The Flint Water Crisis

The government wanted clean teeth, but instead got disease and death. The government wanted us to remain healthy and have fresh teeth with every drink of water, but we got sick and most had died yet they still continued with the fluoride. The people of America are sometimes too naïve to figure out what the government does to us, and some are actually smart enough to stand up to them and call them out on their mistakes. The main cause of death in America, when it comes to disease, is cancer. It ravages the American landscape and takes thousands of lives a year.

Uptown Sinclair’s book The Jungle was originally written to expose the working conditions within the meat packing industry. Sinclair shocked millions as he bore what it was really like behind the scenes. Employees worked with contaminated and rotting meat, which was not a health violation at the time. This eventually led to new food and federal safety laws. Most of the labor force was an immigrant, who moved to the United States with hopes of the “American Dream.” Most would say that they did not find what they were looking for.

Seniors, adults, pregnant women, and children are suffering from lead poisoning. Lead poisoning can cause many hazardous issues. Switching water supplies was a terribly bad decision. Flint’s financial complications led to the state’s takeover in 2011 (Botelho). The Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, is to be blamed for the Flint water crisis.

Kellie Fisher from Boston University Law School, explains the effects chemicals used in fracking have had on the health of the general public, “of more than 750 known chemicals used in fracking, more than 100 are either known or suspected endocrine disrupters, and others are known or suspected toxins or carcinogens. Health complaints from people who live near fracking wells include headaches, nosebleeds, stomach pain, and extreme fatigue” (Fisher104). This alarming fact brings serious concerns to the people living around the fracking sites. If you were going to have children, would you want them to be born into an area where people are constantly drilling for fossil fuels and using chemicals that are currently banned by the government for personal use? According to Fisher, in 2004 the EPA deemed hydro-fracking effects to be insignificant, but reopened the investigation in 2011 after requests from congress: “internal documents suggest EPA is facing significant pressure from the oil and gas industry to narrow the scope of the study” (Fisher 105).

Additionally, the government generally pushes forward a more individualist approach to food and water safety, which most people contend that it should instead be more systematic. The Obama administration actively promotes the food safety, but fails to advertise effectively against the negative aspects of relations that involving food safety. A more recent and especially important example of poor and bereft government assistance is the aforementioned Flint Michigan water crisis. Governor, Rick Snyder of Michigan and his personally appointed mayor and city council decided to change the water source of Flint from the clean Lake Huron to the toxic Flint River, all to save money. The governor’s office eventually found out how toxic

This means that the affected person needs to use nicotine regularly to maintain normal brain function) to expect returning customers to pay more money to satisfy their addictions. Although many users are aware of the severe negative impacts on their health, users continue to purchase several packs of cigarettes daily. In most instances, each pack results in a shorter lifetime to spend with their families and loved ones as each cigarette smoked decreases a life expectancy by about 14 minutes. Additional data on this topic includes the 1.3 billion people who smoke worldwide, the 15 billion cigarettes sold daily (nearly 10 million per minute), and not to mention the fact that someone dies from tobacco use every eight

The Flint Water Crisis is often described as one of the greatest environmental injustices of all time. The crisis began on March 2013 when the city city switched its water source to Flint River. However, due to inadequate water treatment, more than 100,000 residents were exposed to dangerously high levels of lead in the drinking water and a federal state of emergency was declared. The crisis has sparked debate on where to place the blame. A number of civilians, intellectuals, and politicians have agreed that the Flint Water Crisis is a result of the failure of the government on all levels.

Governor Rick Snyder caused one of the biggest disasters in Michigan. The flint water crisis. Governor Snyder switched the Flint water system which was connected to the Detroit water system to the Flint River. And right away people started noticing severe changes to their water. This was caused from the water pipes corroding and lead leaking into the water.

So, because of this we are forced to live in squatter settlements called Hoovervilles (shacks that housed millions of unemployed). The name of the towns was to mock the president for allowing the hardships to last as long and as difficult as the Great Depression was. We associated failures and problems with the name Hoover because his actions certainly did not help our economic problems.

During this period lots of people had lost their jobs, poor families had nothing to eat and to live off, country 's banks had failed. People were living off what they government gave them which wasn 't much. Herbert Hoover was the President at that time and his response to what was happening wasn 't so good. He believed that the economy goes through a cycle and that the government should let things run their course and eventually things would improve. As result of this many people thought that he wasn 't doing anything to help the country pass through the great depression, but on his last year as president he started to get more involved and try to help those who were suffering.

Their living conditions were incredibly poor including overflowing toilets, unfinished quarters, crowds, and lacking meals.People would leave for grueling field work because they hoped it’d be better than the camp. The authors go on to tell that Jeanne loses her family completely and rapidly. Her mother grows cold, her respectable father a drunkard, and her brothers nonchalant and blunt. Many people die in this chaos and we’re truly shown how some crisis break people beyond recovery, for example ‘Papa’ her honest, hard-working father

Did you know that “The great lake provides over 40 million people with fresh water for drinking” (Michigan environmental council, 2015). Fresh water all around Michigan is a main Source for Michigan and surrounding areas for drinking water. Drinking Water that comes out of the tap is bad for the human population. In the Drinking water there is so many added pollutants that have adverse effect on the society. The water itself can cause birth defects and cancer.

A recent study by Duke University helped to show the negative affect that drinking water wells near hydrofracking sites have 17 times more methane than wells not located near fracking. Fracking operations have generated billions of gallons of radiation-laced toxic wastewater that people can 't manage properly” (The Serious Risks of Fracking Outweigh Its Benefits). This forces families to abandon their homes because of dangerous levels of arsenic, benzene and toluene in their blood. Hydraulic fracturing has caused earthquakes in Ohio and Oklahoma, ozone in Wyoming that out-smogs L.A., and a 200% increase in childhood asthma in parts of Texas (Polson). A top federal scientist admits that people just don 't know enough about all the different ways fracking can make humans sick.

This eventually makes them depressed, and suicidal. Like many others, Ruth is amongst these illegal immigrants. It is very difficult for illegal immigrants like Ruth to live without papers, and sometimes even dangerous. ‘’With no access to benefits that could top up their income, even child benefit, sometimes Ruth and Dyanna are malnourished. Ruth recently had to turn down a new and better-paid job because again she would need to provide her passport” Because of the lack of papers, Ruth and Dyanna cannot use the welfare state, and therefore they are sometimes malnourished.

Everyone had daily struggles to simply stay alive. People lost all their money because banks closed! Companies were not hiring anyone because they couldn’t afford to pay them. This was a constant cycle of poverty. To fix this issue, FDR established Works Progress Administration (WPA).