preview

Analysis Of The Flint Water Crisis

Decent Essays

All humans are created equal, or so we thought. Flint Michigan is going through an extreme water crisis where all water is contaminated with lead. Action has not been taken right away and something needs to be done. The Flint water crisis is not really a debate on its own, we all know action needs to be taken. What is controversial is what should be the immediate and long term actions that need to be taken. We all must understand that the water is contaminated with lead due to the pipes corroding. This lead contaminated water has many harmful side effects, one of the worst is lowering I.Q in children (Lead Poisoning). Citizens of Flint as a result have to use bottled water for everything from bathing to cooking, but it does have its limitations. …show more content…

We understand that there was change with this shared experience with Walters “On a chilly evening last March in Flint, Michigan, LeeAnne Walters was getting ready for bed when she heard her daughter shriek from the bathroom” (Lurie). This comes to show an abnormality with the water that must have never been there before. Lead pipes have to meet certain requirements to be used safely “When water chemistry is carefully controlled, it prevents dangerous levels of lead from entering the drinking water system from the pipes.” (Lead in Plumbing). The Flint river water chemistry was not carefully controlled with no anti-corrosion filters and damaged ALL lead pipes during the …show more content…

Some might even think “If I was not even involved in the switch to the Flint river, why am I paying taxes?” But the median house income in Flint is only $23,131, which is over $20,000 under the state average (Flint, Michigan). We have to understand that most citizens of Flint just make it through life with very little extra money. If they were going to heavily tax Flint they may not have enough money to pay for everything else they may need. We need to be empathic and support them in their time of need.

While it is true that residents should have replaced the lead pipes a while ago due to the harmful effects of lead poisoning and it being banned for new construction, citizens of Flint knew no better. The water entering their houses was completely fine until the switch to the corrosive Flint river in which corroded their lead pipes finally leading to lead leaching into their water. This goes along if the saying if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. And in this case many citizens can not afford to replace the pipes.

We need to use money from Michigan’s rainy day fund of $498 million dollars to at least help cover some of the cost of their mistake. Otherwise we are going to let hundreds of thousands of ordinary people

Get Access