The 'Flint Water Crisis' is not something that any of us will easily forget, especially because many people in Flint still do not have clean water. In 2014, Flint decided to draw its public water supply from the Flint River as a temporary, cost-cutting method. The city planned to work on a permanent pipeline project to Lake Huron, however, after switching water sources, complaints flooded in about the quality of the water. Despite complaints, city officials still told residents that the water was safe to drink until early 2015.
Testing of the water by Flint authorities and outside agencies turned up lead levels that in some cases were dozens or hundreds times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency's safety threshold. The results of this were deadly.
According to the Washington Post, a new study has found that the fertility rate in Flint, MI dropped precipitously after the city decided to switch to lead-poisoned Flint River water in 2014.
The authors of the study say that the decline comes from a “culling of the least healthy fetuses” resulting in a “horrifyingly large” increase in fetal deaths and miscarriages.
“Between 198 and 276 more children would have been born had Flint not enacted the switch in water,” Health economists Daniel Grossman of West Virginia University and David Slusky of Kansas University wrote.
Lead exposure in children can result in cognitive deficiencies, increased antisocial behavior, lower educational attainment, and a host of problems affecting the brain, kidneys, and liver.
Grossman and Slusky also compared birth and fetal death rates in Flint with those in other Michigan cities, including Lansing, Grand Rapids, Dearborn, and Detroit. These cities create a "natural control group for Flint" because they are economically alike, but were not affected by the water supply switch.
The authors describe their results as “a substantial decrease in fertility rates in Flint for births conceived around October 2013, which persisted through the end of 2015. Flint switched its water source in April 2014, meaning these births would have been exposed to this new water for a substantial period in utero (i.e., at least one trimester).” The other cities examined didn't have a drop such as this.
Flint is 53 percent African American with 45 percent of residents living below the poverty line.
So many of our politicians claim to be pro-life, but how do they allow something like this to happen. The level of hypocrisy is disgusting. And while Flint finally switched back to Lake Huron water in October 2015, by the end of 2016, 10 percent of Flint homes still had lead concentrations of 12 parts per billion or higher in their water.
Flint is still here, and the effects of the water crisis should not be ignored.
