This is an interview of Harvey Collins, the director of the office of urban and metropolitan initiatives in Michigan. He is now in charge of managing the Flint Michigan water crisis. During the last week, President Obama declared a state of emergency because of the high levels of lead that have been contaminating the Flint, Michigan water system and poisoning the people in the city. The state officials in Michigan have taken a long time to even acknowledge the seriousness of the situation, and now the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, is taking over the water testing in the city. Mr Holland's described the state's efforts, like giving flints residence water filters & water test kits, and switching the city's water source back to the Detroit system. The water source the city had been using to save money, was very corrosive, and it caused the lead from the pipes to get into the water. Hollins explained that the pipes have to be re-coated with phosphates, to prepare them to deliver safe water to the people again. The Obama administration is giving 80 million dollars to help Michigan with this problem, but it is unclear how the money will be spent at this point. The people of flint, who have been complaining about the water problem for a long time who has suffered from many health problems because of the lead poisoning, feel that their city and state government have let them down, and ignored the danger the people were in even when there were lots of warning signs. Hollins says it will take a lot of action to regain their trust.
Many people consider access to water a basic human right. And in our country we definitely expect in cities to have safe water to drink. Many people also believe this problem would not have been allowed to continue for almost 2 years if the residents of flint were not mostly black and lower-income. So this is being considered a civil rights issue too.
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/23/464090869/politicians-work-to-remedy-flint-water-crisis
Lets settle this, not everything is discriminatory (this situation might or might not be but it's not always), the government is really inefficient and some of their senators and congress men aren't too concerned about this situation because it doesn't affect them directly. I know this situation is bad but this just proves how spoiled Americans are, we don't start worrying about access to water until it's polluted. I hope these people know that this is how it is in many underdeveloped countries. At least Flint is getting lots of donations of water from elsewhere. I do hope this situation picks up but I also hope this opens some peoples eyes up to the same situation in different places.
ReplyDeleteShelby Linker, 8th period
its crazy to think that this problem has been going on for two years and nothing has yet to be done about it.
ReplyDeletejulie shilling p.4