Toxic In Flint, Michigan Summary

In the CNN article “How Tap Water Became Toxic in Flint, Michigan”, by Sara Ganim and Linh Tran, the write about how water became infected with lead in Flint, Michigan. In 2014, the city of Flint, Michigan, decided to cut the water supply of the city from Lake Huron to The
Flint River. The city did this in order for the state to build a new supply line from the lake. When the water started coming in from the river, residents reported that it looked brown. It was discovered that the state DEQ wasn’t treating the water with an anti corrosive agent, and since the water from the river is 19 times dirtier than the water of the lake, the water corroded the metal of the pipes, putting it in the water. Since pipes in flint are made of lead, lead started …show more content…
What started all of this is the state wanting to cut the budget of the city at any cost. The first bad decision they made was changing the city’s water supply from Lake Huron to The River
Flint. Flint was in a state of financial emergency at the time, and they did this in order to save funds. Lake Huron’s water is much more pure than the Flint river’s, because the Flint River is contaminated by industrial waste, making the quality of water much worse.
Another thing that puts them at fault is the fact that they didn’t add the anti­corrosive agent to the water. This made the water corrode the metal, putting large amounts of lead into the water supply. This was probably an oversight, but it could’ve been that the DEQ thought they could get away with saving funds by not using the agent, which would cost $100 a day. This whole incident could have been prevented if the state government wouldn’t have been so stingy with the water in flint.
What really grew the damage of this situation was the fact that the government denied the water being unclean, and then continued to lie to the people. First it was the state denying …show more content…
They lied to people in order for them to not see that the government was at fault. They even attacked those claims, and once they saw that they couldn’t win the fight, they admitted the research was right.
After Flint was declared to be in a financial state of emergency, the state government made all of the monetary decisions of the city, not the mayor. This make sense because the state doesn't care about the local issues, but were more determined in cutting down the budget. This probably lead to the start of this crisis. Flint being a small and poor town didn't help it either. The state took control of the budget, not caring about the local population, and they were the ones that made the switch of water supply to the Flint River. They also didn't care about the city because it wasn't a big city like Detroit, so they just did anything to reduce cost.
This whole water crisis could have been easily avoidable. The state wanting to do anything to cut down the budget of Flint was the thing that led to this dilemma. Switching the water supply to the Flint River, and not adding the anti corrosive was the main reason the water got contaminated with lead. There is no one but the state government to blame for this