💾 Archived View for park-city.club › ~invis › phlog › 024-michigan-dam-failure.txt captured on 2023-12-28 at 15:26:26.
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# Michigan Dam Failure So here's what I'm upset about today: => https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-environment-watch/mid-michigan-dam-failed-was-cited-years-safety-violations TL;DR: A privately owned dam in Midland, MI (where some of my distant relatives live, just fyi) burst. This caused a chain reaction of dam failures and is likely going to cause the entirety of Midland, including the Dow Chemical headquarters, to become flooded, displacing tens of thousands of people. During a pandemic. Said first dam, the Edenville Dam, was privately owned by a hydro-electric company. It had been constantly reported and cited for failing safety regulations. It wasn't fixed. The federal authorities just within the last year or so revoked their license and forcibly sold the dam to a government authority. But, it was too little too late. This. Fucking *this*. This is why I've been a raging anti-capitalist lately. Maintaining a dam isn't profitable, so why do it? It's *only* going to cause the failure of a city if it bursts. Who caaares? Critical infrastructure like this should *never* be privately owned, IMO. Things that are REQUIRED to keep people alive should not have to worry about chasing dollars and begging for resources. Decomission stuff if you want, IDC. But if the maintenence burden is too high for a community, letting it just crumble is NOT the answer. Especially when, well, this. I'd also argue that factories and industry and stores fall under "things that need to be operational to keep people from dying". Radical take. Eh. I'm just having a very hard time rationalizing the concept of money. I wrote a whole article about that recently though so I won't repeat myself here. Fun US fact: Most dams and bridges in the US are around 50 years old. This is going to keep happening. You know what would be really, really great? Some sort of, I dunno, a Civilian Conservation Corp or something that just goes around the country and fixes everything. It would certainly solve the unemployment issue after the pandemic is over. Is it profitable? Frankly, that's a very silly question. We pay taxes to maintain the things people need to live. That's the whole god damn point of the government. Of taxes. sdnfklsdgndlfsgn im angery.