Essay Example on Ensuring Clean Water for All: A Basic Human Right

Introduction

Water is an essential basic good that every human being need not once but several times a day for survival. In the century where it has become every person's right to drinking water, states must ensure that their citizens get this essential commodity. In ensuring that every household can get clean water, authorities provide a network of water supply connecting all neighbourhoods (Morckel, and Rybarczyk, 2018). However, when officials fail to ensure that the water they supply is safe for its residents resulting in health issues affecting residents using this water. The paper is an essay examining the failure of the officials of Michigan state in the Flint Michigan water crisis.

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Flint Michigan water crisis

The Flint Michigan water crisis began in 2014 when the authorities in Flint Michigan deciding to change their water supply source and came to an end after 18 months. The crisis was a result of the officials in trying to cut costs in the town decided to change the source of their water from the Detroit system (Sherwin 2017). The authorities chose to use the local Flint River as the source of the water they were to supply to the residents of Flint in Michigan. With the economy of the city in a downward flow, the city was facing a challenge of reducing the cost of expenditure. The state took control of the town in 2011 to remedy the situation that had escalated to a point in which people were leaving the city (Sherwin 2017).

The governor at the time elected an official to oversee how the city could reduce its expenditures by cutting the costs. In the recommendations, authorities were to stop the piping its water from Detroit and look for cheaper options (Morckel 2017). The city was to build a new water pipeline from Lake Huron, and this was to the alternative to cut costs. In 2013, the city authorities stopped piping to its resident's water that already treated from Detroit (Masten et al., 2016) Since people could not survive without water, an option to pipe water from the flint river temporarily until the completion of the new piping from Lake Huron into the city. This decision turned out to be the beginning of the crisis in Flint, Michigan (Butler et al., 2016).

The Flint River, which flows through the town for a long time, was the waste disposal area for the industries that were operating in Michigan (Morckel 2017). Manufacturing industries in a bid to reduce cost decide to dispose of their waste without treating it, and this is what these industries in Flint, Michigan, did at the time. Factories were not the only participants in using the river as their waste disposal sites the city's waste treatment plant was also releasing sewage into the stream. With the town involved in agriculture, the runoffs from these farms made its way into the river (Sherwin 2017).

The piping of water from the flint river occurred without proper testing, the waste, full of chemicals, in the water made it very corrosive to the metal in the water pipes (Abernethy et al., 2018). The lead used in the manufacturing of the pipes used for the supply of water into homes was harmful when consumed in high amounts. With the contaminated water corroding the pipes, lead leached out from these pipes and flowed into the homes of the residents of Flint, Michigan (Morckel 2017).

After the city began to supply water to the residents from the Flint River, people started to have concerns about the water. The water from their taps was discoloured, was smelling, and its taste was terrible when one drinks it (Morckel 2017). The authorities in Flint still maintained that the water had no problems despite residents showing them the evidence of what they were claiming. However, the town authorities were proven wrong when tests confirmed that there were Lead samples in the water that was in circulation. The tests showed that the water was unsuitable for human consumption, whether drinking or using to wash.

When researchers at Virginia Tech did some test research on the water in the year 2015, the results showed the rise in the level Lead in the water. The researchers took samples from all over the town for testing (Masten et al. 2016). And the results were the same; throughout the city, the water samples had increased levels Lead in it. The level Lead in the water was above the recommended federal action level, the degree in which authorities had to take action if water samples recorded levels above it. Work had to start to stop this increased levels in the water that the residents were using (Sherwin 2017).

The increased levels Lead in the water resulted in the increased cases of lead levels in the blood in children when doctors did tests on them. Many children were using the same water from the Flint River, which was unsafe for consumption (Moyo 2017). The adult people in the community were suffering from rushes and skin itchiness due to exposure to high lead levels in the water they were using. However lead was not the only problem that the water from the Flint River had.

It looked as if the water treatment was not adequately done one before its supply to the residents of the town. The failure to treat the water properly with chlorine was a mistake of the authorities in the city. There was an outbreak of Legionnaires disease among the population of the town resulting in the death of twelve people. Tests conducted showed the presence of coliform bacteria in the water that the residents were using (Morckel 2017). The bacteria in the water proved the failure of the authorities to disinfect the water by maintaining the chlorine levels it also showed that there was no proper testing before the waters supply to the households.

