The Flint Water Crisis has been a disaster to say the least. Children are getting lead poisoned, adults are getting sick, and the lead poisoning will have effects for years to come. The Flint Crisis has now become a political firestorm, a rallying cry, and even fuelf for conspiracy theories. What we know so far is that Michigan officials knew the water was contaminated in 2014. The officials ensured Flint residents that the water had been treated and was safe. This has come out false as the water was never treated. So the question is how did Flint’s water get so bad?
To find the roots of the Flint water crisis you have to go back to the late 19th-early 20th century. During this time there was not many regulations. Michigan was part of an area that was known for heavy industrialization. Flint, was right int the center of that. As automobiles were invented and becoming popular in the public. Flint and Detroit became automobile capitals. But, since there was not many environmental regulations. Lots of the industries dumped their pollution into rivers and lakes. Industries in Flint dumped a lot of their pollution and waste in the Flint River. Heavy pollution changed the chemical structure of the water by lowering its PH level.
Flint realizing that pollution was harmful built their first water treatment plant in 1917 to treat the water and make it drinkable. For pipes they used lead pipes as they were a lot cheaper to install city wide then other material pipes. In 1952 Flint built a second water treatment plant to replace the one in built in 1917. Also, lead was once again used due to it being cheap and inexpensive. Lead pipes were cheap and easy to install. However, the cities pollution decades earlier caused Flint’s water to be more acidic like, with a lower PH. Overtime this did damage to the lead pipes causing them to erode. This caused lead to get released in the Flint River.
Early in the 1960’s as moves started to be made to clean up the environment. Flint was going to build better pipes and treat water from Lake Huron. The proposed plan would have used different pipes that were better for the environment. However, a real estate scandal among other scandals caused the Flint City Council to scrap the project. Thus, the scandals and corruption of the City Council stopped Flint from fixing future problems. To save money the council decided in the mid 1960’s to build a water pipe to Detroit. In the late 1960’s Flint was hooked into Detroit’s water treatment center. Water was being treated in Detroit and then pumped back to Flint. Flint would use Detroit to treat their water pumped from Flint, to Detroit and back to Flint for 45 years.
Starting in 2010 though greed started to lay a new foundation for the water crisis. Businesses had a study done on the Flint River as a permanent water source. However, the report realized that treating water from Flint was doable but it would be more expensive then lake water due to the lead and other pollutants in the water. The report, which was done by the States environmental office concluded that the lead pipes needed to be removed and replaced, and that the water would need to be treated to be used. In 2013, Flint switched its water supply from Detroit to the new Lake Huron based KWA water treatment plant. Detroit was angry as they would be loosing money so they sued to stop their neighbor (Flint) from switching to KWA. Therefore, a water war was started and Flint was caught in the middle. The water war caused a lot of corruption as city council members in both Detroit and Flint were taking money and putting it in their pockets. Also members were taking fees from the water companies under the table to make deals. Also around this time Detroit due to fraud by its city council, mayors, loss of jobs, and population decline filled for bankruptcy. Flint was having its own corrupt council members and as a result they were in danger of becoming like their neighbor to the south. New Governor Synder in 2013 appointed financial city managers in Flint to try and stop them from going bankrupt like Detroit had done. He also gave the city managers the task of solving the water wars.
It seemed like things had settled down in late 2014 as it was agreed Flint would switch its water to the new KWA treatment plant. Detroit made a final offer but Flint’s mayor said they would go ahead with the original KWA switch plan. Detroit would shut off Flint’s water treatment in 12 months. But due to corruption and the water war. KWA would not have a pipe attached to Flint till fall of 2016. This was seen as bad planning on Flint’s part as they did not wait for the KWA pipe to be put in place to switch their water treatment options. Bad planning left Flint without a water treatment source for 2014 and 2015.
While KWA was building their water pipe to connect to Flint. The Flint City Council decided to use the Flint River as its backup until the pipe was complete. So, Michigan’s environmental office claimed they tested the water and that it was safe. Governor Synder signed off on it and it was approved. People of Flint raised concerns due to the pipes being made out of lead and due to the past pollution. The environmental office ensured Flint Residents that the water had been treated and was safe But, starting in late Summer of 2015 people started to get sick with lead poisoning. Children under the age of 6 are the most vulnerable as exposure to high leads effect a child’s development. In adults lead exposure causes cancer. An independent study showed that the Flint River lead contamination was off the charts. An investigation by Michigan’s Bureau Agency revealed the shocking truth.
The water had not been tested nor had it been treated. The investigation revealed that the state’s Environmental office lied about the Flint River. In addition, the investigation revealed that state officials knew that the Flint River was toxic due to the lead corroded pipes and past pollution. Things are so bad in Flint that the water is a dark yellowish brown color due to the lead content. The water is so bad that residents have been warned not to even use the water to do laundry, take a shower or use for cooking. The most heartbreaking thing is it is estimated that 12,000 children have been poisoned and that adults have a risk of developing cancer down the road.
The Flint water Crisis so far has lead to 4 state officials resigning and several investigations are ongoing. So far the investigations show that the states Environmental Agency dropped the ball and lied about the water. The question is who else shares the blame? Some even blame Synder and rightfully so since he signed off on the water deals and signed the environmental reports. It is also being investigated if he knew how bad the pipes were in Flint.
Some residents are comparing Flint to New Orleans (during Hurricane Katrina). That is a strong argument. Even though Flint’s disaster is a man made disaster while New Orleans was a natural one. Despite Katrina being a natural disaster like Flint some of the problems could have been fixed. When Katrina came on shore the levies in New Orleans were close to 100 years old. In 1965 New Orleans was decimated by Category 4 Hurricane Betsy. Betsy did a lot of damage the levies held but some did have damage. There was a call to replace the levies just in case another major hurricane struck the area, which is hurricane prone anyway. In 1985 Hurricane Juan made landfall as a category 1 hurricane. The levies held but were showing signs of age. In 2002 Isidore, which had decimated Mexico as a major hurricane, came ashore in New Orleans as a strong tropical storm. The levies were doing all they could do. State officials demanded Louisiana’s governor approve construction on modern and stronger Levies. As officials warned the next hurricane could sink New Orleans. Instead she brushed it off and in 2005 powerful hurricane Katrina sunk New Orleans. The levies were no match for Katrina’s powerful winds, tornadoes, and storm surge as a result they were destroyed. The levies have since been rebuilt and in 2008 they held up very well against another powerful hurricane Gustav.
Like New Orleans Flint had several chances to fix the pipes. In the 1960’s as I stated earlier there was strong calls to replace Flint’s water pipes with safer and better materials. The state did not want to spend money and told residents that it was not needed since Flint was getting its water treated at Detroit. In the 1970’s calls again were made to replace the pipe just in case Flint could no longer get water treated in Detroit. In the 1990’s as jobs started to be lost due to factories moving overseas. People wanted the pipes replaced because with the economy in Michigan tanking people were concerned that Flint could not longer pay a fee to the city of Detroit. Finally Detroit filed for bankruptcy due to corrupt mayors taking money and putting it in their pockets, job loss, and people left. This impacted Flint too due to reasons I already mentioned.
What is happening in Flint could have been prevented even decades ago. It appears years of heavy pollution have taken their toll. But even the pollution could have been easily treated. Greed and corruption are the big reasons on why Flint is having its water crisis. The pipes could have been replaced years ago. The Water war could have been prevented had Flint’s council done better planning. Snyder could have also prevented this by stepping in sooner then he did.
tornadocam 