Flint Water Crisis Analysis

On January 16, 2016, President Barack Obama declared the city of Flint, Michigan to be in a state of emergency due to the widespread lead poisoning of the city’s residents that later became known as the Flint Water Crisis (Southall 2016). The crisis began in April of 2014, when the officials of Flint decided that, in an effort to conserve dwindling funds, the city would switch their main water source from Lake Huron, to the Flint River (Southall 2016).
Almost immediately, the residents of Flint began expressing their discontent of the new water. People complained about the smell, taste and color of the Flint water; and on top of that, some started reporting rashes, hair loss and abdominal pain (“Flint”, 2016). Officials disregarded these concerns, and even as tests detected harmful contaminants such as E. coli, total coliform,
It is a very poor area leftover from industrial decline and in turn, many budget cuts were made (Jacobson 2016). Unfortunately, the temporary water supply from the Flint River ended up being part of those budget cuts. The local government also bears some of the blame. The EPA was very soft on the issue and some claim even tried to cover up the damage. The local government supported the EPA decisions that did not come down hard on the problem as it got worse. Politically speaking, the Flint water crisis was a failure by the government from the smallest locality all the way to the most powerful man in Michigan. This crisis has brought light to the fact that politicians do not always have their constituents’ interest nor safety as priority. While there is no single person to bear all the blame, this incident has been a learning experience for people to stand up for themselves and take matters into their own hands when the government fails to do what they are supposed to