Flint Drinking Water Crisis Analysis

Both the state and federal governments have just declared a state of emergency for Flint, Michigan, yet (“even though” instead of “yet”?) the people of Flint have been without clean drinking water since 2014. After switching the city’s drinking water supply from Detroit’s water to the Flint river, lead infected the water that Flint’s residents rely on due to aging water pipes and polluted river water. This water crisis has not received the attention it requires. In order to solve this problem, it is important to understand how this problem started, how people are impacted day to day, and the long term consequences of this crisis.

In 2013, the state of Michigan decided that Flint would no longer rely on Detroit 's drinking water and instead

This disease is especially concerning for the elderly population. Among those killed was 68 year old mother and grandmother, Bertie Marble. On her second trip to the Flint Medical Center, Marble weakly told her daughter that she “didn 't know what was wrong.” She stayed in the hospital for weeks and died there after her heart had stopped twice. Although her death certificate read “cardiac arrest brought on by septic shock due to pneumonia”, deeper in her medical records legionella is mentioned multiple times. The legionella bacteria made its way into the hospital’s water system and had been infecting patients and others living in Flint. Similar cases have been seen in children. Some children such as Grant and Gavin Walters have experienced both physical and mental side effects of using Flint’s water. Their mother told CNN that at five years old "they both have hand-eye coordination issues” and that “Gavin 's not growing properly. He 's 39 pounds and almost six years old. People don 't realize that they 're twins anymore." They have both experienced severe memory loss. Their parents have had to try to re-teach them basic skills such as the ABC’s, colors, and numbers. Their mother reported that she got asked heartbreaking questions by the boys: “ 'Are we going to die? Can the doctor fix us? Is there medicine?” They are aware that they have been “poisoned” by the water. For many families in Flint, questions like these from their children is a regular