Case Study on "Why Lead in Drinking Water Has Serious Negative Impacts on Citizens"

Case Study 10 pages (3396 words) Sources: 7

[EXCERPT] . . . .

"It's hard for me to accept the fact that race is not the most significant factor" in Flint, Kildee asserted (Craven). An article in Huffington Post points out that environmental injustice and unethical governmental behavior is not a new phenomenon in Flint.

When the auto industry was booming in Flint, the General Motors plant " ... churned out thick clouds of smoke" which caused cancer in some residents, including Aliene Butler and her husband (Craven, p. 2). Also in 1966, the eight auto plants around the Flint area dumped 2.2 million gallons of waste "per day" into the Flint River; and in 1965 records show that the General Motors plants near Flint were dumping "26.5 million gallons of industrial waste into the Flint River each day" (Craven, p. 3).

In affluent cities, dumping these amounts of toxic pollutants would never be tolerated; it's both a "class and race issue" in Flint, according to Carl S. Taylor (a sociology professor at Michigan State University) (Craven, p. 3). Particularly egregious in this context is an 80 million dollar incinerator that was build right next to a poor African-American community (and beside an elementary school) in 1995. The plant belched out lead, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and additional chemical compounds; the plant was known to burn wood that was covered with lead-based paint. Notwithstanding that members of the Flint community filed a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prior to the start-up of the plant in 1994, nothing was done, Craven points out.

The permit actually required that lead emissions for any new facility like this must be " ... at least 100 times less than the national allowable limit," but the department of environmental quality in Michigan failed to spend any time or effort to study the potential environmental impact of the incinerator, Craven explains (p. 4).

Meanwhile, Representative Brenda Lawrence (Democrat, Michigan), who is a member of the House Oversight Committee's Subcommittee on the Interior, called for a hearing on the "high concentration of lead in Flint's water" (Craven, p. 4). Those who attended the hearing in Washington, D.C. included representatives from Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ); but Governor Snyder and Darnell Earley (a former Emergency Manager who oversaw the switch to Flint's River) were absent. "As a member of Congress, I'm enraged," Lawrence was quoted as saying. She went on: "We should never have this conversation about children being developmentally impacted because of poisoning of the water that they drink" (Craven, p. 5).

Damning UMass and Virginia Tech Research

What also is germane to the discussion of Flint's lead-infused drinking water is a study by Virginia Tech with assistance from the University of Massachusetts. The research by these two universities in 2015 reported that the Flint River is " ... 19 times more corrosive than Lake Huron"; this is partly due to the Michigan DEQ failed to treat the river with an "anti-corrosive agent" (Craven, p. 6). It was not as if adding the anti-corrosive agent would have been financially prohibitive; in fact it would have cost Flint just $100 a day, the report asserted. The research by the universities concluded that "90% of the problems" might have been avoided; hence, failing to add anti-corrosive agents to Flint's water "was not an honest mistake" (Craven, p. 6).

Beyond the lead hazard in Flint's drinking water, the research by the two universities pointed to disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in the water. Yes, exposure to lead (Pb) is unhealthy, the research maintains, but also the " ... risk from DBPs is a chronic exposure risk, not an acute poisoning risk" (flintwaterstudy.org / Reckhow, et al., 2016). It is believed that when a person consumed high levels of DBPs, the risk of cancer "over a typical lifetime" is very real; in fact, DBPs are regulated by the EPA under the Clean Water Act (Reckhow).

The universities' report points to the fact that chlorination (used in public drinking water sources for 112 years) has been viewed as "one of the most important public health breakthrough" in the modern world, because chlorination rids water of "most waterborne disease" (Reckhow). That said, when chlorine reacts with natural organic matter (NOM) DBPs (including trihalomethanes [TTHMs] and Haloacetic Acids [HAAs]) are "always formed"; the reaction of chlorine with NOM can be problematic for public health (Reckhow).

