What Will Happen To Flint’s Lead-Poisoned Children?
SAMANTHA ALLEN01.14.169:44 AM ET
“I love Flint, I am Flint, I do community work in Flint, but if there’s one thing that can actually drive me from Michigan right now, it’s this water,” said Chia Morgan.
Morgan, a social worker and mother of a 3-year-old daughter, has lived in the Flint area her entire life but she may soon leave the state for fear of lead poisoning.
After the city began using the Flint River as a drinking water supply in 2014, the incidence of elevated blood lead levels among Flint children under age 5 nearly doubled from 2.1 percent to 4 percent, according to research led by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha at the Hurley Medical Center and released in September of last year.
Now, an email obtained by NBC News shows that an epidemiologist notified the state about an increase in Flint kids’ lead levels as early as July of last year.
Morgan’s first whiff of trouble came when she picked her daughter up from their Flint babysitter’s house and thought the water in the home “smelled funny.” Other residents have described the water as looking “like urine” and smelling “like the sewer” or “fishy.” Morgan’s daughter, thankfully, has had normal blood test results so far but the concerned mother doesn’t want to take any chances.
“I’m actually contemplating leaving,” Morgan told The Daily Beast. “Water? That’s a basic necessity. And if I can’t drink that here... I can’t help others if I can’t keep my own family safe here.”
Flint has been embroiled in a years-long water crisis that will have long-lasting and, for some, life-altering consequences.
In 2014, the impoverished city stopped buying water from Detroit but residents still needed a potable supply while awaiting the construction of a pipeline to Lake Huron. Sourcing water from the Flint River was seen as an affordable option but investigators now know that, after the switch, the highly corrosive river water leached lead from pipes into people’s homes. Flint Mayor Karen Weaver has said that it could cost as much as $1.5 billion to repair the city’s water infrastructure.
Last week, in response to months of complaints, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency. This Wednesday, he activated the National Guard to distribute clean water to Flint residents and asked for aid from FEMA. The blame, the litigation, and the investigations are all underway.
In November, the EPA announced that it would investigate whether the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) violated the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) by not treating the Flint River water with an anti-corrosive agent before sending it through the system. And at the end of the year, MDEQ head Dan Wyant resigned after an independent task force faulted his agency’s handling of the situation.
But as the crisis continues, some in the community are soberly turning their attention to the future: Now that the damage has been done, what will happen to the next generation of Flint kids?
Lower IQ. Learning problems. Slowed growth. Inability to pay attention. These are a few of the long-term effects that lead poisoning can have on children, according to the EPA and the CDC. Other effects include anemia and hyperactivity.
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What Will Happen to Flint’s Lead-Poisoned Children?