try to mention these names on response for the first one mention Diana Pritchard-Zamora for the scond one mention Omar Carrasco

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try to mention these names on response for the first one mention Diana Pritchard-Zamora  for the scond one mention Omar Carrasco

 

 

How tap water became Toxic in Flint, Michigan

 

Nearly two years ago, the state of Michigan decided to switch Flint’s water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River.  This was decided by the state, in order to save money, during a financial state of emergency.  Although it would help the state save some money, locals were not too happy about the decision and even thought it was a joke.  The Flint River, which ran through the town, was notorious to locals for its filth. 

 

Soon after the change of water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River, residents said the water looked, smelled, and tasted funny.  Water started coming out of the faucets brown and dirty looking.  Although some people confused it for sewage water, the water got its brown color from the iron.  This was due to the fact that the Flint River is highly corrosive.  So corrosive in fact that it was 19 times more so than the Lake Huron supply, according to researchers from Virginia Tech.  It was later revealed that the Department of Environmental Quality was not treating the water with an anti-corrosive agent.  Thus, the water was corroding the iron water mains, which turned the water supply brown. 

 

Unfortunately, the color of the water was the least of the residents’ concerns.  What they did not know was that half of the service lines to homes in Flint are made of lead, and because the water was not properly treated, lead began leaching into the water supply.  This is a very serious issue because lead poisoning is irreversible.  Children who are detected with high levels of lead in their system will face life-long consequences.  According to Hanna-Atisha, a Flint pediatrician, lead is “a well-known potent neurotoxin.  There’s tons of evidence of what lead does to a child, and it is one of the most damning things that you can do to a population.  It drops your IQ, it affects your behavior, it’s been linked to criminality, it has multigenerational impacts.  There is no safe level of lead in a child.”  Some of the children diagnosed by Pediatrician Hanna-Atisha came back with astonishing results that showed their lead levels doubled and even tripled in some cases. 

 

It would have cost about 100 dollars a day to add the anti-corrosive agent to the water supply, and about 90% of the problems with Flint’s water would have been avoided.  To think that Michigan’s department of Environmental Quality decided to ignore federal law and go without the anti-corrosive agent is very shameful in my opinion.  The state even denounced the work done by Hanna-Atisha, claiming that she was causing near hysteria.  Dayne Walling, the former mayor even went as far as drinking the water on TV to “prove to the residents that the water was safe to drink”.

 

So what has the city done since?  They reverted to using Detroit’s Lake Huron water supply, but the damage was already done to the lead pipes.  Even with the properly treated water flowing, Virginia Tech researches still detected smaller amounts of lead levels in the Flint homes.  The state has been since handing out water filters and bottled water to its residents.

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