Not implying I’m an expert thus my opinion means more than yours, by I am a certified d5 and t4 water treatment operator that runs a water treatment plant that serves about 650k residents in Southern California. The flint crisis happened because they switched water supply sources to a source that was significantly dirtier. They then (appropriately) increased chlorine dosage to properly treat the new water supply. This is nothing unique, every water district in America has to make treatment adjustments that correspond with the water supply which is why I say the flint crisis had nothing to do with contaminants, they did in fact properly treat the water. Now what happens when you add chlorine to water? It creates hypochlorous and hydrochloric acids which drops the pH levels of the water. Again, this is very common. What you do to the water after adding chlorine is add sufficient amounts of pH adjusters (we use sodium hydroxide at my plant) to get the desired water pH back to where it needs to be in order to prevent acidic water entering the system and thus causing leaching of lead from plumbing to get into the water. This process is mandated federally. This is where flint said fuck it, they legit didn’t do their job adjusting the ph and then intentionally ignored customer complaints, intentionally tested the water at sample points that didn’t adhere to federal law which requires you test at high risk points in the system, intentionally hid positive sample grabs that tested for high levels of lead in the water and they legit fucked their citizens for years knowing full well what they were doing the whole way. Blaming the water source and the contaminants in it is silly.
