The Chemical Substances That Exist Within The Flint River

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.

An attempt to save money by changing water sources by an indifferent government caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, negative health effects, and a total loss in faith in the government of Michigan. Although measures have been taken to mitigate these problems, their effects have already marred the city of Flint and its

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

First of all, how did this happen? Well it happened when the State decided to save money, so they switched their water supply from Detroit (Lake Huron) to the Flint River. When the State did that, everyone noticed how discolored and smelly the water was. This happened because the state Department of Environmental Quality didn’t treat the water with anti-corrosive agents, so the water has iron and lead. This has been in the dark for eighteen months until a doctor named Hanna- Attisha finally took matter into her own hands. She kept getting patients complaining about hair loose and rashes that wouldn’t go away on their children’s skin. Attisha, also known as Dr. Mona, decided to look at the blood levels in toddlers before Flint Michigan’s water, and then looked at blood levels after it. She found that the

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.

An essential necessity for life is slowly killing residents in Michigan. The town of Flint, Michigan is slowly being poisoned by their water supply. Flint is 70 miles north of Detroit with a population of 98,310. According to the U.S. Census Bureau a little under half of residents live below the poverty line. More than fifty-five percent of the city’s population is African-American (CNN Library). The dangerous lead levels in the water went unnoticed for years, despite the residents’ complaints of discolored and foul-smelling water. The question at hand is how could this happen?

Clean drinking water is a necessity in everybody’s life. Many cities take for granted their seemingly infinite amount of water available to them but for Flint, Michigan residents, there is no such luxury. Many people in that area have been sickened or even killed with the water that is available to them. Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan should resign due to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan because his negligence may have long and short term effects on the health of the city’s residents. There is no excuse for how he is handling this; slowly, and ineffectively.

In the article, “How Tap Water Became Toxic in Flint, Michigan”, by Sara Ganim and Linh Tran, they discuss how the water became toxic. Flint, Michigan is about 70 miles from the ocean, so they decided to they wanted to stop getting their water from Lake Huron. Many residents thought they would never change their water supply to the Flint River. The change soon went, when the city underwent a financial emergency.

Back in April 2014, Flint Michigan, switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The government believed that this would be a great idea, because by them making this big switch they begin to start saving a lot of money. The new water that they now use is very polluted. This is the water that each and every person in Flint depends on to drink, cook with and to also bathe in. A lot of people have been affected by this change in water supply. As things begin to worsen the people in Flint, started to hear and become very familiar to lead poisoning. A significant amount of their victims have fallen victim to to being affected by the contaminated water, that everyone has been using. Doctors have noticed that the amount of lead found

In the article “It’s All Just Poison Now”, Oliver Laughland and Ryan Felton discuss how the lives of the residents of Flint, Michigan have been negatively affected by the city’s tainted water supply. Flint’s aging lead pipes, coupled with its corrosive water sources, have cause a number of contaminants to seep into the water supply. On top of this, the city’s water supply is inadequately purified, which caused many residents to be exposed to these toxins. The main concern to residents is the presence of poisonous lead in the water, which can be deadly even in low amounts. The community of Flint has been unknowingly drinking and bathing in these chemicals, despite being told by city officials that the water was safe. As a result, many residents

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

Chemistry is a branch of science that deals various compositions of matter which involves investigating properties that affect us directly, including our environment and our way of life. One of such issues is the public water contamination of Flint, Michigan. The state experienced a water crisis for almost two years continuously, which highly devastated the town since its main water source had been contaminated. There were increasing levels of lead in the city’s drinking water (Broadsidedpress.org). The issue started in 2014 when the city of Flint changed its source of water from their original source, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, where they received treated water, to the Flint River. Drinking water from Flint River had a series of problems, including lead and bacterial contamination, which led to serious health issues (Dixon). Flint River water was corrosive thus it caused lead from old pipes leach into the water supply and this caused very high levels of metal neurotoxins in the water. So many children have been exposed to the contaminated water leading to a series of health issues. The children have elevated blood-lead levels and the number increased drastically from 2014 to 2015 (Dixon). The change in the water source also led to Legionnaire’s disease breakdown that killed more than ten people while affecting another 77 in 2015. Due to this issue, many people and organizations stepped in to aid the city of Flint by providing them with bottled

In April,2014, Flint city officials took the drastic decision of switching the drinking water source from Detroit to local Flint river. The residents of Flint had been using the water of Detroit back from 1967. But, with the suggestion from new appointed emergency manager and to deal with the economical crisis of the city, local Flint river was assumed as the most reliable source. Due to this change of water source, Larson Iron Corrosion Index was increased from 0.54 to 2.3, which predicted a very high corrosion level. Furthermore, the lead corrosion inclined from 0.45 to 1.6 according to the chloride to sulfate mass ration (CSMR) index (Fonger, 2015). The corrosiveness of Flint water was much higher than the Detroit water. Additionally, to save more money, the officials took the decision of not using the corrosion inhibitor which exaggerated the contamination. The changes in the water quality parameter tabulated in the following table (Fonger, 2015).