Water is basic human right, let alone a necessity. So why is no one talking about the fact that one thousand days later, the people of Flint, Michigan, are continuing to struggle with no clean water?
On April 25th, 2014, Flint officials switched the drinking water supply to the river located in the city, and the residents were soon complaining about the odd tastes and coloring from the water, while officials wrongly reassured the water itself was safe. It was the summer of 2015 when extremely high levels of lead were detected in children’s blood and it was soon announced a crisis. They discovered that lead, a deadly neurotoxin, was bleeding into the water from aging pipes. As a result of the exposure, 12 people died during the crisis from Legionaries disease whilst others were still dangerously exposed.
Despite its urgency and the amount of people’s life on the line, it seems utterly ridiculous how in a first world country where we supposedly have access to the basic resources needed at a minimum. Years later though, there seems to be not a lot of help towards the water crisis.
According to a researcher at Virginia Tech, the drinking water is improving.
“Levels of bacteria we’re seeing are at dramatically lower levels than we saw a year ago,”
However, the water used for drinking is still too toxic to use without a filter. On January 11th, a meeting in the Flint town hall announced that it will take a further 3 years to secure enough money to replace around 30,000 pipes in the city, with only 800 being replaced so far. Until then, residents will have to continue to use filters for water in their homes.
One resident told the officials at the meeting that, “I’ve got kids that are sick,” and “My teeth are falling out… You have no solution to this problem”
Cher, 70, is to star in a lifetime movie about a family affected by the water crisis and faces personal tragedies as a result of the horrific situation. The star herself has been active in raising awareness and has donated hundreds of thousands of bottled water to the city, with heavy emphasis on how politics and negligence led to the water contamination disaster.
“I mean, people have known that the river was polluted forever: Why would they go to that as the water source? It’s mind-boggling,” The star told Billboard, in January 2016
Despite the movie focusing on how the residents were powerless during the crisis in order to persuade the officials to take action, you would surely expect the people in power behind the scenes to prioritise the lives of people in Flint and take a lot more action in assuring that everyone would have access to easy clean water – way before three years – over funding a movie about the ongoing crisis.
Comments are closed.