Three years after the Flint water crisis, we are still learning the devastating impact that drinking poisoned water had on the city’s population. In addition to the outbreak of Legionnaires disease that killed at least a dozen people and sickened almost a hundred others, a new study reveals that the water crisis also affected fertility rates and fetal mortality.
Fertility rates decreased by 12% among Flint women, and fetal death rates increased by 58%, after April 2014, according to research by assistant professors and health economists David Slusky at Kansas University and Daniel Grossman at West Virginia University. The pair examined vital statistics data for Flint and the rest of the state of Michigan from 2008 to 2015, zoomed down to the census-tract level.
That post-April 2014 time period is significant, because that's when — in an effort to save money — the city of Flint switched from water supplied by the city of Detroit to using the Flint River as a drinking water source, without adding needed anti-corrosives to the water. Lead levels in drinking water supplies spiked as a result.
While approximately fifteen local and state officials have been charged for their role in the water crisis, no one has actually gone to jail. And there are currently no plans to charge Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R). This is the problem with a greedy, capitalist society that values profit over people. In a country as plentiful and resource rich as the United States, politicians can compromise clean drinking water in an effort to save money and poison an entire city. And years later, no one is held accountable. Meanwhile, the damage for Flint residents is long-lasting.
There is no safe level of lead in the body, but the impacts of lead are considered most severe on the developing brains and nervous systems of children and fetuses. It can lead to lower intelligence, behavioral problems and diminished life achievement, according to researchers. And the damage is irreversible; it cannot be undone. [...]
Babies born in Flint were also nearly 150 grams lighter than in other areas, were born a half-week earlier and gained 5 grams per week less than babies in other areas examined over the time period.
Flint is approximately 57 percent black and about 40 percent of its residents live below the poverty line. It goes without saying that this would never happen in a place where the residents were white and wealthy. In this country, poor lives and black/lives of color are seen as disposable—especially by Republicans. And, locally, they continue to handle the mess that they created incredibly poorly. While lead levels are supposedly down, people in Flint still can’t drink their tap water safely until the lead pipes are actually replaced. And over the last year, the city has been trying to collect unpaid money for water and sewer services—from the very same residents it poisoned. They’ve been threatening to foreclose on homes if homeowners don’t pay. Imagine a city kicking people out of their homes for a deadly water supply problem that their local government caused.
On the federal level, the Trump administration can find billions of extra dollars in the national budget to fund the military but wants to slash EPA funding to nothing and dismantle the environmental justice office. It’s no wonder Little Miss Flint, Amariyanna Copeny, had these harsh words to say about Trump in April, "On the campaign trail, he promised he would fix Flint," she said. "Unfortunately, this was one promise that he failed to keep, just like his promise to make America great again."