December 6,2017, 9:59:28AM,EST
Dec. 14, 2017, marks two years since the City of Flint declared a
State of Emergency in response to the man-made water disaster that for
years has demanded the attention of residents, activists and officials
at all levels of the government.
In January 2017, the Michigan
Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) said that the lead levels in
the city’s water tested below the federal limit.
“In terms of the
public health crisis, they’re now in a range where the level of problems
is believed to be comparable to other cities with old pipes,” said Dr.
Marc Edwards, the environmental and water resources engineering
professor at Virginia Tech who led the research team that helped uncover
the water crisis in Flint.
Since the start of the water crisis,
Flint has had issues across the board from economical to cultural to
medical. The many problems in Flint are a result of a major chain of
reactions, with most pointing to the switch of Flint’s water source to
the Flint River as the start of that chain.
In April 2014, Flint
temporarily switched its water source to the Flint River in order to
reduce costs. Flint officials neglected to add corrosion controls to the
Flint River water, causing it to leach the city’s lead pipes.
The Flint Water Plant
tower is seen, Friday, Feb. 26, 2016 in Flint, Mich. Flint is under a
public health emergency after its drinking water became tainted when the
city switched from the Detroit system and began drawing from the Flint
River in April 2014 to save money. The city was under state management
at the time. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
The switch led to Flint’s 10,000
residents potentially being exposed to dangerous levels of lead in their
drinking water, which led to incredible health issues such as decreased
fertility and a Legionnaires' disease outbreak, which has been blamed
for 12 deaths.
The first sign of trouble was on Aug. 14, 2014, when the city put out a boil water advisory, according to
CNN. The advisory was lifted six days later, but another was issued Sept. 5, 2014.
In
March 2015, a Flint resident told the EPA that a test indicated the
lead level in her water to be 397 ppb, over 26 times greater than the
EPA limit of 15 ppb.
Fast forward to the first month of 2017 when
the MDEQ announced that the lead levels in the city’s water tested below
the federal limit. At the same time, residents are also told that they
should continue using the free water filter provided to them by the
state.
Meeting the federal standard doesn’t mean it’s time to celebrate in Flint, according to Edwards.
“The lead standards are known to be out of date and certainly meeting them is nothing to brag about,” Edwards said.
Even
with the water meeting the federal standard for lead, Flint has not
been relieved of major issues due to the dangerous water.
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According to
MLive,
in February 2017, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found the first
genetic link between the Legionnaires’ outbreak and Flint water.
Legionnaires' disease is a respiratory disease caused by Legionella
bacteria, according to the
CDC.
The outbreak was the cause of 12 deaths between 2014 and 2015, according to the
New York Times.
In
addition to Legionnaires' disease, the lead-poisoned water has also
been tied to an increase in fetal deaths and miscarriages, according to a
paper by two professors of economics, released in August 2017.
The
paper found that fertility rates decreased by 12 percent and fetal
death rates increased by 58 percent. Overall health at birth also
decreased compared to other cities in Michigan.
Six officials have been charged with involuntary manslaughter tied to the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, according to the
Chicago Tribune.
Dr. Eden Wells, Michigan’s chief medical executive, was the 15th person
to be criminally charged in the water crisis, according to
the Detroit Free Press.
In
addition to involuntary manslaughter, city and state officials have
been charged with acts such as tampering with evidence, misconduct in
office and willful neglect.
As a consequence of the dangerous
water and the neglect of officials, Edwards said that a whole other
crisis has emerged in Flint: a crisis of confidence. Many Flint
residents still hold skepticism and doubt in their government.
Then there is the
water infrastructure death spiral, which according to Edwards, means that water rates are higher than many residents can afford.
“The water rates are still going to remain stubbornly high,” Edwards said.
Infrastructure
money, including $100 million from the EPA in March 2017, and loan
forgiveness from the state are alleviating financial pressures in Flint.
According to Edwards, there once was a projection that water
rates would have to double in the next five years from their already
high rates, but due to state and federal help, it’s believed that those
higher rates will not occur to the same extent as what was once
considered probable.
“While the outlook isn’t necessarily bright, it’s much better than it was just a year or so ago,” Edwards said.
Another long-lasting effect of the Flint water crisis is the national attention that it brought to certain issues.
The
Flint situation was the start of a national conversation about the
United States' aging water infrastructure, according to Edwards.
“You can only ignore your pipe system for so long before civilization as we know it ends,” Edwards said.
According to the
American Society of Civil Engineers,
many of the pipes delivering drinking water across the country were
laid in the early to mid-20th century. As the pipes have a lifespan of
75 to 100 years, many are at or coming to the end of their time to be
considered efficient or safe.
The Flint crisis also drew national attention to infrastructure inequality, a countrywide problem, according to Edwards.
“So
many of our poor and most vulnerable Americans don’t enjoy the same
access to safe, affordable drinking water that the rest of us take for
granted,” Edwards said.
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Edwards believes that Flint has served as a wake-up call for many Americans.
“Even
though the vast majority of us do enjoy access to relatively safe,
affordable water, we now realize that too many of us do not,” Edwards
said.
Edwards hopes that because the existing lead law is not
protective enough, other cities with lead pipes will put programs in to
provide filters to lower income consumers.
“It’s an opportunity to unite Americans in common cause against a problem,” Edwards said.
