Kind: captions
Language: en
remember the lead crisis in Flint
Michigan it's 2017 and many people are
still living off of bottled water to
understand how this happened we need to
back up to the 20th century lead pipes
are laid to bring water to people's
homes eventually water is sourced from
Lake hon it's safe to drink because they
add a chemical that helps form a
protective scale on the interior of the
pipes the scale keeps the pipes from
corroding dangerous chemicals like lead
into the water in 2011 Flint city
managers see an opportunity to save
money by building a new pipeline to like
hiron but building that pipeline will
take years so in the meantime Flint
switches its water source to the Flint
River but they don't add corrosion
control to the water which would keep
that protective scale intact on the
inside of the pipes it's not long before
genital motor stops using Flint water
because the water is corroding their
parts residents notice problems too the
protective scale is flaking off
corroding pipes turn the water Brown and
contaminate it with lead residents
complain of rashes and hair loss but the
local government state government and
the EPA all fail to take action the
crisis continues to unfold and in August
of 2015 concerned Flint residents
including Leanne Walters a citizen
scientists partner with Mark Edwards a
researcher at Virginia Tech to launch an
investigation together with Mark's
students they collect samples from over
250 homes after multiple scientific
studies the lead crisis is no longer
deniable and the city decides to switch
back to water from Lake hon but damage
to the pipes and to the people of Flint
has already been done and the
population's faith in the government is
lost in December of 2015 a state of
emergency is declared 1 month later the
National Guard is deployed to provide
bottled water to the resident it has
totaled to over $300 million now new
pipes are being laid across Flint
authorities predict the project will end
by 2020 but Flint may never be the same
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