The last time the citizens of Flint, Mich. had clean water I was 16 years old. 

I am now 22 years old and the crisis continues. 

Can you even imagine what that would be like? Why is this not in the headlines of every news outlet? 

Of course during the peak of the crisis you could find articles all over social media and posts about ‘Little Miss Flint,’ a young girl who became well-known for her efforts to help those suffering within her community. 

But just as quickly as a new news cycle comes about, the faces of those who were poisoned by a blind eye disappeared from the top stories. 

It’s interesting how quickly we act when a situation directly affects us, like the COVID-19 pandemic for example. 

When we are so concerned about our own health and well-being we stop at nothing to ensure our safety. But what about the people of Flint? 

For the past six years, they have had to live without clean drinking water and it all started because the city was trying to cut down costs. 

If you are not as familiar with this crisis, back in 2014 the city decided to switch over its water supply from treated Detroit Water and Sewerage Department water, which came from Lake Huron and the Detroit River, to the Flint River. 

This seems harmless from a far, but when you look a bit closer into the case study, you will learn that officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water. 

Without these inhibitors in place, lead from the aging pipes entered into the water supply exposing hundreds of thousands of residents to  dangerous levels of lead. 

It seems like a simple mishap, but behind closed doors there is a lot of aspects of the case that went overlooked. 

I am currently in an environmental communications class and we closely examined hundreds of emails between city officials to see how the situation was handled. 

You would be appalled at the things that these people were saying. At least I was.

They tried to “quiet” citizens who brought their concerns to them. They tried to play down the crisis by explaining that all water has some levels of lead in it. They even decided to “wait things out” until the next scheduled testing before getting someone to come out and make sure that the water was safe for drinking. 

And while they waited, the people within the community suffered. 

Nearly 12,000 children were exposed to lead poisoned water, 12 people were killed and 87 others were affected. 

Government officials resigned in light of the situation, perhaps because they were to blame. 

And did you know that it wasn’t until just this year that citizens were able to file lawsuits against the local and state officials that allowed them to be poisoned by the one thing that should be a natural given right to all?

There are now 15 criminal cases filed against local and state officials in connection to this crisis.

But guess what? They still don’t have clean, safe drinking water. 

Now just think about if something like this happened within in your community. Do you think that things would have played out differently? 

This is not only a matter of public health, but should also be examined for its implications of environmental racism considering that more than half of the population of Flint is African American.