In April 2014, the town of Flint changed its water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. A few months later, high amounts of lead were discovered in the water. Now more than four years later, the 10,000 residents still do not have clean water. Imagine turning on the faucet and the water coming out like this:
Well, the people of Flint do not need to imagine, because that it is exactly what it is like every day.
The ongoing water crisis in Flint is a prime example of people in power taking advantage of people without power. The government initially denied the early claims that the water was unsafe. They withheld information about the situation until the last possible moment. They agreed to change to Flint River as a water source to save money.
Several officials tried to hide the fact that the water was contaminated and were charged with evidence tampering. In fact, on Monday, August 20th, 2018, the Michigan Health and Human Services Director, Nick Lyon was charged with the manslaughter of two Flint residents who died due to water issues. While it is important for people to be held accountable for the damage they caused in Flint, it is more imperative to get fully-functional lead-free pipes to the residents.
One especially disturbing detail regarding the Flint water crisis is how large corporations are taking advantage of the residents. Despite receiving undrinkable, unusable water, the residents of Flint are still charged around 200 dollars by their water companies. This is the same amount that Nestle dishes out to bottle mass amounts of water in a town close to Flint.
It has been four years since the town of Flint, Michigan has had clean, drinkable water. Almost immediately after getting its news coverage, the town of Flint largely disappeared from most of our minds. This is not okay. Nobody deserves to not have clean water. Not in the United States or anywhere else in the world.
