What Is The Cause Of The Flint Water Crisis

As Doidge et al. illustrate, the historical background of Flint City’s drinking water supply emanated from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. This was through a contractual basis for over three decades, and its main source of water was Lake Huron. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is an extensive system encompassing almost 1,080 square-miles, and provides to more than two fifths of the Michigan State population. In the year 2000 alone, the system covered 11,000 miles of water channels with a storage volume of about 360 million gallons. It supplied water to nearly four million people in Detroit and its metropolitan locale.

On December 3rd, 2015, the mayor of Flint, MI Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency because of the high levels of lead in the water supply. Two weeks later President Obama directed FEMA to help provide equipment and resources to the citizens affected, including providing bottled water and local water stations around the city. On March 21st, 2016, Governor Rick Snyder came out with an outline that addresses the agencies goal to help fix the crisis. It focused on providing professional support for children under 6 with elevated lead levels, replacing water fixtures in public facilities, replacing the city’s 8,000 lead service lines, and increasing resources for schools. (Michigan.gov. 2017). Through April to July 2016, nine state officials and employees face criminal

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

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

I watch or read the news pretty regularly, but I only watch news which has the traits that I value most. The news to me isn’t about being entertained, it is about learning, in an unbiased, clear, and concise way. Other television shows can entertain, but the news should be reserved for information relevant to people’s everyday lives, allowing them to make informed decisions. I feel this way because I don’t like when a news source is pushing a hidden agenda. I look for a fair telling of both sides of the story. I also feel that because I stay relatively busy, I think it is insulting that the news would choose to waste my time with extraneous background information, off topic statements, or articles over 1,000 words. Most importantly though, It needs to be clear, if I can’t understand it, it’s the worst kind of news, no news. I have chosen three articles regarding the Flint Michigan water crisis to evaluate based on my criteria. One from CNN titled, “Water Crisis in Flint, Michigan, Draws Federal Investigation,” written by Greg Botelho, Sarah Jorgenson, & Joseph Netto, which focuses on the investigation but also background into the crisis. The next article I have chosen an article from the New York Times (NYT). This article titled, “As Water Problems Grew, Officials Belittled Complaints From Flint.” From the contributions of writers, Julia Bosman, Monica Davey, & Mitch Smith. I chose this article from other ones, because this article primarily focuses on politics like who

The Flint Water Crisis has quickly joined the ranks of Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance, Kwame Kilpatrick, and the state of Michigan’s highways as nationally televised disappointments to come out of Michigan. This paper will look at the facts surrounding the causes, current situation, and remedies for the Crisis while also confronting the ethical and unethical acts of key figures associated with the Crisis.

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.

The Flint water crisis was a public health emergency that occurred only an hour from my home. It is a crisis that involved failures on multiple levels of government, including my state government. Their failures caused a preventable public health issue to increase in severity until there was irreversible damage, millions of dollars in recovery costs, and an entire city’s health at risk. It is important to look at the failures of my government and be able to recognize and identify when they are not performing their duties, so that future crisis such as this can be avoided.

Flint water crisis has been a low key story that did flush out into mainstream media until recently in early 2016 when President Baraka Obama declared this as a federal state of emergency. This crisis began in April 2014 when Flint’s water supply had been switch from Lake Huron, Detroit’s water system, to the Flint River which has high rates of contamination (Craven and Tynes 2016). After many complaints and petitions to switch the water supply back to Lake Huron’s water, the water source was still not switch over, because the river was claimed “safe” by the white people who held power. However, when the switch was made, the water pipes made of lead are already damaged and contaminated. Leading poisoning in children became a serious issue as many children began to show signs of poisoning and a chance for them to get Legionnaire’s disease. Surprisingly enough, when searching up “Flint Water Crisis”, there was no article that listed race as a potential factor into this decision of switching water supplies, until the addition of “racism” to the search bar to find many articles on this case. The reason to switch water supplies seems to be just saving 15 million dollars (Martinez 2016). However, Flint is a heavily populated black community, more than 57% are black, and Flint is about 40 % poor (United States Census 2016). Therefore, Flint water crisis is the intersection of race, poverty, money and power of a current society that believes in colorblindness and that residential

The Flint Water Crisis: What went wrong, article was written by Ryan Felton in January 16, 2016. The story of the article takes place in Flint, Michigan. The city of Flint experienced a crisis that has not been experienced in any other city across the nation. The article states that what happen in flint should not have happened, a city with 100,000 residents should not have to worry about poisoned water running into their homes. The water issue started when Flint appointed emergency manager Darnell Earley, decided to switch Flint’s water source form the city of Detroit to a local Flint River. This switched was aim to find a cheap alternative water source for the residents. However, what the officials failed to do was to test the water and see

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 her article, Flint Water Crisis, Dr. Mona Hann-Attisha, discusses the occurrence about highly elevated, possibly but not yet actually harmful levels of lead in the drinking water in Flint, Michigan, received national attention. She describes Flint, Michigan, was once a postindustrial home to flourishing automotive plants; the water crisis has been described as an example of government wrongdoing and disrepair by some and of a lack of omission by federal environmental regulators by others. She points to the tendency prior to a series of tests by independent researchers at Virginia Tech in October 2015, many residents found that their unease about the water’s taste, odor, and smell were being disregard intentionally by city and state officials,

The problem of water in flint arose when the city changed the source of the water from Detroit to the Flint River in order to save money. This issue had several negative consequences on Flint citizens. The majority of these consequences is serious health problems especially for the infants and old people. In order to figure out the causes of this water issue and who made the decisions that lead eventually to those dreadful unpleasant outcomes.

In “Flint’s Water Crises: What went wrong,” Ryan Felton appeals to logic to persuade his readers that the Flint Water Crises could have been prevented because he stated that “As early as October 2014, there were problematic signs.” These signs were when General Motors engine plant stopped using Flint’s water because the engines were becoming rusty. There were also some independent studies that showed that the water contained some compounds that can cause kidney or liver issues an example, “Tests also revealed elevated levels of chemical compounds in the water supply that can lead to liver or kidney issues.” yet, officials continued to reassure residents that the water was safe to drink. Studies continued to follow that shows the water headed

There are two sides to this story, the government of Flint, MI and the people who reside