Years after the emergency, the Michigan city is yet to replace all lead pipes and affected families are still awaiting justice

Years after the emergency, the Michigan city is yet to replace all lead pipes and affected families are still awaiting justice

Earlier this month, Brittany Thomas received a call that her 11-year-old daughter Janiyah had experienced a seizure at school.

“She’d been seizure-free for about two years now,” said Thomas, a resident of Flint, Michigan. “And they just came back.”

The call took Thomas back to April 2014, when, to save money, the City of Flint switched to a water source that exposed more than 100,000 residents – including up to 12,000 children – to elevated levels of lead and bacteria. Thomas’s family drank bottled water at the time, but they cooked with and bathed in the tap water.

Soon after the switch, Thomas and her two children developed rashes on their skin. Then the children began experiencing frequent seizures that sent them in and out of the hospital. Blood tests revealed they had lead poisoning.

“I didn’t know how to feel,” she said. “I’ve been depressed, I’ve been frustrated, stressed out – can’t catch a break.”

Studies later showed that after officials changed Flint’s water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River, the percentage of children with elevated levels of lead levels in their blood doubled – and in some parts of the city, tripled. The switch also exposed residents to the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease, leading to as many as 115 deaths.

  • @9point6
    60•7 months ago

    I don’t understand how this hasn’t been resolved

    Every pipe should have been replaced yesterday and anyone who has prevented that from happening should be sued for everything they will ever own and then thrown in prison.

    It’s corporate manslaughter at this point and has been for years now

    • Flying Squid
      52•7 months ago

      It hasn’t been resolved because Flint needs the money to resolve it and those people live there. The city has been trying, apparently, but they would do a lot more if they had the money to do so.

      The spokesperson added that the EPA is leveraging $15bn in funding from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to identify and replace lead service lines across the country.

      That’s a pittance when spread across the country’s municipalities and it will never cover it.

      But I guarantee you that if Flint was a city that wasn’t majority black, a hell of a lot more would have been done by now.

      • Bipta
        21•7 months ago

        If Flint wasn’t majority black this probably wouldn’t have happened in the first place.

      • TWeaKEnglish
        2•7 months ago

        They have replaced a lot of the pipes apparently, the ones remaining are the hardest and most expensive.

    • @[email protected]
      6•7 months ago

      The city has been a mismanaged failing dumpster fire for decades. They have slowly trended towards turning things around, albeit with limited resources. It’s hard to push forward with little to no outside help when decades of damage have to be undone. It also doesn’t help that GM and other automakers helped create superfund sites around the city over the last century that they then abandon or “donate” to the city so they don’t have to clean them up.

      America is a land of “freedom” - not a land of giving a shit about other humans. Our corporations must profit first.

    • @[email protected]
      1•7 months ago

      It’s largely been resolved. The article is an exaggeration. There’s 1,900 lines that property owners haven’t consented to updates. 31,000 have been replaced. Flint has been replacing the mains and the supply lines which are typically homeowner’s responsibility. The supply line requires workers to go on private property, so there’s the permission issue.