Word count: 1127

Brianna Lindo
Shelley McCabe
BHSW-2000-0NA
Thursday October 25, 2018

Water Quality in Flint Michigan

Water is an important necessity for all human survival, however, the source of water

being consumed is just as important. In 2014, Flint Michigan suffered from a water crisis which

resulted in exposure to unacceptably high levels of lead in drinking water (Utecht and McCoy,

2016). Although the crisis was looked into, the effect it created for citizens of this city are long

lasting and Flint’s citizens will continue to be harmed by the lead toxicity for many years to

come (Craft-Blacksheare,2017). The purpose of this essay is to outline the reasons why the Flint

government needs to provide compensation and support systems to all affected individuals. This

paper will discuss how and why this crisis occurred, describe the environmental injustice and

health inequalities Flint faced, as well as examine the health risks of poor water quality and its

effects on children/adults.

The first driving force of this crisis was due to a temporary measure while awaiting a new

pipeline to Lake Huron and so, the governor of Flint chose to change water sources from Lake

Huron and the Detroit River to the Flint River (Hanna, LaChance, Sadler, & Champney, 2016).

The second driving force was due to Flint officials trying to save money while making the
change in water sources but not long after the change to the Flint River water, residents had

concerns regarding their water color, taste, odor, and voiced many health complaints including

skin rashes (Hanna, LaChance, Sadler, & Champney, 2016). Once this matter was finally looked

into, bacteria, including ​Escherichia coli,​ were found in the distribution system, resulting in Safe

Drinking Water Act violations (Hanna, LaChance, Sadler, & Champney, 2016). Due to this

violation and lack of treatment, two pressures were created such as having limited water access

and an increase demand for available clean water resources. (Von Schirnding, 2002). An action

that is useful for this level of the crisis is to have the government ensure that the treatment of the

water is successfully meeting the requirements by having distributions of resources like filters,

premixed formula and bottle water (Hanna, LaChance, Sadler, & Champney, 2016).

One effect of Flint Michigan's water getting contaminated with lead which is a potent

neurotoxin, is that children who drank the water have a greater susceptibility to lead poisoning

and lead poisoning “has an impact on many developmental and biological processes, most

notably intelligence, behavior, and overall life achievement” (Hanna, LaChance, Sadler, &

Champney, 2016). Children under the age of five were impacted tremendously and experienced

high elevation levels of lead in their blood (Hanna, LaChance, Sadler, & Champney, 2016). With

tap water being responsible for more than 85% of total lead exposure among children consuming

reconstituted formula and rates of breastfeeding being low, one can understand how if the source

of water being used is contaminated by lead, it further exposes new born babies and children to

preexisting risk factors (Hanna, LaChance, Sadler, & Champney, 2016). Another effect of this

crisis is that it caused a lot of adults to develop post-traumatic stress disorder. A study showed

that those exposed to poorer tap water quality in the midst of a community health crisis over an
unsafe municipal water supply experienced greater PTSD symptomatology (Kruger, Cupal,

Franzen, Kodjebacheva, Bailey, Key, & Kaufman, 2017). An intervention that should be

considered by the government is to “establish a Flint Toxic Exposure Registry to follow-up on

the children and adults who were residing in Flint from April 2014 until the present, and carry

out more aggressive clinical and public health follow-up for all children with elevated blood

levels.” (Campbell, Greenberg, Mankikar, & Ross, 2016). Also, there is currently a program put

in place to help with this issue called ​Save the Children​. This program focuses on proper access

to healthy, nutrient rich food as well as providing early childhood development support to help

lessen the devastating impact of the lead exposure on their developing brain (“Results for

Children”, 2018). This program has reached out to 237,000 children in the United States and has

a high rate of successfully saving children (“Results for Children”, 2018).

There were two state problems related to Flint Michigans water crisis, one being that

there was a high percentage of rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs providing water that was not

safe for use without treatment (Von Schirnding, 2002). The water was not safe was because

during the water switch, the new water supply was not treated with an anti-corrosion chemical to

prevent lead particles and solubilized lead from being released from the interior of water pipes

(Campbell, Greenberg, Mankikar, & Ross, 2016). The second state problem was that there was

40% of Flints inland surface waters not meeting the required standards for the preparation of

drinking-water (Kruger, Cupal, Franzen, Kodjebacheva, Bailey, Key, & Kaufman, 2017; Von

Schirnding, 2002). It is noted that citizens recognized that the water quality being provided to

them was not meeting the needed standards. Once they noticed this, they organized marches,

protests, and attended/reached out to media however, Flint officials continued to insist that the
drinking water was safe to use (Kruger, Cupal, Franzen, Kodjebacheva, Bailey, Key, &

Kaufman, 2017). In late September of 2015, local doctors urged Flint residents to stop

consuming their tap water after finding high blood lead levels in local children (Kruger, Cupal,

Franzen, Kodjebacheva, Bailey, Key, & Kaufman, 2017). This not only attracted the media’s

attention but also made many people more aware of the environmental injustices that Flint faced

during this crisis. Most individuals that were affected during this disaster were African

Americans and some have speculated whether such an error in judgment and the lack of response

from the officials might have occurred if a different population had been involved, many articles

that posted a report on this crisis used the term racism to describe what occurred (Campbell,

Greenberg, Mankikar, & Ross, 2016). An action that can be taken for this disaster is to have “the

Michigan governor issue an executive order to mandate training and guidance on environmental

justice across all state agencies” (Campbell, Greenberg, Mankikar, & Ross, 2016). This action

should be used because many citizens feel like justice is needed for the lack of action taken by

the governor.

