by By Alexandrya Kozlowski

In 2014, the city of Flint, Michigan was engulfed in a devastating crisis leading to their city’s water supply being contaminated with lead. Many children fell ill with lead poisoning, and the city is still plagued with it today- no longer making national news, and causing their town to suffer in silence. This public-health disaster has lead to many families having to rely on bottled water for almost everything. There is no other choice than using bottled water for normal daily activities such as brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, and even cooking. While many changes have been put into place, the city is still heavily impacted by the contaminated water that remains. Although the problem persists, many officials have done nothing to little when it comes to supporting people during this time. Despite millions of dollars being put into this project, the community has yet to see permanent results when it comes to the water being clean.

Flint has made progress, however it seems too slow to combat anything, according to many residents. The city is no longer using the Flint River (the poisoned source) as their water supply. Instead they’ve switched to Detroit’s water supply, a city miles away. Their recovery hasn’t been easy though- they’ve replaced only 700 out of 30,000 lead pipelines. Millions of dollars have been donated to the cause by the government, but it hasn’t been much use. That money has allowed for replaced pipelines and filters to be distributed throughout the city for water, but no permanent solutions have been found. Due to it not being national news anymore, many people outside of Flint have seemed to forgotten about this crisis. The contamination began all the way back in April 2014, where small issues of poisoning arose in the Flint River. The city quickly decided to switch its water supply to Detroit’s but the contamination had already began.

Twelve people have passed away from what is known as the Legionnaire’s Disease, and many homes still have been affected in ways that will be hard to come back from. Many people break out with rashes and other skin irritations when using their water. Their immune systems have been compromised, making them prone to illness. Homes still have to use filters and a lot of people still can’t get 100 percent clean drinking water, even after years of dealing with these complications. There have been multiple attempts to raise awareness, and citizens have even succeeded in sending their state and local officials to jail or putting them on probation for withholding information about the contamination from the local population. The fight isn’t over and it seems like it won’t be for awhile.

To help this cause, you can donate to online charities such as the “Community Foundation for Greater Flint” or “The United Way of Genesee County Flint Fund”. You can reach those foundations at https://www.cfgf.org/cfgf/ or http://www.unitedwaygenesee.org