Moreover, the methods that were used in the sampling of Flint water (by non-scientists) in order to determine how concentrated the TTHMs and HAAs were, used "unorthodox" procedures (Reckhow). Apparently the firm that did the testing used sponges that "were marketed by the group" but the results were not "comparable to refined and standard scientific methods" (Reckhow). When more trustworthy scientific methods were employed, the real threat posed by TTHMs and HAAs were revealed.

Effects of Lead on Flint's Children

The American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) published a peer-reviewed article that points out the rise in blood lead levels -- before and after the introduction of lead-tainted drinking water -- for Flint's children that were younger than age 5. The results of the research show that incidence of "elevated blood lead levels" rose from 2.4% in 2013 to 4.9% in 2015 (after the switch from Lake Huron water to the Flint River water) (Hanna-Attisha, et al., 2016). Neighborhoods that showed the highest water lead levels actually experienced a 6.6% increase in elevated water lead levels, the article explains. Outside the City of Flint no significant changes in water lead levels in children were detected.

The article goes on to explain that lead in drinking water is not the same as lead from other sources; this is because lead in water " ... disproportionately affects developmentally vulnerable children and pregnant mothers" (Hanna-Attisha, 284). In fact children can absorb 40% to 50% "of an oral dose of water-soluble lead compared with 3% to 10% for adults" (Hanna-Attisha, 284). Breaking those data down more, the authors report that in a dose-response relationship for children that are between 1 and 5 years of age, " ... for every 1 ppb [parts-per-billion] increase in water lead, blood lead increases 35%" (Hanna-Attisha, 284). Lead has been shown to be involved in an increase in fetal deaths and "reduced birth weights" for children (Hanna-Attisha, 284).

Significantly, the highest levels of lead in Flint's children are to be found in a "wide swath north and west of downtown Flint"; this area has seen a dramatic increase in vacant properties and in poverty over the past 25 years Hanna-Attisha, 286). Three elementary schools in those low-income areas were sampled by Michigan, and were revealed to "be in the toxic range"; one of the three showed water lead levels of 101 ppb, about seven times the level that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention says "requires remediation" (Hanna-Attisha, 287).

In a follow-up letter to the editor of the American Journal of Public Health, doctors Oleske and Bogden write that other cities (like Newark, NJ) have been found to have been subjected to high levels of lead in water. In Newark, for example, a 1970 study (of 45,297 children) found that 47.7% of the young children had blood lead levels of 30 "micrograms per deciliter" -- well over the federally recommended levels of lead (Oleske, et al., 2016).

The doctors writing this letter to the AJPH noted that the children of Flint already face "multiple challenges and are disproportionally at risk for poor academic achievement"; hence, the lead exposure they were subjected to certainly exacerbates their uncertain futures (Oleske, e1).

SWOT Analysis

Strengths: Currently the strengths that can be perceived are the responses to the Flint water crisis by several entities. Albeit it acted late and out of desperation, the State of Michigan has declared a health-related emergency, and the federal government has followed suit, declaring a health-related emergency. Tens of thousands of containers with bottled water has been sent by individuals, sports teams, and nonprofits around the United States. Money has poured in from numerous sources, including the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, which has raised $6 million through the website www.flintkids.org.

Moreover, recently Beyonce raised upwards of $80,000 from a concert in Detroit to help Flint's water crisis. She also urged fans to donate funds to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint. United Way of Genesee County has contributed $3.2 million to help the city. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has sent tons of "lead-fighting foods" to Flint to help low-income citizens as they struggle to come to grips with this crisis. A grant of $270,000 has been awarded to 30 businesses in Flint to help them recover from the negative economic impacts of the crisis.

Weaknesses: The "profound stress, worry, depression and guilt" that is being experienced by Flint's population results from the "uncertainty about their own health and the health of their children" (Goodnough, et al., 2016). The assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) said, "The first thing I noticed when I got… READ MORE

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