Lead poisoning water crisis in the US city

US President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for lead-poisoned drinking water in Flint, Michigan and asked for federal aid.

According to Refinery29, water in Flint, Michigan, USA, is contaminated due to its high lead content. Lead is a neurotoxin that is especially dangerous for children and pregnant women. When exposed to lead-poisoned water, many children experience a rash or risk of serious neurological disorders, even death.

The people of Flint have to buy bottled water to eat and bathe because of the living water contaminated with lead.(Photo: AP).

The crisis began in early 2014, but it was not posted on national news until December 2015, when the mayor of Flint, Karen Weaver, announced the lead water supply system. A few weeks later, the governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, deployed a national defense force to support bottled water distribution and President Obama declared a federal emergency.

On May 4, 2016, President Barack Obama visited Flint, after 8-year-old Mari Copeny wrote a letter inviting him to spend some time visiting this place to investigate the situation and overcome the problem of pollution. country.

What happens to the water source

In April 2014, the state of Michigan decided to save its budget by turning Flint's water supply from Lake Huron in Detroit to the Flint River, which flows through the city and is famous for being garbage.

Flint offers a number of warnings about the detection of E.coli bacteria , as well as cancer-causing chemicals that can be contained in water. The Flint River was once heavily polluted, the river water was more corrosive than Lake Huron water.

Tap water from the tap in Flint is brown due to lead poisoning.(Photo: Bogonews).

Because authorities do not handle the corrosion characteristics of river water, so when water flows through the old piping system made of iron and lead in Flint, lead disperses into the water.

In February 2015, researchers at Virginia Tech University, USA, conducted independent testing at a household and found water lead levels of 200 ppb (1 ppb = 1 µg / l). to 13,200 ppb. This result is abnormally high, leading the survey participants to think that they measure wrongly. The maximum permitted lead content in drinking water of the World Health Organization (WHO) is 10 ppb.

After detecting lead poisoning water

After converting the water supply source for about a month, the people of Flint city began to feel that the water had a change in color and taste. But complaints of people brought up to the government are ignored.

Compare water samples in the cities of Flint and Detroit in Michigan.(Photo: Bogonews).

Bill Schuette, Michigan Secretary of Justice, investigated the water crisis. The results showed that the agency responsible for water treatment distorted the test results, making the data for water pollution lower than what actually happened. They believe that the water source is safe to drink, so that the health of people is seriously threatened.

When the water pollution was officially confirmed, the city of Flint began implementing safety solutions. The city reused Lake Huron and Detroit water sources since October 2015.