{"id":9119,"date":"2018-07-14T11:45:34","date_gmt":"2018-07-14T18:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=9119"},"modified":"2018-07-14T11:46:04","modified_gmt":"2018-07-14T18:46:04","slug":"elon-musk-pledges-to-give-every-home-in-flint-mi-clean-drinking-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/07\/14\/elon-musk-pledges-to-give-every-home-in-flint-mi-clean-drinking-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk pledges to give every home in Flint, MI clean drinking water"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li>July 12, 2018 (BigThink.com)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>by\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bigthink.com\/writers\/stephen-johnson\">STEPHEN JOHNSON<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 300;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Flint.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-9120\" src=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Flint.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"897\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Flint.jpg 897w, https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Flint-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Flint-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Flint-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Flint-250x140.jpg 250w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 897px) 100vw, 897px\" \/><\/a><em>Resident of Flint, Michigan holds bottle of contaminated water (Photo by Mark Wilson\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Billionaire Elon Musk has pledged to provide every household in Flint, Michigan with clean drinking water.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 300;\">\u201cPlease consider this a commitment that I will fund fixing the water in any house in Flint that has water contamination,\u201d the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., SpaceX, and Boring Co. said in a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1017149641991680002\">tweet<\/a>\u00a0Wednesday. \u201cNo kidding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 300;\">One day earlier, Musk hinted that it wouldn\u2019t be the first time he\u2019s helped the city.<\/p>\n<p>Already have<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk)\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1016696081697009664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 10, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Musk didn\u2019t provide many details about plans for cleaning up Flint\u2019s water supply system but did confirm to a reporter from CNET that he\u2019s serious about the project.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re right on both counts. Most houses in Flint have safe water, but they\u2019ve lost faith in govt test results. Some houses are still outliers. Will organize a weekend in Flint to add filters to those houses with issues &amp; hopefully fix perception of those that are actually good.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk)\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1017157155638525952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 11, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 300;\">The announcement comes just days after Musk\u2019s involvement in another public crisis involving a dozen boys and their soccer coach who were trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. Musk sent engineers to the site, traveled there himself, and even\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bigthink.com\/stephen-johnson\/elon-musk-sends-kid-size-submarine-to-help-rescue-boys-trapped-in-thai-cave\">designed a \u201ckid-sized\u201d submarine to help in the rescue effort<\/a>, though ultimately Thai officials opted to retrieve the boys with a team of expert divers.<\/p>\n<h3>How did the Flint water crisis start?<\/h3>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 300;\">In April 2014, the city of Flint, Michigan began drawing its water from the Flint River instead of from Detroit. It was an effort to cut costs. Flint was bankrupt and had many of the same problems as neighboring Detroit: declining property values, steep legacy costs, and a massive deficit. The decision proved disastrous.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Lead from city pipes seeped into the water and, inevitably, the number of children with high levels of the substance in their blood skyrocketed after the contamination, causing, in some cases irreparable damage to developing brains. The crisis could have been avoided if city officials had properly tested and treated the water. It also could have been avoided, or at least minimized, had city officials took action after receiving reports from residents and businesses about the corrosive water.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 300;\">In April 2018, four years after the water source switch, Flint officials announced that tests showed that public water was safe to drink. The news put an expiration date on the city\u2019s free bottled water program. However, many residents still don\u2019t trust the water quality, citing the city\u2019s many old\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/environment\/2018\/04\/officials-say-flints-water-is-safe-residents-say-its-not-scientists-say-its-complicated\/\">lead pipes as a health hazard<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Now, Musk has set up the email address\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:flint@x.com\">flint@x.com<\/a>\u00a0so residents with contaminated water can begin submitting test results.<\/p>\n<p>For now, reply to my tweet with ppm &amp; ppb test results &amp; will send someone to install a water filter. Creating email flint@x.com, but I\u2019m in China so that won\u2019t be working until tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk)\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1017154709642072064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 11, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>July 12, 2018 (BigThink.com) by\u00a0STEPHEN JOHNSON Resident of Flint, Michigan holds bottle of contaminated water (Photo by Mark Wilson\/Getty Images) Billionaire Elon Musk has pledged to provide every household in Flint, Michigan with clean drinking water. \u201cPlease consider this a commitment that I will fund fixing the water in any&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/07\/14\/elon-musk-pledges-to-give-every-home-in-flint-mi-clean-drinking-water\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9119"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9122,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9119\/revisions\/9122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}