conclusion that the cause was the water.

Just because there's accountability doesn't mean that suddenly people become more competent.

Yes it does if punishments are superior the benefits and are well known.

That can affect malice or apathy, but not incompetence.

Do you mean accountable in the sense of the aviation industry (which hasn't had a major US airline crash in over 15 years) or the default political process?

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