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"Drinking water Lead content Michigan Flint."
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The poisoned city : Flint's water and the American urban tragedy /
\"Recounts the gripping story of Flint's poisoned water through the people who caused it, suffered from it, and exposed it. It is a chronicle of one town, but could also be about any American city, all made precarious by the neglect of infrastructure\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Tainted Tap
After a cascade of failures left residents of Flint, Michigan,
without a reliable and affordable supply of safe drinking water,
citizens spent years demanding action from their city and state
officials. Complaints from the city's predominantly African
American residents were ignored until independent researchers
confirmed dangerously elevated blood lead levels among Flint
children and in the city's tap water. Despite a 2017 federal court
ruling in favor of Flint residents who had demanded mitigation,
those efforts have been incomplete at best. Assessing the
challenges that community groups faced in their attempts to
advocate for improved living conditions, Tainted Tap
offers a rich analysis of conditions and constraints that created
the Flint water crisis. Katrinell Davis contextualizes the crisis
in Flint's long and troubled history of delivering essential
services, the consequences of regional water-management politics,
and other forms of systemic neglect that impacted the working-class
community's health and well-being. Using ethnographic and empirical
evidence from a range of sources, Davis also sheds light on the
forms of community action that have brought needed changes to this
underserved community.
eBook
Understanding lead in water and avoidance strategies: a United States perspective for informed decision-making
The pervasiveness of lead in drinking water poses a significant public health threat, which can be reduced by implementing preventive measures. However, the causes of elevated lead in water and the benefits of lead in water avoidance strategies are often misunderstood. Based on experiences in the United States, this paper describes an oversimplified ‘lead in water equation’ to explain key variables controlling the presence of lead in drinking water to better inform public health practitioners, government officials, utility personnel, and concerned residents. We illustrate the application of the equation in Flint, Michigan and explore the primary household-level water lead avoidance strategies recommended during the crisis, including flushing, filtration, bottled water use, and lead pipe removal. In addition to lead reduction, strategies are evaluated based on costs and limitations. While these lead avoidance strategies will reduce water lead to some degree, the costs, limitations, and effectiveness of these strategies will be site- and event-specific. This paper presents a simplified approach to communicate key factors which must be considered to effectively reduce waterborne lead exposures for a wide range of decision makers.
This article has been made Open Access thanks to the generous support of a global network of libraries as part of the Knowledge Unlatched Select initiative.
Journal Article
Association of Public Works Disasters with Substance Use Difficulties: Evidence from Flint, Michigan, Five Years after the Water Crisis Onset
Public works environmental disasters such as the Flint water crisis typically occur in disenfranchised communities with municipal disinvestment and co-occurring risks for poor mental health (poverty, social disconnection). We evaluated the long-term interplay of the crisis and these factors with substance use difficulties five years after the crisis onset. A household probability sample of 1970 adults living in Flint during the crisis was surveyed about their crisis experiences, use of substances since the crisis, and risk/resilience factors, including prior potentially traumatic event exposure and current social support. Analyses were weighted to produce population-representative estimates. Of the survey respondents, 17.0% reported that substance use since the crisis contributed to problems with their home, work, or social lives, including 11.2% who used despite a doctor’s warnings that it would harm their health, 12.3% who used while working or going to school, and 10.7% who experienced blackouts after heavy use. A total of 61.6% of respondents reported using alcohol since the crisis, 32.4% using cannabis, and 5.2% using heroin, methamphetamine, or non-prescribed prescription opioids. Respondents who believed that exposure to contaminated water harmed their physical health were more likely to use substances to the detriment of their daily lives (RR = 1.32, 95%CI: 1.03–1.70), as were respondents with prior potentially traumatic exposure (RR = 2.99, 95%CI: 1.90–4.71), low social support (RR = 1.94, 95%CI: 1.41–2.66), and PTSD and depression (RR’s of 1.78 and 1.49, respectively, p-values < 0.01). Public works disasters occurring in disenfranchised communities may have complex, long-term associations with substance use difficulties.
Journal Article
A city and a water crisis: Flint, Michigan and the 1950/1960s water crisis
The city of Flint and the Flint River has a long history of pollution, industrial waste, mismanagement of ecosystems, and issues of access to clean water that were significant factors in water management decisions for the city’s residents. In the 1950s and 1960s, the industrial and residential pollution control demands placed on the Flint River exceeded the river’s capacity. Particularly, the city needed to provide clean water to residents and an adequate flow rate to remove pollution from the very same water source. Many reasons emerged for the water crisis of the 1950s and 1960s, namely a rapid increase in population and demand for industrial growth, which taxed the city’s water and sewage infrastructure beyond its limits. During this era, city government took steps to increase pollution mitigation plans, increase river water flow rates, and develop reservoirs to store water reserves for use during high-demand seasons. One of the massive infrastructure plans included constructing a direct water pipeline to Lake Huron to provide Flint residents with an abundant clean water supply from one of the Great Lakes. Nonetheless, many plans enacted proved inadequate to address the immediate water emergency, and infrastructure plans such as constructing the water pipeline to Lake Huron failed to materialize, which could have prevented the Flint Water Crisis of the 2010s.
Journal Article