Overall, the crisis in Flint Michigan should be taken as a lesson for all governments

around the world. This specific crisis was mainly due to failure of the government to properly

treat its municipal water system (Campbell, Greenberg, Mankikar, & Ross, 2016). Therefore, it’s

now the responsibility of the government to get involved in providing the needed support and

resources that the citizens desperately need, as well as implementing health safety and justice to

all individuals of Flint, Michigan.

 Appendix

Driving forces:

● The first driving force was created due to Flint Michigan deciding to change their water

source in order to save the city some money (Kennedy, 2016).

● The city chose to changed water sources from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the

Flint River was because it was a temporary measure while awaiting a new pipeline to

Lake Huron (Hanna, LaChance, Sadler, & Champney, 2016).

Pressures:

● Limited water access(Von Schirnding, 2002).

● Increased demand for available clean water resources (Von Schirnding, 2002).

States:

● One state problem related to Flint Michigans water crisis is having a high percentage of

rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs providing water that is not safe for use without

treatment (Von Schirnding, 2002).

● 40% of Flints inland surface waters not meeting the required standards for the preparation

of drinking-water (Kruger, Cupal, Franzen, Kodjebacheva, Bailey, Key, & Kaufman,

2017; Von Schirnding, 2002).

Exposures:

● An exposure that this city faced with was that most of the population was not receiving

safe water in their home (Von Schirnding, 2002).

 ● Flint Michigan was also exposed to very corrosive water supplies. The water was “so

corrosive that, in fact, it was not used by the nearby auto industry and they instead had to

switch to neighboring water supplies” (Campbell, Greenberg, Mankikar, & Ross, 2016).

Effects:

● One effect of Flint Michigan's water getting contaminated with lead which is a potent

neurotoxin, is that children who drank the water have a greater susceptibility to lead

poisoning, lead poisoning “has an impact on many developmental and biological

processes, most notably intelligence, behavior, and overall life achievement” (Hanna,

LaChance, Sadler, & Champney, 2016).

● Another effect of this crisis is that it caused a lot of individuals to develop post-traumatic

stress disorder (PTSD). A study showed that “those who experienced poorer tap water

quality in the midst of a community health crisis over an unsafe municipal water supply

experienced greater PTSD symptomatology” (Kruger, Cupal, Franzen, Kodjebacheva,

Bailey, Key,& Kaufman, 2017).

Actions:

● “the Michigan governor issue an executive order to mandate training and guidance on

environmental justice across all state agencies” (Campbell, Greenberg, Mankikar, &

Ross, 2016).

● “establish a Flint Toxic Exposure Registry to follow-up on the children and adults who

were residing in Flint from April 2014 until the present, and carry out more aggressive
clinical and public health follow-up for all children with elevated blood levels.”

(Campbell, Greenberg, Mankikar, & Ross, 2016).

 Annotated bibliography

Campbell, C., Greenberg, R., Mankikar, D., & Ross, R. D. (2016). A case study of

environmental injustice: The failure in flint.​ International Journal of Environmental

Research and Public Health, 13(​ 10), 951. doi:10.3390/ijerph13100951

This case study provides details on the water crisis presented other issues such as

environmental injustice. This source also successfully lists actions that should be

taken to prevent future incidents similar to Flint’s and explains ways to

accommodate those who have already been affected.

Craft-Blacksheare, M. G. (2017). Lessons learned from the crisis in Flint, Michigan regarding

the effects of contaminated water on maternal and child health.​ Journal of Obstetric,

Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing, 46(​ 2), 258-266. doi:10.1016/j.jogn.2016.10.012]

This article includes information on what the effects of the crisis were and how long it lasted.

Hanna-Attisha, M., LaChance, J., Sadler, R. C., & Champney Schnepp, A. (2016). Elevated

blood lead levels in children associated with the Flint drinking water crisis: A spatial

analysis of risk and public health response.​ American Journal of Public Health, 106(​ 2),

283-290. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.303003

This scholarly source explains how the crisis began and describes the impact it had on children.

It was used to determine how high the levels of lead were elevated in children

under the ages of five blood.

 Kruger, D. J., Cupal, S., Franzen, S. P., Kodjebacheva, G., Bailey, E. S., Key, K.

D., & Kaufman, M. M. (2017). Toxic trauma: Household water quality experiences

predict posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms during the Flint, Michigan, water crisis.

Journal of Community Psychology, 45(7), 957-962. doi:10.1002/jcop.21898

Used statistic of the proportion of water that was contaminated during the disaster. This article

also includes information about adults that experienced Post Traumatic Stress

Disorder after the crisis.

Results For Children. (2018). Retrieved from

https://www.savethechildren.org/us/aboutus/resource-library/annual-report

This website was used to get information on current children initiatives to help reduce effects

lead harm in development.

Utecht, K. R., & McCoy, W. F. (2016). Water management lessons from Flint,

Mich.​ASHRAE Journal, 58​(5), 88.

This article suggests ways to correctly learn and move forward from the Flint water crisis.

Von Schirnding, Yasmine. 2002. Chapter 7: Framework for linkages between health,

environment and development in Health in Sustainable Development Planning: The Role of

Indicators. World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva. Accessed at:

http://www.who.int/wssd/resources/indicators/en/

This book describes the framework for linkages between health, environment and development.

The section on the breakdown of DPSEEA was useful.