International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health A Case Study of Environmental Injustice: The Failure in Flint

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International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

A Case Study of Environmental Injustice: The Failure in Flint

Abstract: The failure by the city of Flint, Michigan to properly treat its municipal water system after a change in the source of water, has resulted in elevated lead levels in the city's water and an increase in city children's blood lead levels. Lead exposure in young children can lead to decrements in intelligence, development, behavior, attention and other neurological functions. This lack of ability to provide safe drinking water represents a failure to protect the public's health at various governmental levels. This article describes how the tragedy happened, how low-income and minority populations are at particularly high risk for lead exposure and environmental injustice, and ways that we can move forward to prevent childhood lead exposure and lead poisoning, as well as prevent future Flint-like exposure events from occurring. Control of the manufacture and use of toxic chemicals to prevent adverse exposure to these substances is also discussed. Environmental injustice occurred throughout the Flint water contamination incident and there are lessons we can all learn from this debacle to move forward in promoting environmental justice.

One. Description of the Flint Water Crisis

At this point, most Americans have heard of the avoidable and abject failure of government on the local, state and federal level; environmental authorities; and water company officials to prevent the mass poisoning of hundreds of children and adults in Flint, Michigan from April twenty fourteen to December twenty fifteen. One tends to imagine chemical poisoning as a victim dropping dead in a murder mystery, or the immediate casualties in an industrial accident or a chemical warfare attack. Unlike the release of methyl isocyanate gas in Bhopal, India in nineteen eighty-four or the release of radiation with the radiation accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine in nineteen eighty-six, the poisoning of the population in Flint was an insidious one. People drinking the contaminated water would never have known they had elevated blood lead levels without specific medical testing for blood lead levels. In fact, if the water contamination had not been made public, most exposed children and their families would have never suspected they were being exposed over a twenty-month period of time, and it would be expected that the water contamination and lead exposure would have continued up until today.

Lead can cause immediate acute poisoning but the subacute, moderate, long-term exposure impact of concern in Flint is more common, and much more insidious. Any resulting behavioral disturbance or loss of intellectual function would probably not have been linked by their physicians or families to lead poisoning, and instead accepted as something that had just occurred. Additionally, the adverse effects from this event may take years to surface as most negative health effects from low-level lead exposure develop slowly. Hypertension and kidney damage may not present until long after the exposure. Any resulting behavioral disturbance or loss of intellectual function would probably have not been linked by their physicians or families to lead poisoning, and instead accepted as something that had just occurred.

The Flint disaster was due to the switch in water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River, which was then not treated with an anti-corrosion chemical to prevent lead particles and solubilized lead from being released from the interior of water pipes, particularly those from lead service lines or those with lead solder. This water was known to be very corrosive, so corrosive that, in fact, it was not used by the nearby auto industry. The General Motors plant switched to water from the neighboring Flint Township when General Motors noticed rust spots on newly machined parts. This corrosive new water supply was then not treated with the anti-corrosion treatment, in noncompliance with the Environmental Protection Agency's Lead and Copper Rule, which calls for action when a water supply is found to be corrosive to prevent the potential release of metals from water service lines.

A national water expert, Dr. Marc Edwards, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech University, has stated that the published instructions by EPA for collection of water samples for lead analysis were biased in the direction of underestimating the lead content of the water samples. He had spent years communicating this problem to EPA without a subsequent change in these instructions. Dr. Edwards testified before Congress in spring twenty sixteen that the Regional EPA Administrator was not alert to what was happening in Flint. Dr. Edwards also published papers previously bringing to the public attention the lead contamination of drinking water in Washington, D.C. After Washington, D.C. made a change in its water disinfectant from chlorine to chloramine, residents were exposed to water with high levels of lead (one hundred forty parts per billion and above) from two thousand one to two thousand four. This resulted in an increase of blood lead levels in young children (many from high-risk neighborhoods) of four times the amount that it was prior to the change in water disinfectant. Dr. Edwards was a key player in ensuring that this issue was brought to light and those responsible parties were held accountable. For comparison, the EPA standard for maximum contaminant level for lead in water is fifteen parts per billion.

Regarding the Flint, Michigan water contamination incident, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a local pediatrician, performed a study looking at blood lead levels from Flint children from twenty thirteen (before the water change) to twenty fifteen (after the water change), assessing the percentage of blood lead levels over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reference level of five micrograms per deciliter, reviewing water levels in Flint, and identifying geographical locations of blood and water levels using geospatial analysis. Her study demonstrated that the level of elevated blood lead levels (above five micrograms per deciliter) in a group of Flint children almost doubled between levels collected prior to the change in water source and afterwards; among children living in the area with highest water lead levels the percentage with elevated blood lead levels was approximately three times higher when compared to pre-diversion levels (four percent versus ten point six percent). These are extraordinary changes! Unfortunately, many children in Flint already had multiple risk factors for lead poisoning, including "poor nutrition, concentrated poverty, and older housing stock".

Two. Elevated Blood Lead Levels in U.S. Children and the Adverse Health Impacts and Costs of Exposure

Three. How the Flint Case and Other Examples Exhibit Environmental Injustice

Four. Future Directions: How to Move Toward Environmental Justice

Five. Conclusions

Overview

This article analyzes the Flint water crisis, emphasizing the consequences of inadequate governmental response to water contamination and its disproportionate impacts on marginalized communities. It explores the need for systemic change to promote environmental justice and safeguard public health.

Key Points

1The Flint water crisis resulted from a failure to treat corrosive water leading to lead contamination
2Low-income and minority populations faced the highest health risks
3Long-term health impacts from lead exposure may not appear until years later
4Economic costs associated with lead poisoning are substantial, with billions in potential savings from preventative measures
5Environmental injustice played a crucial role in the Flint incident, highlighting systemic inequalities in public health responses.

Details

Authors: Carla Campbell, Rachael Greenberg, Deepa Mankikar, Ronald D. Ross
Category: Environmental Studies

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