Tap Water Became Toxic In Flint, Michigan Summary

Before the water crisis, Flint was receiving water from Detroit’s water pipes which gave out very healthy water. Detroit had enough water to share with other cities. Doing this was not free though and it was not very cheap. Flint had to pay Detroit in order to use the water. After so long, Detroit’s water system had begun to cost too much for Flint. Flint then switched to another water system. The Flint city council voted to switch their supply of water from Detroit to the Karegnondi Water

The current water crisis in Flint, Michigan stems from government officials changing water sources. The government of Flint switched from using the water of Lake Huron, which they had used for over 50 years, to using the water of the Flint River, which had a high level of chloride. The high chloride level eventually led to the corrosion of water pipes allowing unhealthy levels of chlorine and lead contamination. Additionally, irresponsible and unreliable water treatment allowed even more contaminates to enter the city’s water source. All this pollution ultimately ended up in the homes of thousands of people, poisoning families throughout the city. Lead poisoning can have disastrous effects on the human body, with some symptoms including “memory loss, anemia (lack of healthy red blood cells), kidney dysfunction, and in severe

For 50 years, Flint bought water from Detroit, which legitimately treated the water with orthophosphate, a concoction that basically covered the funnels as water moved through them, keeping lead from filtering into the water supply. This is what the procedure looked like at that point. Flint changed from Detroit's water supply to the Flint River in 2014, to a limited extent to spare cash. Be that as it may, the city did not utilize erosion control to keep lead from entering the water. The waterway itself was additionally found to contain eight times more chloride than Detroit's water, a compound that is profoundly destructive to metals. Most inhabitants in Flint have decades-old lead benefit lines that associate their homes to the city's primary water funnels. At the point when water from the stream coursed through those channels, it destroyed their inner parts, enabling lead to enter the supply. When Flint exchanged its water supply, most Flint inhabitants knew it quickly. Inhabitants depicted the water originating from their taps frequently as an earthy yellow and said it both noticed and tasted odd. It was later found that the water was conveying huge measures of lead, which can demonstrate particularly harming to youngsters. In October 2015, the city changed back to the Detroit water supply, yet Flint's water is still regarded risky to drink.

All the inhabitants of Flint communities regardless of their location had irreversible, permanent brain damage due to lead-contaminated water. It started when traces of E. coli and total coliform were found in the Flint River. The city addressed this problem by increasing chlorine levels in the water, causing the pipes to corrode, releasing lead into the waters. Total trihalomethanes (TTHM) were also formed in the water (they are carcinogenic to humans).TTHM is a disinfection byproduct that occur when chlorine interacts with organic matter in the water. At this stage, The lead levels in the water was 13,200 ppb. Water is considered hazardous waste at 5,000ppb (NPR 2016). This tragedy goes to show that this toxic runoff, or even the miss-handling of the water resources in a watershed can affect everyone as the downstream water was piped up into the upstream communities.

The contamination began in April 2014 after the source of the town’s water supply was switched from Lake Huron to the Flint river in order to reduce governmental costs. This was done despite the fact that the Flint River had a strong history of pollution. Among this pollution included car parts, a dead body, and high levels of chemicals. (Semules par 5). Once the pipes were switched there were several complaints of the water having a foul smell and metallic taste (Foley par 4). In the beggining the government denied that anything was wrong despite the fact that lab examinations of the water proved otherwise. Two years after the Flint water crisis gained media attention, the Senate passed a bill that would provide Flint residents with water, but this is

The city of Flint is 70 miles away from the costs of the Great Lakes which hold the greatest sources of fresh water, yet there residents still can't get clean tap water. 15% of homes in Flint Michigan are boarded up ,40% of the people are in poverty , high unemployment rate, and consistently on a list for most dangerous places to live in the nation .In an attempt to cut budget cost in 2014 Flint stop getting pre treated water from the city of Detroit . Problems began when the city started using water from the Flint river .Flint River is 19 times more corrosive than Lake Huron (Detroit water source) . City and state officials denied for months that there was a serious problem by that time, supply pipes had sustained major corrosion and lead

The Flint water crisis has left no one from the damage, even the pets are getting sick of the poisoned water. That was what residents Lee and Ernie of Flint Michigan saw with their cat. Flint is a city in Michigan with a total population of approximately one hundred thousand residents. The issue with the water for Flints and its residents stated in 2014 when the city decided to switch from their water resource from the city of Detroit to a local river. Immediately after the switch residents filed complaints about the water’s smell and color. In Ryan Felton’s “Flint’s Water Crisis: What went wrong,” it is apparent that the crisis should not have happened, and that flint was neglected just because it was an impoverished city.

Would you drink, and bathe in the water coming out of that tap? The word no is what every sensible human would say when seeing this orange colored liquid. Unfortunately, residents in Flint Michigan are having toxic water like that, running through their pipes and there is one major problem... It’s too late to fix it. How did this happen? How poisonous is the water and what are the effects of it?

