Reed WojkovichEnglish 1102 – professor Probst 5/9/17 Research Paper H2-NO the Crisis in Flint Back in 2014, government officials in Flint, Michigan decided to switch the city's water supply from Detroit’s Lake Huron system to the Flint River in an attempt to save money. This river water was so corrosive that it immediately began to damage the city's aged water system- specifically the lead service lines and copper lines that have lead soldering. People took notice right away to the change in quality and color of their water, but most would never have guessed that they were being poisoned. In December 2016, after almost twenty months of slow poisoning, the city of Flint was declared in a state of emergency by the federal government. The ultimate reason for this delayed action to such a serious problem can be attributed to failure to act by multiple government officials. Now, three years after the crisis became public knowledge, the state of Michigan is defunding the relief process, citing a recent study that shows decreased water lead levels (WLLs) to under 12 parts per billion on average. Due to the extremely harmful nature of any lead exposure, and the fact that all known lead piping won't be replaced until 2020 at best, defunding relief now is another injustice to the people of Flint. To avoid a crisis like this one from happening again in the future, there needs to be a push for change in the way that the EPA and other environmental agencies collect and interpret sampling data, as well as emergency management laws. The health hazards associated with lead exposure are very serious and wide reaching. According to Michael B. Rosen, who is a professor at the College of Public Health in Temple 1 University, there is a strong correlation between high blood lead levels (BLLs) and water lead levels (WLLs.) People are exposed to lead in many ways throughout their environment in their everyday lives, this is because of the persistent nature of lead and its ability to attach to soil particles. Lead was used in a wide variety of consumer products, including plumbing, throughout the 1950s until about 2000. The CDC shows in their study conducted on lead exposure from 1960 to about the year 2000, that there is no safe level of lead exposure (Rosen). Because of this correlation between high BLLs and WLLs and the fact that the Flint water crisis has exposed people to very high WLLs and continues to- even today, there should be a change to the EPA’s threshold of 15 ppb as a safe level of lead in drinking water to more accurately affect the actual hazard that is presented. If there is a known point-source of lead pollution in drinking water (as such is the case in Flint,) there should be a strong effort to remove it at all costs- the law should reflect this idea as well. Lead exposure increases a person’s risk for heart disease and other cardiovascular problems, like hypertension. It also compromises kidney function- according to Margaret D. Sanborn, a ten-fold increase in lead exposure exhibited a decrease in renal function (kidney health) equivalent to 20 years of aging. This means that the kidney, which is one of a person’s most vital organs and is responsible for controlling and removing toxins in the body, is damaged greatly by a long exposure to lead, even in small amounts. The people of Flint have experienced this long exposure in various amounts over the last three years, and will continue to do so for another three years before all the pipes have been replaced. Simply put, three years is a long time to be expected to drink water containing around 12ppb of lead. This will undeniably show adverse health effects. In children, lead has increased risk to damage the Central Nervous 2 System. It interferes with development of neuron transmission sites as-well as myelin development. Studies show that increases in BLL in children was associated with a decrease in IQ by 3.9 points on average. (Rosen.) These health risks are hard to pin-point as directly related to high BLLs if a physician is not aware of a pre-existing exposure to lead. This means that children in Flint may have neurological damage from the lead exposure and are not being treated for it because it has been misdiagnosed. Because of how lead can affect a child’s ability to learn and function, it is imperative that the children affected by the Flint water crisis are given aid in the form of special schooling or care by those responsible for the exposure. To avoid these negative health effects, there must be a change in the way environmental agencies like the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) collect and interpret sampling data. From February to April of 2016, the MDEQ conducted a study of WLLs throughout the city of Flint called the Sentinel Program. This program essentially separated the city into 9 wards and collected water samples from the homes and service lines in these areas. The in-home samples were collected by volunteer residents that were given test kits and told to run their water or use a filter prior to collecting the sample. Because of this uneven distribution and inaccurate weight given to service lines in the study, the data produced by this program was flawed. The sentinel site program did not accurately represent the content of lead in the water in the city of Flint because of the way in which lead is being introduced into the water. According to Pierre Goovaerts, a statistical analyst from BioMedware inc, there was a sampling bias in the collection of data during the sentinel program. This is because the majority of lead service lines sampled in the program were built after 1930, and the program failed to test two areas within the 3 most impoverished wards. Because lead is introduced into the water from the pipes, the older pipes (specifically those made with lead soldering) that were put in place in the 1920s have the greatest lead content in them. Because the sentinel program failed to test many of these older pipes, their data was inaccurate. Another issue in the sentinel program is the way in which residents were told to collect samples of water. The MDEQ used in-home sampling data of WLLs to show a decreasing trend of lead exposure, and that it had fallen below the federal limit of 15ppb. However, more recent studies show that this was the result of sampling bias and that the WLLs in the homes of residents was actually above 15ppb (Goovaerts). This can be explained by how residents collected their water