The Flint Water Plant water tower is seen in Flint, Mich. The inspector general for the Environmental Protection Agency said the agency had authority and sufficient information to issue an emergency order to protect residents of Flint, Michigan, from lead-contaminated water as early as June 2015, seven months before it declared an emergency (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio).
Overview
Flint, MI is often synonymous with the water crisis that occurred in 2014. Corrosion in the water pipes resulted in lead contamination in the water. The water crisis was a culmination of political, economic, and social factors rather than just the infrastructural issue with the water pipes. The government ignored the residents’ complaints and tried to quiet down the issue. Marc Edwards, a Civil and Environmental Engineering professor at Virginia Tech, and Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician, exposed the water pollution (Rosner 2016). Dr. Edwards lead a water study team that showed the high levels of lead in the water. Dr. Hanna-Attisha took blood samples of children and showed elevated lead levels. The lead contamination damaged the environment and residents’ health. The Flint water crisis may have also caused the outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, a waterborne illness. There were 87 cases in two years and resulted in 10 deaths (Paynter 2016). The event led to calls for the resignation of the governor and other state officials as well as congressional hearings of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other government agencies.
Water Crisis
Flint, MI has around 99,00 people, with 56.6% residents as African-American (US Census Bureau 2015). 41.2% of residents live below the poverty line, and the median household income is $24,862 whereas the median household income in Michigan is doubled at $49, 576 (US Census Bureau 2015). Flint used to thrive as one of the nation’s largest General Motors plant, but it began to decline once General Motors closed some of its plants during the 1980s and 1990s. Flint lost 41% of employment since 1980 (Hanna-Attisha 2016). In 2002, Governor John Engler declared Flint a state of financial emergency. Later in 2011, Governor Rick Snyder appointed unelected emergency managers to run the city (Britannica Academic 2017). During this time, the city used water from Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), which came from Lake Huron. However in 2014, the managers decided to switch to Flint River to save money.
The change of water source resulted in the lead contamination and subsequent water crisis. Flint River required additional water processing because it was more contaminated than Lake Huron to begin with, and Flint River and had a history of pollution. In 1977, residents temporary used water from Flint River because the main water pipe from Lake Huron had a crack (Carmody 2016). The residents reported a poor taste, but the officials did not take action since the river was temporary. The Flint River water was polluted from four sources: “natural biological waste, treated industrial and human waste; untreated waste intentionally or accidentally dumped into the river; and contaminants washed into the river by rain or snow” (Carmody 2016). Also, the river is warmer and flows slower than Lake Huron. Increasing water temperature and decreasing water flow contribute to bacteria growth. To reduce bacteria, the water was treated with chlorine. However, chlorine reacts with organic material in water to produce trihalomethanes, which are carcinogenic byproducts, and chlorine acidifies water, which corrodes the pipes and causes lead poisoning.
Lead poisons humans because it competes with calcium for many of the same locations in the body, and it has a greater affinity for some sites over calcium (Taylor 2010). Calcium is important to the brain, bone, and nervous system, but the replacement of calcium by lead leads to toxicity. Lead gets distributed to organs throughout the body. It can also be stored in teeth and bones and builds up over time (WHO 2016). There is no known safe blood level concentration. It damages the brain and can lead to irreversible developmental problems in children. acidity. The Safe Drinking Water Act Lead and Copper Rule requires action when lead levels reach 15 parts per billion (ppb), but the Flint water often showed much higher lead levels, as high as 25 times the actionable levels (Ray 2017).
Flint mishandled water treatment, which was one of the largest contributors to the water crisis (Carmody 2016). General Motors stopped using Flint River water because the chlorine caused corrosion in the engine parts. In January 2015, DWSD offered to reconnect the city with Lake Huron water and would have waived the $4 million fee to restore the service, but city officials declined the offer because the water rates would increase over time (Moore 2015). Later in October 2015, the city switched back to its old source, but the damage to the pipes had already been done. Many residents have grown to distrust the government since it failed to institute the proper water treatments and pipe infrastructure in the first place. Before the Flint water contamination, a water crisis occurred in Washington D.C in 2004. Professor Marc Edwards played a role in that public health emergency as well by discovering the high levels of lead in the water. In December 2015, Flint’s mayor declared the city a state of emergency, and President Obama did so as well in January 2016. Flint residents used water bottles instead of local water, but in June 2016, the EPA declared the water to be potable once cleaned with a NSF-approved filter (Ray 2017). However, residents are still cautioned from drinking from their faucet because the lead-tainted pipes need to be replaced. Current and former residents brought up charges against several officials for misconduct or willful neglect.
Overall, the general view is that the public officials failed to respond promptly. Governor Rick Snyder apologized for the water crisis and discussed the failure at the local, state, and federal level. He mentioned that officials knew about issues in the water, but they were reassured that the problems were not serious. At a congressional hearing, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy mentions the confusing communication and misleading information between the EPA and state (Bosman 2016). One perspective criticizes the governmental neglect and lead exposure, but it mentions that the magnitude of lead poisoning during the water crisis were still lower than lead levels a decade ago in Flint and argues that the crisis was not as bad as made out in the general media (Mastio 2016). Levels of 5 µg/dL of lead in the body or greater in children cause concern, but in late 1970s, 88% of children 1-5 years old had at least 10 µg/dL of lead in their blood (Wheeler 2013).
