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Rising Scholar: Flint Water Crisis: Impacts on Human-Environmental Interactions and Reflections for Future Solutions
Sixty-six miles northwest of Detroit, bordering the Flint River is Flint, a city in Genesee County in central Michigan, home to approximately 100,000 residents. In April 2014, the Flint water crisis erupted. Flint's drinking water became contaminated after its water supply source switched from Detroit to the Flint River as a result of the city budget shortage. It was one of the largest-scale, most intensively-reported water crises in our nation's history, and it had huge economic, psychological, medical, and educational implications for local residents.
On April 16, 2013, the city of Flint joined a new regional water system to conserve money by obtaining water from Lake Huron instead of buying treated drinking water from Detroit's Karegnondi Water Authority. However, this new pipeline system from Lake Huron would not be accessible for three years. To meet immediate needs, the city of Flint decided to use water from the Flint River via a city-owned treatment facility, without any prudent planning or precautious water testing.1 The Flint River water was over sixteen times more corrosive than the city's regular water supply source, so it was not surprising that after the switch, the highly-corrosive river water immediately damaged the interior of the already-aging pipeline system in Flint, causing the leaching of lead of service lines and solder joints into drinking water.2 Soon after, local residents began noting unusual changes in the water and filing complaints. For instance, LeeAnne Walters, a resident of Flint and a mother of four children, reported that her whole family was their losing hair, and many other citizens noted the water's abnormally strong smell and murky color.3 On October 13, 2014, the General Motor plant in Flint even refused to use the river water as it was causing car parts to rust.4 However, the city officials and a hired consultant insisted that the water was safe to drink, despite the presence of sediment and discoloration. The lead contamination was not acknowledged for an entire year-until a manager from the Environmental Protection Agency finally informed Michigan officials on February 26, 2015, that the water chemistry indicated that a number of contaminants from the pipes were leaching into the water system.5 The city...