Flint Water Crisis Analysis

Words: 1369
Pages: 6

Living near water most of my life, I always enjoyed discovering new things about the environment around us. The summer before my senior year I took a marine biology class at Virginia Wesleyan College that increase my knowledge in a few places. The class was filled with a plethora new discoveries to do with water, we even had to do a research project at the end of the class that included a certain organism in our waterways. Taking this class sparked my interests in our environment and how it can affect us as a whole.
This interest continue when watching the news and hearing about a Flint, Michigan ongoing issue. The city’s waterways were dirty and was harmful to majority of the people living there. They had frightening orange-brown water for
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Shafer is a professor of English Mott Community College and editor of Language Arts Journal of Michigan. Shafer and his students’ viewpoints had showed a huge racial, economic, and social stand points. Many of his students were also following up with the water crisis. “This would never happen in a rich suburb,” argues Anita, referencing the 40 percent of Flint’s residents that live in poverty. Also, the article showed many white students that were living in Flint and were going through the same issue. They believed that just because the city is predominately black, “it is like the white residents there are invisible.” Moreover, some say the governor is only responding to the issue because the national news got a hold of it. Discussions continue and arguments are fired up one by one. Students spent their MLK weekend in 2016 watching the news, tearing apart Flint’s water crisis information into little pieces. When officials change the source of water, Flint’s residents started complaining about the smell, taste, color of the water immediately. These citizens were told that the water was fine and not to worry about it. However, scientists from Virginia Tech discovered there were high levels of lead in the water. Lead exposure can affect almost every organ in the body and is very harmful to children under six years of age. One …show more content…
Ms. Burke received her Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Virginia in, and she has a strong passion for effective science communication and citizen science research across a broad swath of biological subjects. Burke states that Flint water crisis was a repeat of history before. Marc Edwards, a civil engineer, discovered high lead levels in public water in Washington D.C. At the time, 2003, Edwards was working with a WASA-funded research investigation and found an unusual number of lead concentrations. Surprised by his finding he notified the WAFA agency immediately. However, the agency was not to happy and refused to alert the people of D.C., because they believed it was not high enough for their concern. Additionally, did not want Edwards to study water in local homes anymore. However, Edwards refused to listen and had his contract terminated. These agencies did so many awful things and did not realize many lives were cost because of it. Many people stood up to the plate to make a difference but lost their professional lives to lawsuits. Agencies had power over the people, so it was difficult for anyone to stand up and make the issue public. In results, we had the Washington D.C. and Flint water crisis. How do we know history will not repeat itself again? These water crisis result in a plethora of more issues that are not