This discovery led to the officials in Flint to employ corrective measures to control the situation by increasing the amount of chlorine they used in water treatment (Morckel 2017). The decision to increase the amount of chlorine in the water to kill bacteria resulted in the emergence of a new problem. The water the city was supplying had a was now concentrated on chemicals that were harmful to individuals. These chemicals, which were a result of increased chlorine in the water, could cause cancer to a person exposed to them (Butler et al., 2016).

Following the release of the tests that showed the water, the residents were using had increased levels of lead and other harmful bacteria. The residents and other human groups petitioned the United State Environmental Protection Agency to start a process of addressing the problem (Morckel, and Rybarczyk, 2018). They sought help from the agency to act on their behalf to demand the city authorities to stop supplying the contaminated water. However, the agency was not working in a hurry to remedy the situation, and this made the residents take action by themselves.

The residents and groups came together to sue the city officials for negligence. The residents went to court demanding the city authorities to conduct proper testing and treatment of the water they were supplying to the residents (Moyo 2017). They also demanded that the officials replace all the lead pipes they were using to provide water to the entire city. The other demand was for the authorities to ensure that all residents will have access to drinking water in the whole town. The city officials were to establish distribution centres where residents could go and get safe water (Masten et al. 2016). Those individuals who could not reach these distribution centres were to be supplied with drinking water by delivery of bottled water.

The court case resulted in the judge ordering the authorities to replace the lead pipes in the city with money from the national government. The officials were to conduct thorough testing of the water they supplied to residents. To help them cope with the effects of contaminated water education and health programs were to be established for the residents of the city. Funding from the state was to run these programs for the people. The authorities had to continue with the delivery of bottled water to residents with homes which lacked correctly installed filters (Masten et al. 2016).

Cause of the crisis

The water crisis in Michigan was a result of the need for officials to attempt to reduce the costs of the city's expenditure. The town had a massive deficit in its budget, and this made the governor take steps to stop the decline (Sherwin 2017). The city officials did not conduct proper testing on the water they were temporarily supplying to the residents of Michigan. The contaminated water from Flint River caused corrosion in the pipes that were providing the water to the households in Michigan (Butler et al., 2016). The residents of Michigan, both children and adults, were exposed to lead that was leaking from the pipes. The health harm caused by the contamination of water made residents take action against the city officials.

Health Implications

The supply of contaminated water to the residents of Flint had some adverse implications for the health of the people. With the Flint River acting as a waste disposal site for the various industries and the sewage plant, the water was full of bacteria from the waste (Sherwin 2017). The water was not only having bacteria, but the pipes which were supplying the water were old to leaking lead into the system. The level of lead was harmful to the health of those exposed (Morckel, and Rybarczyk 2018).

Since children are the most vulnerable when it comes to their health, exposure to harmful substances has adverse effects on their growth and development. Lead has serious health implications, to have exposure to it can cause problems to the development of the brain in children (Moyo 2017). The exposure to lead in children can result in low IQ when they grow up and other health problems. In the case of Flint, Michigan, the levels of lead in the blood of children were very high. The children who had exposure to the inlead in Flint had problems with their growth, especially their brain development. There was a double increase in the cases of children reporting to their doctors after exposure. The cancer-causing chemicals that resulted from the chlorine treatment affected the children; the children were at a higher risk of cancer (Morckel 2017).

There were increased cases of high blood pressure in adults who were using water with high levels of lead. Adults in Flint were not only at risk of high blood pressure, but they were at risk of contracting diseases that affected the heart and the kidney (Masten et al. 2016). There was also a chance the people of Flint to suffer cases of infertility because of high levels of lead in the water they were using for 18 months. The chlorination of the water resulting in cancer-causing chemicals exposed the residents to high chances of suffering from cancer.

Financial and Logistical challenges in shipping water into Michigan

The dropping economy in the state of Michigan, which was having a significant impact on the expenditure of the country, it made it hard for the town to continue to pipe its water from Detroit. The authorities felt that with the economy very low, there was a need for the city to cut its costs (Morckel, and Rybarczyk, 2018). The economy of the town was weak and replacing the Lead pipes was to cost a lot of money the city authorities did not have. Lack of funds was a challenge those supplying water into Michigan were facing in ensuring that all the people in the city had water to use. The town did not have the funds to conduct a proper analysis of the water sources before it started supplying it to the residents (Morckel, and Rybarczyk, 2018).

The officials in Flint, Michigan, were experiencing logistical...