Switching to the new provider was a bad idea, because it is not that hard to find competent civil engineers who could tell you that rather than being a mysterious unquantifiable risk, putting the new chemical in the lead pipes would cause a problem. "Every decision that went badly was a good decision if it seemed good at the time," only holds water when it's not easy to figure out in advance what's going to happen. After all, to a sufficiently ignorant person, 50% of all decisions seem better than average.

You might be right. Or not too much - at least for me, when I heard that story, this particular decision seemed odd - surely such obvious ways to save on expenses were considered before, so why they were rejected? In general, if something seems good on the surface it doesn't necessarily actually is - and in complex systems, like a town, some checklists - I'd expect - should be followed.

But I agree that we might lose track of why some decisions were made. Yes, we may want to revert old decisions, sometimes even have to. Just some responsibility, which comes with power.