It’s been a while
Hi everyone! It’s been a long time since I made a post. Sorry about that. Things got busy. I hope all of you (although it’s not like I have a ton of followers) are doing well.
I’ll continue with the posting of a news article and talking about it. One of the most relevant topics about water right now is the Flint, MI crisis. I’ll start with the topic of environmental justice.
Environmental justice is, as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency, “ the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies”.
Wait what does that mean? It means that nobody, regardless of class, race, religion, etc, should have to deal with poor environmental protection. It means that socially privileged groups shouldn’t be the only ones who enjoy things like clean water or clean air. And it sounds great and wonderful, and it is, but it’s not happening. Rich people, white people, and rich white people are more likely to live in less polluted areas, and poor people, people of color, and poor people of color are more likely to live in polluted areas. Think about it. Are you more likely to find a dump in the poorest area of your town, or in the richest? People that are better off, have more access to resources, tend to live in nicer, less polluted areas. And if pollution occurs in their area, they often have the resources to tackle it, or to move. In poorer areas, people have less resources and stability, so often they just end up dealing with the pollution, because they have no other option. They can’t afford to up and move, or to get lawyers to take a case to court.
Flint is a prime example, although by far not the only one. The city isn’t very well off, with a per capita income lower than the US average. To save money, the source of Flint’s water was switched from Lake Huron to the Flint River. In addition, the pipes are lead. The lead pipes weren’t so much of an issue before, since the Lake Huron water was treated with an anticorrosive, so the lead from the pipes wouldn’t infiltrate into the water (although lead pipes shouldn’t be used anyways), but the Flint River water isn’t being treated. This is a situation that would be much easier to prevent than to fix. And unfortunately, lead is very persistent in water
And here we see a glaring lack of environmental justice. People who are well off are buying a lot of bottled water, or filters, working mothers who can’t breastfeed and have to buy formula which requires extremely clean water, those are the ones who shoulder the load the most. Authorities, who had access to clean water, assured everyone the water was fine, just discolored. Even if everything gets fixed, right this second, the biggest issue is why did this happen in the first place? Why did politicians think this was okay? And how can we stop this from happening in other places?
I mean, seriously, would you drink this water? Just looking at it makes me nauseous.
http://www.wired.com/2016/01/heres-how-hard-it-will-be-to-unpoison-flints-water/