This water was known to be very corrosive, so corrosive that, in fact, it was not used by the nearby auto industry. The Flint disaster was due to the switch in water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River, which was then not treated with an anti-corrosion chemical to prevent lead particles and solubilized lead from being released from the interior of water pipes, particularly those from lead service lines or those with lead solder. ![]() Any resulting behavioral disturbance or loss of intellectual function would probably have not been linked by their physicians or families to lead poisoning, and instead accepted as something that had just occurred. Hypertension and kidney damage may not present until long after the exposure. Additionally, the adverse effects from this event may take years to surface as most negative health effects from low-level lead exposure develop slowly. ![]() Any resulting behavioral disturbance or loss of intellectual function would probably not been have linked by their physicians or families to lead poisoning, and instead accepted as something that had just occurred. Lead can cause immediate acute poisoning but the subacute, moderate, long-term exposure impact of concern in Flint is more common, and much more insidious. In fact, if the water contamination had not been made public, most exposed children and their families would have never suspected they were being exposed over a 20-month period of time, and it would be expected that the water contamination and lead exposure would have continued up until today. People drinking the contaminated water would never have known they had elevated blood lead levels (BLLs) without specific medical testing for blood lead levels. Unlike the release of methyl isocyanate gas in Bhopal, India in 1984 or the release of radiation with the radiation accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986, the poisoning of the population in Flint was an insidious one. One tends to imagine chemical poisoning as a victim dropping dead in a murder mystery, or the immediate casualties in an industrial accident or a chemical warfare attack. Environmental injustice occurred throughout the Flint water contamination incident and there are lessons we can all learn from this debacle to move forward in promoting environmental justice.Īt this point, most Americans have heard of the avoidable and abject failure of government on the local, state and federal level environmental authorities and water company officials to prevent the mass poisoning of hundreds of children and adults in Flint, Michigan from April 2014 to December 2015. Control of the manufacture and use of toxic chemicals to prevent adverse exposure to these substances is also discussed. ![]() This article describes how the tragedy happened, how low-income and minority populations are at particularly high risk for lead exposure and environmental injustice, and ways that we can move forward to prevent childhood lead exposure and lead poisoning, as well as prevent future Flint-like exposure events from occurring. This lack of ability to provide safe drinking water represents a failure to protect the public’s health at various governmental levels. Lead exposure in young children can lead to decrements in intelligence, development, behavior, attention and other neurological functions. The failure by the city of Flint, Michigan to properly treat its municipal water system after a change in the source of water, has resulted in elevated lead levels in the city’s water and an increase in city children’s blood lead levels.
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