Lessons from the Flint Water Crisis

After state officials decided to change Flint’s source of drinking water from Lake Huron to the Flint River, residents soon noticed that something was amiss, reporting rashes and complaining about the color, taste, and smell of their tap water within days. The Flint crisis began in April 2014, and it has since captured the attention of the nation. As you’ll see, the issue of water quality in the United States is not limited to Flint alone.
 
Delayed Action
 
Testing of the Flint water quickly revealed dangerous levels of lead, and a municipal water quality expert reported that the chemical makeup of the Flint water was causing lead to leach from lead pipes into the water. Despite this, corrosion controls and a state of emergency were not declared until December 2015. As a consequence, many Flint residents are facing serious health problems, and the state of Michigan is projected to pay over $1 billion in damages.
 
Widespread Issues in Water Quality
 
Media coverage of the Flint water crisis has sparked an interest in other instances of lead contamination. Similar crises involving old lead pipes have struck several U.S. cities over the last decade, including Durham, N.C., Columbia, S.C., and Jackson, Mississippi.
 
Federal officials insist that most of the nation’s water is safe for use and consumption, but the crisis in Flint has ignited a new distrust of public water systems. Though Congress banned lead pipes over 30 years ago, somewhere between 3.3 million and 10 million lead pipes are still in use today.
 
Unidentified Threats to Water Safety
 
Lead pipes are a known threat to water safety, and it’s clear that municipal water facilities will eventually have to perform a massive overhaul to modernize the infrastructure. For the time being, lead contamination can be avoided if the right water treatment strategies are put in place. Besides lead and other heavy metals, several potential contaminants remain unregulated by the EPA. The E.P.A. recently released a list of over 100 compounds and 12 microbes that are found in water systems but are not yet regulated. In 2011, they decided to add perchlorate to the list of mandated chemicals for regulation. Six years later, many facilities still lack the tools to properly test for perchlorate.
 
Lessons from Flint
 
Widely speaking, research and implementation are both lagging behind. Far too many water facilities fail to evaluate the threat of contamination until the damage has been done. The lesson that water facilities, industrial companies, and oil operations can learn from the Flint crisis is that prevention and proactivity are a far better approach than mitigation.
 
If you suspect that your water has been contaminated, AWWT can help. Our Clear H2O Method removes heavy metals and other contaminants from wastewater and neutralizes acidic or basic water back to safe pH levels. Our systems are mobile and can easily be deployed in the event of an emergency. For more information, please visit our homepage.