Flint, Michigan, is in a state of emergency—a long-term public health emergency that will cost the city and its residents for years and years to come. Lead levels in the city's children are so high that Mayor Karen Weaver has had to resort to the emergency declaration to get the federal help the city will need to deal with the long-term effects.
The Hurley Medical Center, in Flint, released a study in September that confirmed what many Flint parents had feared for over a year: The proportion of infants and children with above-average levels of lead in their blood has nearly doubled since the city switched from the Detroit water system to using the Flint River as its water source, in 2014.
The crisis reached a nadir Monday night, when Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency.
"The City of Flint has experienced a Manmade disaster," Weaver said in a declaratory statement.
The mayor—elected after her predecessor, Dayne Walling, experienced fallout from his administration's handling of the water problems—said in the statement that she was seeking support from the federal government to deal with the "irreversible" effects of lead exposure on the city's children. Weaver thinks that these health consequences will lead to a greater need for special education and mental health services, as well as developments in the juvenile justice system.
As this Washington Post story points out, the World Health Organization details the many effects of lead exposure to children, including "reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as shortening of attention span and increased antisocial behavior, and reduced educational attainment. Lead exposure also causes anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity and toxicity to the reproductive organs." All of these effects are "believed to be irreversible."
The city began using the Flint River as its water source in April 2014, switching from the Detroit water system in preparation to move over to a pipeline to Lake Huron’s Karegnondi Water Authority next year. The complaints from citizens about the smell, taste, and appearance of the water began immediately after the initial switch. By January, the state was forced to issue a warning to residents that their water was unsafe, but it took until October of this year for the state to reconnect Flint to the Detroit system.
Of course, the irreversible damage to children in Flint had already been done. As a result, Flint residents have filed a class-action federal lawsuit "against Snyder, the state, the city and 13 other public officials." They allege that they were deprived of their 14th Amendment rights when the officials replaced their safe drinking water with water they knew was unsafe.