Case Study: Flint water Crisis:

How flint water affect on American, especially the poor people?

 

Presentation:

It is recommended that each group divides work so that each member addresses a particular aspect of the situation and have an equal role in the preparation and presentation.  (It should never appear that a team member is trying to “get over” by using the other team members.  If anything, it should appear that the member did more than his/her share of the work.  So, make sure you do your part.

 

For instance, someone could:  (1)  provide the thesis of the presentation and background; (2) someone else could present the facts; (3) another could present the ethical issues and another could present an analysis of the conduct; (4) another the role of the government, i.e., is the government involved, should it be involved, is it properly and/or effectively enforcing, is it complicit;  (5) conclusion and recommendation.

 

PART#1

Introduction:

Background:

A Timeline of Flint Water Crisis:

April 16, 2013: In order to save money, Flint joins a new water authority that will get water from Lake Huron rather than Detroit. The new water source is expected to be available in three years.

April 25,2014: The city begins using water from the Flint River until the pipeline from Lake Huron can be completed.

May 2014: Complaints about the new water start coming in from local residents.

August 15, 2014: A boil advisory is issued in parts of the city after water tests positive for E. coli bacteria.

October 13,2014: The Flint General Motors plant refuses to use the river water because it’s rusting car parts so the city arranges for the company to tap into a different water line. The residents of Flint still have to drink the river water.

Jan 4,2015: The city announces that Flint’s water contains such a high level of trihalomethanes, a disinfectant byproduct. Though it’s in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act, Officials say residents with normal immune systems have nothing to worry about.

Feb 18,2015: A consultant hired by the city of Flint to investigate the water quality says the water is safe to drink despite the presence of sediment and discoloration.

Feb 26,2015: A manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tells Michigan officials that the chemistry of the river water means contaminants from pipes, including lead, are leaching into the water system.

April 2,2015: Flint tells its residents it has flunked the Safe Drinking Water Act again because of the disinfectants

Oct 1,2015: State officials announce that a new analysis of their data shows more children have lead in their blood since the water switch.

Oct 2,2015: Gov. Snyder announces the state will buy water filters and test lead in schools. Within a week, he recommends that Flint go back to using water from Detroit.

Jan 13,2016: the crisis expands to include Legionnaires’ disease. Officials reveal a spike in cases, including 10 deaths, after the city started using river water.

Jan 18,2016: Snyder admits in an interview with the National Journal that Flint could be his Hurricane Katrina saying, “It’s a disaster.”

Background:

The Flint water crisis is a drinking water contamination issue in Flint, Michigan, United States that started in April 2014. After Flint changed its water source from treated Detroit Water and Sewerage Department water (which was sourced from Lake Huron as well as the Detroit River) to the Flint River (to which officials had failed to apply corrosion inhibitors). The drinking water had a series of problems that culminated with lead contamination, creating a serious public health danger.

 What is in the Flint Water?

the water in the Flint River downstream of Flint has been of poor quality, so there are a lot of effects of flint water on the poor people. For these information, our group will present about how flint water affect on poor people in America.

2#PART

:tsFacFlint, located 70 miles north of Detroit, is a city of 98,310, where 41.6% of residents live below the poverty line and the median household income is $24,679, according to the US Census Bureau.The median household income for the rest of Michigan is $49,087. The city is 56.6% African-American.

Flint once thrived as the home of the nation’s largest General Motors plant. The city’s economic decline began during the 1980s, when GM downsized its sprawling industrial complex.

In 2011, the state of Michigan took over Flint’s finances after an audit projected a $25 million deficit. Even though Flint’s water supply fund was $9 million in the red, officials were using some of this money to cover shortfalls in its general fund. A receivership ended in April 2015, when the water fund was declared solvent and the remaining deficit was eliminated by an emergency loan.

In order to reduce the water fund shortfall, the city switched water sources in 2014. While a new pipeline connecting Flint with Lake Huron was under construction, the city turned to the Flint River as a water source during the two-year transition.The Flint River had been the city’s primary water source decades earlier, but Flint switched to Lake Huron in 1967, purchasing its supply through the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.

PART#3

Ethical issues and conducts of Flint water:

The Flint water concern started out with a bankrupt metropolis attempting to save money. It ended with the declaration of a federal state of emergency after as many as 8,000 youngsters have been uncovered to a poisonous aspect in an effort to have lifelong outcome on their intellect and worried procedures.

Even earlier than the lead obstacle, Flint used to be struggling. About forty percent of its residents dwell in poverty. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder had appointed an emergency supervisor, an unelected respectable with shut-whole manipulate over the town’s funds, in view that Flint was once near bankruptcy.

One cash-saving move used to be to discontinue purchasing drinking water from Detroit, which charged Flint $21 million in 2011. Flint deliberate to join a company new countywide water remedy approach that, like Detroit, drew water from Lake Huron, nevertheless that approach wasn’t however totally developed. So in April 2014, town started utilizing dealt with water from the Flint River as a stopgap.

The river water was corrosive. Flint did not simply deal with the water, and the state failed to safely scan it. Lead from the city’s pipes began leaching into ingesting water. In elements of Flint, the percentage of youngsters with high stages of lead in their blood doubled after the change.

What occurred in Flint is usually a tragedy it’s not relevant what: Lead does irreversible harm to child’s setting up brains. Nevertheless the concern grew to be a scandal considering that that the water predicament performed out in easy sight for months whilst the state refused to renowned it, although that Flint was once run with the help of a state-appointed emergency supervisor at the time.

