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The Flint Water Crisis

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News of the poisoned water crisis in Flint has reached a wide audience around the world. The basics are now known: the Republican governor, Rick Snyder, nullified the free elections in Flint, deposed the mayor and city council, then appointed his own man to run the city. To save money, they decided to unhook the people of Flint from their fresh water drinking source, Lake Huron, and instead, make the public drink from the toxic Flint River. When the governor’s office discovered just how toxic the water was, they decided to keep quiet about it and covered up the extent of the damage being done to Flint’s residents, most notably the lead affecting the children, causing irreversible and permanent brain damage. Citizen activists uncovered these actions, and the governor now faces growing cries to resign or be arrested. Here are ten things that you probably don’t know about this crisis because the media, having come to the story so late, can only process so much. But if you live in Flint or the State of Michigan as I do, you know all to well that what the greater public has been told only scratches the surface. …show more content…

While the Children in Flint Were Given Poisoned Water to Drink, General Motors Was Given a Special Hookup to the Clean Water. A few months after Governor Snyder removed Flint from the clean fresh water we had been drinking for decades, the brass from General Motors went to him and complained that the Flint River water was causing their car parts to corrode when being washed on the assembly line. The Governor was appalled to hear that GM property was being damaged, so he jumped through a number of hoops and quietly spent $440,000 to hook GM back up to the Lake Huron water, while keeping the rest of Flint on the Flint River water. Which means that while the children in Flint were drinking lead-filled water, there was one — and only one — address in Flint that got clean water: the GM

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The Time article “A High-Plains Showdown Over the Dakota Access Pipeline” by Justin Worland talks about a controversy over a 1,200-mile pipeline stretching from North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline is called the Dakota Access Pipeline project and is being built by the Energy Transfer Partners company. Some people are outraged by the pipeline because it contributes to man-made climate change. Others are mainly outraged because the Standing Rock Sioux tribe never agreed to the construction of the pipeline. The leaders of the tribe say that “Washington never considered their concerns, as required by the federal law” (Worland).

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Paul Galley an accomplished environmentalist enters the controversial debate about Hydrofracking in New York, with his article “Hydrofracking: A bad Bet for the Environment and the Economy” published in the Huffington Post on January 05, 2012. Galley states “Net-Net, fracking is simply bad bet” fracking poses serious risk to New Yorkers. Galley, president of Hudson Riverkeeper has worked for over twenty-five years to protect the environment and support local communities, as a non-profit, public official and educator. This piece continues his devotion to protection of the Hudson River, and the drinking water supply of New Yorkers. Galley effectively convinces his audience through his use of appeals to pathos and logos that hydrofracking will have negative impacts on New Yorkers.

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Pearl Woodrum saw her fears realized when the dam burst in 1972. As the residents of Buffalo Creek slept soundly in their beds, they would not be able to envision the horrors that would occur on that dreary February morning. They knew that any time there was a substantial amount of rainfall in Buffalo Creek, the creek would rise and the lack of an early warning system meant they might never know if a heavy rain heralded disaster until it was too late. Residents also knew that the dam was not stable, a fact the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed when it concluded that the dam was “basically stable but could be overtopped and breached.” William Davies was the federal geologist who conducted the study and stated that if the dam broke, “flood and debris would damage a church and two or three houses downstream, cover the road and wash out the railroad.”

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Recent studies have shown that the water in Flint, Michigan has been contaminated by a horrible health impact, lead. This has happened because nearly two years ago, the state of Michigan decided to save money by switching Flint’s water supply from Lake Huron, to the Flint River a notorious tributary that runs through town known to locals for its filth. This has led to many terrible effects shown in both children and adults. The many effects lead has on children and adults are very drastic if not taken care of properly they could have lifetime effects. Dangerous effects lead can lead to that effect children.

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1557 Words | 7 Pages

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