Flint

Bad Drinking Water: Protect Yourself and Your Family

Posted by: Rhona Reid On February 24, 2021 12:00 pm

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan was far from an isolated set of unfortunate circumstances. In 2014, the decision was taken to switch the city water supply from the established Detroit water system to the Flint River, which was known to contain sewage, chemicals and other toxic elements.

Raw river water was to be temporarily – and inadequately – treated in the disused, out-of-date local plant, before flowing into houses, schools and businesses across the city.

 

 

Bad Drinking Water Protect yourself and your family

 

Deadly Lead Exposure

Flow it did, complete with toxic containments, industrial effluents – and lead. Flint residents – including thousands of children – drank, cooked in and washed with the unsafe, brown water until activists and worried parents succeeded in dragging …

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These Women of Water Are Leading the Charge for Clean Water in America

Posted by: Rhona Reid On December 28, 2018 11:12 am

Did you read the recent Google Story about the six awesome girls (Women of Water) who are using their ingenuity, skills, and initiative to make sure more Americans drink clean, safe water?

women of water
Women of Water – their incredible achievements! Credit: Google Stories

Familiar Faces!

We were especially thrilled to see that several of the women featured already had their achievements highlighted in this blog!

Almost exactly one year ago, we wrote about how Gitanjali Rao had won a major 2017 Young Scientist Award for her invention: a tool that works with Android technology to detect lead in water samples.

News From NASA

We were also thrilled to learn that the trio of youngsters whose incredible feat of using NASA-inspired technology …

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LeeAnne Walters: An Everyday Hero

Posted by: Rhona Reid On May 1, 2018 7:00 am

The Goldman Environmental Prize is awarded to a small handful of people from around the world in recognition of their grassroots environmental activism.  

Heroes are not born, they are made…

Selected by an international jury, this year’s seven winners came from places as diverse as Vietnam, Colombia, South Africa…and Flint, Michigan.  

A Short History of Environmental Heroism

Just after Flint officials notoriously switched the city water source in April 2014 to save money, LeeAnne Walters started to become concerned that the water she and her four children were drinking was harmful.

She was, of course, right, but proving it was a struggle.  State authorities didn’t want to listen and LeeAnne worked tirelessly with the EPA and Marc Edwards, a …

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Sandbranch: The Town Without Water

Posted by: Rhona Reid On December 7, 2017 12:00 pm

There has never been running water here.  Some of the dwindling number of residents, all of whom live in poverty, recall that there were wells up until around 30 years ago, where locals could draw water. Those wells are now dry or contaminated.  People who live here have to make a seven-mile journey to buy water or depend on donations made to the local Baptist church.

Welcome to Sandbranch, just 14 miles southeast of Dallas, the fifth wealthiest city in America.  

Welcome to Sandbranch.
Forgotten Community?

There hasn’t been any investment here for a long time.  The community doesn’t have trash collections, proper sewerage or street lighting – yet most of the residents don’t want move, or lack the …

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The Future for Flint’s Children

Posted by: Rhona Reid On November 21, 2017 7:00 am

 
In 1990, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of an 11-year study into the long term cognitive and neurobehavioral effects of lead exposure in children.  

What are the long terms behavioral effects of lead exposure for children?
What Does Lead Do?

The children had been exposed to lead during their childhood, in some cases relatively low levels.  132 test subjects were re-examined in 1988 and the following neurobehavioral traits were identified as being related to lead exposure during childhood:

  • School absenteeism
  • Lower vocabulary
  • Poorer hand/eye co-ordination
  • Slower reaction times
“No Safe Level of Lead”

Although some lead can be excreted by the body, children are more susceptible to long term effects from lead exposure, as their …

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Water Ionizers and the “Swiss Cheese” Scare Story

Posted by: Rhona Reid On August 10, 2017 12:00 pm

We learned a little more this week about how lead ended up flowing out the taps in Flint.  Researchers at the University of Michigan have released their forensic conclusions on how the crisis took shape.

Some of the Flint evidence has more holes in it than this.
The “Swiss Cheese” Evidence

Officials had put forward a claim that failure to add anti-corrosion chemicals hadn’t impacted on the eventual contamination of the water.  This assertion was undermined by the researchers’ discovery of “a Swiss cheese pattern” in the aging pipework cause by corrosion.

The research team goes on to emphasize the importance of ensuring that anti-corrosion chemicals are used in all of America’s aging water systems to prevent lead-laced water reaching …

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Involuntary Manslaughter Charges Brought in Flint

Posted by: Rhona Reid On June 20, 2017 7:00 am

It’s been quite the week in Flint.  Dressed in custom-made gowns and bright, sharp suits, excited seniors of Flint Northwestern High School rode charter buses into Detroit for their prom.  At almost the same time, the news began to emerge that Nick Lyon, Michigan’s health chief, was to be charged with involuntary manslaughter, along with four other officials.

flint
Flint deserves justice.
Conspiracy of Silence?

Failure to tell residents in Flint that the water flowing into their homes was contaminated with legionella is one of the accusations the defendant’s face.  Twelve people died as a result, and 100 people in total contracted the disease.  Officials knew for months about the outbreak, but kept silent.

“People in Flint have died

…
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“Hoop 4 Water” – Celebrities Support Flint Residents!

Posted by: Rhona Reid On June 2, 2016 9:00 am

 
If you live within striking distance of Flint, Michigan, then you may have noticed the paparazzi descending and a red carpet being unrolled on May 21st.  Although the news crews of America may have packed up most of their equipment following months of reporting from Flint, the press pack is still hanging around.

Brad Pitt in town?  Not quite, but the celeb count was pretty high. If you were, ahem…on the ball…you might have grabbed some tickets to Snoop Dogg’s “Hoop 4 Water,” a celebrity basketball game to raise funds for the beleaguered residents of the town with lead in it’s drinking water.

Did you catch Snoop and the hoop?
Did you catch Snoop and the hoop?

Cause Célèbre

Rapper Snoop Dogg made …

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Is Bruni the Next Flint? The Town in Texas with Arsenic in the Water.

Posted by: Rhona Reid On April 12, 2016 9:00 am

 
The residents of Bruni, less than 50 miles east of the Mexican border, know exactly how the people of Flint, Michigan feel.

Would you let your child drink this?
Would you let your child drink this?

Another Flint?

Flint, of course, is infamous for the town’s water supply becoming toxic with dangerously high levels of lead.  Bruni’s horror?  Turn on a tap and rife in the cloudy, unappetizing water is arsenic.  Linked to increased risk of developmental and intellectual issues in children, cancer and lung problems; in 2001, the EPA decided that the acceptable level of arsenic in drinking water should be lowered from 50 ppb (parts per billion) to 10 pbb.

This is the root cause of the controversy in Bruni.  During 2014 – 2015,  …

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