The state’s division of Environmental first-class downplayed months of complaints from Flint residents that their water was once discolored, pungent, and undrinkable. Basic Motors stopped utilizing the water in its Flint plant, announcing it was too corrosive. But the state didn’t believe to ask if the water might also be corroding the town’s lead pipes.

Even after the city introduced the water used to be in brief contaminated with micro organism and, later, chemical compounds that intent melanoma, state officers insisted that nothing was once once drastically improper. A leaked file from the federal Environmental defense agency warning of lead contamination used to be pushed aside because the work of a “rogue employee.” When pediatricians in Flint stated a spike in lead in children’s blood, a state pointed out it as “abilities” — with the scare quotes inside the original.

The state admitted something was once as soon as flawed best after scientists from Virginia Tech went to Flint to test the water and located improved lead phases in 40 percent of properties.The city switched once more to water from Detroit. Nonetheless the damage was once once lengthy-lasting. Even with water filters, up to the moment samples determined that town’s water has unacceptably high phases of lead.

Residents with small children are ingesting and making ready meals with bottled water given that the fact that town can not guarantee that its tap water, even when filtered, is risk-free. In the meantime, Flint residents are nevertheless getting one of the primary very quality water charges in Michigan. And although town desires to exchange its lead pipes, it may be not clear the situation the estimated $fifty five million to change them will come from.

Meanwhile, proof is developing that state officers were cavalier and even negligent involving the risks of switching to river water. Town officials complained that the swap used to be rushed. The state division of Environmental excellent joked that staff fielding complaints from Flint deserved a lift. A state fee variety situation of labor in Flint bought bottled water for its employees after issues of bacterial illness first emerged, whilst because the state insisted the water was first-class to drink.

The sequence of emergency managers who oversaw Flint because the trouble unfolded are the most directly liable for utilizing Flint River water within the first place. After the change, the state department of Environmental pleasant refused to admit that the town’s water had severe issues.

Flint’s city council voted to join the brand new countywide water process, a decision that the state treasurer, Andy Dillon, had to approve, according to Snyder’s emails. But emergency manager Edward Kurtz made the selection to make use of the Flint River water except the new approach was once able, as an alternative than continuing to buy water from Detroit.

The following emergency supervisor, Darnell Earley, rejected offers from Detroit to proceed selling water to Flint except the new approach used to be competent, writing that Flint would use the river as an alternative.

The state treasurer and division of Environmental satisfactory each signed off on the swap. The department of Environmental satisfactory additionally did not follow federal ideas supposed to stop lead from infiltrating the water give. It’s going to have purposely manipulated samples so as to make the quandary seem higher.

And because it became clear that Flint’s water had issues, together with bacterial and chemical contamination, the department persevered to downplay them.

The director of the department, as well as his prime spokesperson, resigned in late December. Liane Shekter Smith, who oversaw the DEQ’s ingesting water unit, was once fired February 5, the first man or woman to be fired accordingly of the trouble. The regional administrator for the EPA region that entails Michigan has also resigned.

It is nonetheless not clear how so much Michigan’s governor knew concerning the extent of the drawback, or when he knew it. Snyder pushed for the emergency manager regulation that took decisions out of the fingers of Flint’s metropolis council. The emails he launched in January made clear that his advisers had been downplaying the quandary.

However whether Snyder purposely turned a blind eye to the concern in Flint or used to be misled about its severity remains to be doubtful. Some solutions could come from the 21,000 pages of emails and different records the state released Friday

PART#4

Government :

It’s astounding to see how much this crisis falls on our political system.  The failure goes as much as to the top state level.  Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan was responsible to oversee the agencies that played a role in the switch from one water system to another.  His failure to take more seriously what needed to be done amongst the crisis happening in Flint has left thousands of people at risk from lead ingestion.  The DEQ was found to be the biggest culprit within this whole ordeal.  The fact that they didn’t have the mental capacity to understand the important requirements needed to undertake a high risk change in infrastructure leaves many people wondering, what are they being paid for?  Why are they there?  How could they have misinterpreted the federal lead and copper rule? It’s interesting to know that over 50 percent of Flint’s population are minorities, much of which have total household income of less than $25,000 a year.  This makes you wonder, did elected official even care of such reports of lead in the water system from the local news.  Josh Sanburn explains: “the most sweeping indictment to date of the role state officials played in creating the crisis were released as part of the task force’s final report on Flint, where residents were exposed to lead in their drinking water for over a year even as officials were telling them it was safe to drink.”  The EPA was also said to have not been moving promptly to avoid such a catastrophe; federal laws were not enforced by the DEQ, which was supposedly overseen by the EPA.  Much of the finger pointing involved many of the emergency managers appointed by Gov. Snyder and false information from state officials about the crisis.  The delays on switching back to a Lake Huron water system were caused by putting more importance on the state deficit and cost cutting tactics at the expense of harming its community.

The water crisis goes further than Flint Michigan as our water across the nation is in jeopardy.  Dina Gusovsky states: “White House, along with about 150 other institutions, pledged more than $5 billion to improve water accessibility and quality across the nation, acknowledging that “water challenges are facing communities and regions across the United States, impacting millions of lives and costing billions of dollars in damages.  If we continue on the path that we are on now, and if we don’t increase investment in these areas, we’re putting at risk by the year 2020 over $400 billion in U.S. GDP, 700,000 jobs would be endangered, and over half a trillion dollars in personal income would be at risk.”