Post by Logan on Mar 5, 2016 7:12:22 GMT -6
Some Flint residents will finally be able to take a long, hot shower
FLINT, Mich. – By the time the hard-hatted workers, tripod-toting journalists and glad-handing politicians finally left his front yard on Friday afternoon, all Barry Richardson II wanted to do was take a long, hot shower.
Remarkably, for the first time in more than a year, the 28-year-old homeowner could do so without fear. His modest saltbox house, like most in this stricken city, is crowded with plastic bottles from which he, his pregnant fiancée and his 8-year-old daughter have relied on clean water for drinking and bathing.
Now Richardson – and so far in Flint only Richardson – has less to fear. On Thursday afternoon he learned that his home would be one of 30 to get the lead water service line replaced with copper as part of Mayor Karen Weaver’s Fast Start Project. Not 24 hours later, jackhammers opened a trench in the asphalt in front of his curb and cracked open the cement encasing the lines in his basement. And then, with the world looking on, a backhoe refracted a winch that pulled the lead pipe from the ground. Moments later, out of the same hole emerged a shiny copper line to be affixed to a valve in the ground.
“We ain’t gotta worry about the lead poisoning us no more,” said a nervous Richardson bedecked in a Monster energy drink hat and hoodie, photos of his daughter dangling from a neck chain. “It’s amazing they picked me.”
Read more: www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/03/04/some-flint-residents-will-finally-be-able-to-take-a-long-hot-shower/
FLINT, Mich. – By the time the hard-hatted workers, tripod-toting journalists and glad-handing politicians finally left his front yard on Friday afternoon, all Barry Richardson II wanted to do was take a long, hot shower.
Remarkably, for the first time in more than a year, the 28-year-old homeowner could do so without fear. His modest saltbox house, like most in this stricken city, is crowded with plastic bottles from which he, his pregnant fiancée and his 8-year-old daughter have relied on clean water for drinking and bathing.
Now Richardson – and so far in Flint only Richardson – has less to fear. On Thursday afternoon he learned that his home would be one of 30 to get the lead water service line replaced with copper as part of Mayor Karen Weaver’s Fast Start Project. Not 24 hours later, jackhammers opened a trench in the asphalt in front of his curb and cracked open the cement encasing the lines in his basement. And then, with the world looking on, a backhoe refracted a winch that pulled the lead pipe from the ground. Moments later, out of the same hole emerged a shiny copper line to be affixed to a valve in the ground.
“We ain’t gotta worry about the lead poisoning us no more,” said a nervous Richardson bedecked in a Monster energy drink hat and hoodie, photos of his daughter dangling from a neck chain. “It’s amazing they picked me.”
Read more: www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/03/04/some-flint-residents-will-finally-be-able-to-take-a-long-hot-shower/