Symple Symbolic Sympathy Symptomatic of Leadington's Sympletons

[XLFD]

The truly generous person is generous in anonymity.  The falsely generous only are generous when they can benefit from it.  The Flint water crisis was mothered by politics and political parties:  a failed city government corrupted by one-party Democrat rule over time, that government subverted by one-party Republican rule at the state level, where more mistakes are made to the detriment of the health and welfare of the poor folks of Flint. 

While there has been plenty of time wasted in the blame-placing game, we now see a rush of local, state, and federal aid being devoted to Flint.  The City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) had an editorial on acknowledging Mason County's local political parties doing their part to help our across the state neighbors in Flint by sending them bottled water.  Right below it was a letter from Kerry Krentz, a citizen of Rothbury, about the Syrian refugee problem faced by Michigan.

  

Though over very different topics, the two opinions show the difference between the editor of the COLDNews and the general readership at large.  But first lets look at each separately. 

The COLDNews originally had a news release from this effort in last Friday's paper where both party leaders shared this:

“When tragedies strike, especially those that affect people out of our immediate geographic area; that tragedy’s scope can be defined not just by the damage done.   

“The response to the tragedy by people of good will, can also define the scope of the tragedy.

“In that spirit of fixing the problem and not the blame, it is necessary for caring people to overlook any defined differences, and merely do the right thing in response to the problem.

“People in Mason County have the opportunity to make their concerns known by showing a resolve to participate in this response to the Flint water crisis.

“We invite everyone, from business people, professionals, shop workers,  and school children to participate by donating bottled water for the people of Flint.

“To this purpose,  Mason County Democratic Party and Mason County Republican Party are working together to collect bottled drinking water for people affected by the lead problems in Flint.”

Beginning Monday, Feb. 1, those wishing to participate can drop off cases of drinking water in sealed bottle sizes up to 1 gallon at Beltone Hearing Center, 239 N Jebavy Drive, 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays. The building is behind Veterinary Medical Center. Weekend hours will be arranged as needed.

While showing bipartisan compassion is a good thing, the wise person would consider this more of a symbolic gesture of goodwill, a benevolent act of giving our water away to those less fortunate.  But let's not look at the mainstream media headlines of how bad it is in Flint and instead look at our own local problems, that are much more dramatic and mysterious than Flint's. 

The MI DEQ released a report to the city in September 2015 detailing the level of contamination in the PM Lake Bayou.  The report was part of the process for consideration of the lake for Brownfield Redevelopment.  The City has property abutting the bayou, as does several private marinas. 

Though massive contamination was noted throughout the bayou (yellow dots show the degree in the map below), the scope of the report was not done to diagnose and correct that problem per se.  So it has sat on at least one city bureaucrat's desk for nearly five months without any discussion at any meeting open to the public-- by officials.

The last two January meetings featured a citizen pointing out the contamination, particularly the high amount of lead in all of the bayou sediments, symptomatic of lead problems in the adjoining environment.  The bayou serves as a receptacle from the notorious Creamery Corner's drain and also has storm sewer influent coming from even the north side of town as far as Dexter Street.

The city manager came back with a press release after the second meeting, pointing out that the city's treated water tests negative for any lead.  Whereas, that's great-- and what should be expected for treated water-- it still did not address the lead elephant in the untreated waters of the PM Bayou.  Instead it created a mystery-- the mystery of why we had so many young kids suffering from elevated lead levels in Mason County when our drinking water is supposedly lead-free.  Nobody I know encourages our kids to eat paint chips from old houses.

The state records show Mason County being a statistical outlier on the high side of blood-lead elevation in state rankings of 2013:

Lead level rank      County           Kids Tested           Percentage with elevated blood lead levels  

1                           Mason              362                          11.0

2                           Keweenaw        28                            7.1

3                           Crawford          87                            6.9

4                           Jackson            2965                         6.4

5                           Manistee          248                            6.0

But even with all this data showing that Mason County had, and still has (as of last year), higher blood lead levels than Genessee County/Flint City, our political parties do not use their political clout to investigate the local problem, they do what is politically expedient so as to get good PR when they have screwed up big time addressing and/or ignoring Flint's problems-- and now Mason County's too.  A plague on both your houses. 

Krentz's article, in contrast, is a well written piece citing sources and Constitutional law in addressing its problem in systematic fashion.  Instead of relying on feel-good emotions like the editorial, it uses logic and law to educate the reader on what should be done, and gives the reader an opportunity to be engaged in the fixing of the problem brought forth. 

It addresses an issue that negatively affects the public's safety and health by making sure immigrants that come here intend to do us no harm and assure that both we and the immigrants have the means to assimilate them into American society without threats to our well-being and within our laws.   The editorial itself is useless blather and rehashed political propaganda written by a man, Steve Begnoche, who has known of Leadington's crisis since last year and remained mum about it, just like his buddies in city hall.  One would hope our local political parties would do something useful in using their resources for solving this problem in their own backyards.

[Jasper]

Hope the City of Flint has recycling.... With all the bottled water that has been sent/donated. That is a lot of plastic that is going.....where????

[Willy]

The day the LDN prints an article that comes even a little close to being fair, complete, unbiased and factual will be the day frost forms on Satan's a_s.

[jfc123]

Xlfd this is very well written and thought out, you should consider writing freelance for the AP. This should be sent to the LDN and Grand Rapids press as an editorial piece. I have been sending comments and links to many but all act like they don't have email or smartphones. I cc the lt gov everyone I sent so that there is a big email trail for when the state and possibly the feds come to investigate. The time has come for this city to take care of its residents, even the poor ones!

[XLFD]

You surely overestimate my modest talents.  Please do not despair that your efforts are being ignored by those who should be paying closer attention.  Ignoring is what they do until it becomes too great to ignore.  Do not forget Gandhi's wise words:  "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

This has happened again and again in the seven years I have been at odds with the way our city does business.  False authority eventually falls to anyone who keeps pressing forward with the truth.  Persistence and truth is the key to overcoming inertia.

[Willy]

jfc123 is absolutely correct. You produce excellent reports. Your articles are completely opposite of what LDN put's out. I would also like to see your articles be more widely distributed but I have no idea how that could accomplished. Why not send copies to regional news agencies and see what happens. Wouldn't that be a kick in the a_s if outside news covered local issues with your articles while ignoring LDN as a source. 

[XLFD]

I have organically gotten a wide degree of exposure on at least two different occasions in other media for the Waterfront Park covert bathroom cameras in 2013 and with the exposure of the "Claire the Book Girl" fiasco from last year.  In the latter, Frank Donnelly, award winning writer of the Detroit News, gave me a couple of compliments over the phone that really meant a lot to me, including telling me that he read the LT for source material on some of his outstate articles he is known for.  Not that the praise of my readers/contributors means any less, and will be graciously accepted within the bounds of my humility.

There is no express copyright on the materials here, so feel free to share the madness and the magnificence of the Ludington Torch inorganically if you feel the need to.  I try to cover more than the façade of the news.