Volunteers load a pallet with bottled water to be distributed outside the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio).
Politics of Health
The Flint water crisis relates to the politics of health because it connects to biopower, structural violence, and biological citizenship. Michael Foucault discussed biopower as “numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations” (1978, 140). The government’s poor planning of the pipe infrastructure created the catastrophe, and its inadequate response worsened the public health issue. Government regulated people’s bodies by issuing water boiling advisories after receiving positive tests for E. coli and other bacteria but hid the truth behind the lead contamination. The poor, mostly African American population did not receive the same protection from health hazards as other communities.
Structural violence refers to the harm a social structure or institution inflicts on people by preventing access to basic needs. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist professor at Harvard University, describes “structural violence is one way of describing social arrangements that put individuals and populations in harm’s way. The arrangements are structural because they are embedded in the political and economic organization of our social world; they are violent because they cause injury to people” (2006). The government ignored the residents’ complaints about water and allowed them to continue drink lead-contaminated water. Furthermore, the crisis harmed people of low socioeconomic status the most. Poor people who live in older houses in disadvantaged communities are most at risk of lead poisoning (Rosner 2016). Flint has a history of racial discrimination, including exclusionary housing practices. The Legionnaires’ disease outbreak also depicted structural violence because state officials refused to invite Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help with the investigation (Goodnough 2016). On June 4, 2015, a state health official declared the outbreak was over, but 39 more Legionnaire cases were reported a month after the announcement. Every discovery of a lead problem in drinking further decreased confidence in public officials.
Furthermore, the crisis established a biological citizenship for Flint residents. Biological citizenship refers to the rights and privileges of a citizen that one gains through biological characteristics, and Petryna coined the term and discussed it in the context of the Chernobyl incident (2004). Flint residents gained greater media coverage and political influence after the water crisis. Flint River had a history of pollution, but the government officials still decided to switch to the river to save on costs. Andrew Highsmith, a history professor at the University of California-Irvine, believed that the disaster could have and should have been prevented, and the failure was “fifty years in the making” (2015).
References
Bosman, Julie and Mitch Smith. “House Hearing on the Water Crisis in Flint.” The New York Times. March 17, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/live/flint-water crisis-hearing/
Carmody, Tim. “How the Flint River Got So Toxic.” The Verge. February 6, 2016. Accessed February 28, 2017. http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/26/11117022/flint-michigan-water-crisis-lead-pollution-history
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. New York: Random House, 1978.
Goodnough, Abby. “Legionnaires’ Outbreak in Flint was Met with Silence.” New York Times. February 22, 2016. Accessed February 28, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/us/legionnaires-outbreak-in-flint-was-met-with-silence.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
Hanna-Attisha, Mona. “Elevated Blood Lead Levels in Children Associated with the Flint Drinking Water Crisis: A Spatial Analysis of Risk and Public Health Response.” American Journal of Public Health 106 no. 2 (2016):283 – 288. Accessed February 28, 2017.
Highsmith, Andrew, interview by Steven Henderson “Highsmith: Flint Crisis a Long Time Coming and Could Have Been Prevented.” WDET, February 20, 2016. Accessed February 28, 2017. http://wdet.org/posts/2016/02/10/82461-highsmith-flint-crisis-a-long-time-coming-and-could-have-been-prevented/
Mastio, David. “Flint lead crisis getting a tad overdone: David Mastio.” USA Today. January 22, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2017. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/01/22/flint-water-lead-poison-michigan-health-column/79019134/
Moore, Kristien. “Addressing Flint’s Water Concerns: Water System Questions & Answers and Related Documents.” City of Flint. January 15, 2015. Accessed February 28, 2017. https://www.cityofflint.com/2015/01/15/city-of-flint-water-system-questions-and-answers/
Paynter, Ben. “The Crisis in Flint Isn’t Over. It’s Everywhere.” WIRED Magazine. June 2016. Accessed February 28, 2017. https://www.wired.com/2016/06/flint-water-marc-edwards/
Ray, Michael. “Flint Water Crisis.” Britannica Academic. accessed February 28, 2017. http://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Flint-water-crisis/627777.
Rosner, David. “A Lead Poisoning Crisis Enters Its Second Century.” Health Affairs 35, no. 5 (2016): 756 – 758. Accessed February 28, 2017. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2016.0362.
Taylor, Robert. “Nutrition to Fight Lead Poisoning.” LEAD Action News 10, no. 2 (2016). Accessed February 28, 2017. http://www.lead.org.au/lanv10n2/lanv10n2-11.html
US Census Bureau. Quick Facts. Accessed February 28, 2017. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/2629000
Wheeler, William and Mary Jean Brown. “Blood Lead Levels in Children Aged 1–5 Years — United States, 1999–2010.” CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 62, no. 13 (2013): 245-248. Accessed February 28, 2017. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6213a3.htm
World Health Organization “Lead poisoning and Health.” World Health Media Centre (2016). Accessed February 28, 2017. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs379/en/
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