samples. The MDEQ told citizens to run tap water before collecting samples, this would allow the built up lead from the pipes to be released prior to testing. They were also told to run the water through filters prior to collecting the sample, this trapped lead in the filter and thus skewed the data collected by the sample. These issues are an example of how the MDEQ uses biased sampling methods and was able to produce flawed data that lead to the delay in reaction to the actual crisis going on in Flint. Flawed data collection is not the only thing responsible for the delayed reaction to the Flint crisis however. The use of emergency managers also played a big role in perpetuating the problem in Flint Michigan. According to Clara Campbell, “state-appointed emergency managers replaced local decision-makers in Flint, thus removing the checks and balances and public accountability that come with public decision-making.” This allowed Governor Rick Snyder to avoid the blame in decisions like changing the water source back to Detroit/Lake Huron after residents claimed the water was tainted. Governor Snyder appointed emergency manager Darnell 4 Early to move forward with the plan to switch to the Flint river, and his decision would override other appointed government officials. For this reason, the law should be changed regarding emergency managers to reflect the idea that they should not be used as a scapegoat for planned negligence. Despite the continued exposure to lead and ongoing issues with laws regarding management of environmental hazards, one might argue that the federal government is doing all they can to provide relief. Recent data shows that there are decreased levels of lead in drinking water. This means that the efforts to replace pipes and filter water by the state and outside agencies have been successful. An article from NBC news says that Flint Mayor Karen Weaver plans to replace 6000 pipes by the end of the year with help from the state and federal governments. She also said that around 20000 pipes have been identified as the source of the lead and will be replaced over time. This shows that the government has identified the source of the pollution and plans to correct it. In February 2017, Flint was given $97 million by the federal government to move forward with replacing outdated pipes, and the state of Michigan is funding 27 mil USD on top of the already provided 300mil for filters, bills, and bottled water. Michigan should no longer have to bear the cost of resident’s water bills or the redirection of flint’s water source from the flint river to the Detroit system. As of February 2017, this has become reality – residents now pay for their own water bill in full and the state is not required to provide them with water filtration or bottled water. This shows that the state is moving in the right direction and has provided enough funding to alleviate the crisis in Flint. 5 Despite the recent improvements in water lead levels and plans to replace corroded pipes, the city of Flint still exhibits environmental injustice. According to Richard Sadler, there is a correlation between high Blood Lead Levels (BLLs) and social structure in the city of Flint. This means that the more impoverished areas of Flint are receiving more lead in their water because of older homes and longer residence of water in pipes. Because of this fact, there should be a push to prioritize pipe replacement in this area. As stated above, two of the most impoverished areas in wards 4 and 5 of the city of Flint were not tested during the sentinel program. These areas contain the oldest homes and water lines in the city, so therefore the risk of lead exposure is at its greatest in these areas. Because of this, they should be given first priority in replacing the corroded water pipes. Lead exposure, even in the smallest amounts, over time can lead to significant health effects like cardiovascular disease and kidney failure. These effects are especially destructive to children, who can experience decreased IQ and neurological function as a result of lead exposure. Changes must also be made to the way in which environmental agencies collect and interpret sampling data for environmental emergencies to avoid disasters like this in the future. Emergency manager laws are also to blame for the failure to respond to the crisis; these laws should also be changed to reflect fair legislation regarding environmental concerns. The state and federal governments should provide more funding for water line replacement in the future, and the residents should not have to pay their water bills because they are essentially “paying for poison.” 6 Works Cited Campbell, Carla, Rachael Greenberg, Deepa Mankikar, and Ronald Ross. "A Case Study of Environmental Injustice: The Failure in Flint." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 13.10 (2016): 951. Science Direct. Web. 11 Apr. 2017. Goovaerts, Pierre . "Monitoring the Aftermath of Flint Drinking Water Contamination Crisis: Another Case of Sampling Bias?" Science of The Total Environment 590-591 (2017): 139-53. Web. 17 Apr. 2017. Jester, Anna Barry. "What Went Wrong In Flint ." FiveThirtyEight. FiveThirtyEight, 08 Feb . 2017. Web. 27 Apr. 2017. <https://fivethirtyeight .com/features/what-went-wrong-in- flint-water-crisis-michigan/> . Low Level Lead Exposure Harms Children: A Renewed Call for Primary Prevention. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012. Web. Rosen, Michael B., Lok R. Pokhrel, and Mark H. Weir. "A Discussion about Public Health, Lead and Legionella Pneumophila in Drinking Water Supplies in the United States."Science of The Total Environment 590-591 (2017): 843-52. Science Direct. Web. 11 Apr. 2017. Sadler, Richard Casey, et al. “Social and Built Environmental Correlates of Predicted Blood Lead Levels in the Flint Water Crisis.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 107, no. 5, May 2017, pp. 763-769. EBSCOhost, doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.303692. Sanborn, Margaret D., et al. "Identifying and managing adverse environmental health effects: 3. Lead exposure." Canadian Medical Association Journal 166.10 (2002): 1287-1292. 7 "Water Lead-Level Falls Below Federal Limit in Flint ." NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal News Group, 24 Jan. 2017. Web. 09 May 2017. <http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/flint- water-crisis/water-lead-level-falls-below-federal-limit-flint-n711716> . 8