Flint in Michigan is located 70 Miles away from the shores of large fresh water bodies, the Great Lakes. Despite this close proximity to the fresh water bodies, the residents have not been able to get the clean water. The water supply of Flint in Michigan in the United States has undergone serious water contamination crisis. The water crisis started in April 2014 (Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, 2016). The contamination of drinking water began when the source of water was changed from the treated Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to the Flint River. This later led to a serious contamination of the water due to lead contamination hence creating more danger in the public health. The Flint River had a corrosive nature and caused lead from the old pipes to leach into the water supply. This caused heavy metals in the water supply. This posed serious health problems. For example, six thousand to twelve thousand children were exposed to the contaminated water. The blood-lead level in children increased. The alteration in the water source was the main reason behind the water crisis in Flint.

In April of 2014 Flint, Michigan started to get their water from the Flint River rather than the Detroit river that was formerly used as the main water source in hopes of saving money. The water being provided has been classified by Flint residents as smelly and murky and is avoided at all costs. It has also been discovered to cause damage to the lead pipes that transported it throughout the city. Children have been found to have high levels of lead in their blood and this may be the cause of an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease which has killed 10 people in the Flint area. People have also reported rashes from the dirty water. Video news interviews show residents holding water that is

It all started when Flint officials turned off the flow of already-treated Lake Huron water from the city of Detroit and started treating their own raw water from the Flint River instead. However, changing the source of the water was supposed to be a temporary solution, because the Genesee country, where

Flint Water Crisis, independent professionals reported testing the drinking water and what was found that there is lead and it was leaching into the main water supply. Contaminated water with lead and iron may be the most intense image of environmental and social injustice. Flint, Michigan, is amongst the poorest in the U.S. and majority African American, since 2014(npr.org 2016). The citizens of Flint had been complaining that their tap water was foul and discolored and had an odd taste. Nonetheless city, state, and federal officials ignored the issue. It has been stated that by changing the Flint water pipeline back to Lake Huron will not rectify the damage, investigators and many researchers believe that it may not be possible to ever undo

The more polluted a water source is, the more processing required to make the water safe to drink. Most of the contaminants now in Flint’s drinking water were introduced during or after processing. For all drinking water, the first concern is bacteria, which can cause diseases like hepatitis, Legionnaire’s disease, and other illnesses. Because Flint’s river water had high levels of bacteria, it was treated with additional chlorine. Chlorine reacts with organic material in the water to produce carcinogenic byproducts such as trihalomethanes; it also makes water more acidic, which corrodes pipes. Federal law mandates adding anti-corrosive agents to drinking water in large cities; this standard water treatment practice was not followed (Carmody, 2016). The water created issues with lead due to its high acidity. Water service connections have been made for years using lead piping primarily in the 1920s and 1930s. The acidic water corroded the old lead pipes and lead seeped into the water. Lead poisoning is the most widespread and serious health problem associated with Flint’s drinking water; children with prolonged exposure to lead experience a range of developmental problems that are incurable. Flint’s water-treatment staff were not able to successfully make Flint River water safe to drink. Whether this is because they were undertrained, understaffed, or simply made a decision not to invest scarce

There are numerous contaminants found in water such as aluminum, ammonia, and cadmium. These are found in water because they can be put in it through runoff and pollution. Cadmium has the potential to cause kidney, liver, bone and blood damage from long term exposure at levels above the MCL. You do not expect water to come straight out the reservoir completely clean but the amount of minerals and chemicals found in it are alarmingly high. To be able to judge what should be taken out of water is a long and strenuous process that requires the utmost precision. When talking about the Flint Water Crisis there was an abundance of ignorance that wasn’t taken care of. The fact that

According to documentary “poison water” by Nova “Since the late 1950s, G.M. closed seven major facilities in the region. Tens of thousands of jobs were lost. In 2011, with the city close to bankruptcy, Governor Rick Snyder stripped power from city officials and assigned a series of emergency managers to fix Flint's financial crisis. ” In order to save money, Michigan state took over Flint and started using it as their water source stating from April 2014.The switch from lake Huron to Flint river ended up being a awful to the residents. The flint water was not being treated inadequately. Even though the government of Michigan knew about this, they weren’t willing to do anything about it. Because of that, the residents were being affected in many ways. The residents started noticing that the water was starting to have an odor and changing colors. On top of that, they started noticing that the water was affecting their children's skins and that the water is thinning their hair.This is not the only way the residents are being affected. From the unmonitored excessive amount of led that is out in Flint's water, these people are exposed to possibly permanent lead poison and other health effects.These people can’t even move out because it's almost impossible to sell their houses in the arias that are affected by this water,and these residents are forced to stay and knowingly use the contaminated water.