How many people have been exposed to lead in Flint Michigan?
During April 25, 2014–October 15, 2015, approximately 99,000 residents of the City of Flint, MI, were exposed to lead when the drinking water source was switched from the Detroit Water Authority to the Flint Water System (FWS).
How much lead is in Flint tap water?
She noticed the prominent brown color of the water, even after the water was filtered. When the City of Flint tested her water in February 2015, they found 104 parts per billion (ppb) lead; they tested it again in March 2015 and found 397 ppb lead (Roy, 2015).
What is the CDC doing about the Flint water crisis?
In response to the Flint water crisis, Congress authorized funding, through the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act of 2016, for CDC to establish a voluntary Flint lead exposure registry.
What happened to Flint’s Fast Start program?
The FAST Start program implemented by the city in March 2016 is working to replace the thousands of lead and galvanized steel service lines that connect Flint water mains to city homes by 2020. But as of October 2018, only a little more than 7,500 pipes had been upgraded.
How many cases of lead poisoning does Flint have?
During April 25, 2014–October 15, 2015, approximately 99,000 residents of the City of Flint, MI, were exposed to lead when the drinking water source was switched from the Detroit Water Authority to the Flint Water System (FWS).
How many people got lead poisoning from the Flint water crisis?
around 100,000 residentsOfficials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels.
How many lead service lines are in the city of Flint Michigan?
The city has about 32,900 service connections in total. More than 15,000 of these connections are considered lead service lines.
How many children did lead have in Flint?
As many as a quarter of children in Flint, Michigan – approximately seven times the national average – may have experienced elevated blood lead levels after the city's water crisis, and more children should have been screened, new Cornell research finds.
Does Flint have clean water 2021?
Flint enters 6th straight year of compliance with water standards for lead. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) today announced that the City of Flint's water system has entered its sixth consecutive year of meeting state and federal standards for lead in drinking water.
What are the impacts of Flint residents?
In their study, published in the Journal of Population Economics, the researchers found that the children born to mothers who were exposed to the contaminated water in Flint had a significantly lower birth weight on average compared to those in other cities.
Does Flint Michigan still have lead pipes?
Flint, MI – The City of Flint agreed to complete identifying and replacing the remaining residential lead water pipes at no cost to residents by September 2022, in an agreement approved by Flint City Council last month.
Are there still lead pipes in Flint Michigan?
Almost $100 million later, the city of Flint has replaced more than 90% of the lead pipes that run to people's homes as of September.
Is there still lead in Flint water?
The city of Flint has replaced over 10,000 pipes to deal with lead in the water. New lines ensure fewer lead-related issues will arise, and now, the pipes abide by the federal Lead and Copper Rule. The Lead and Copper Rule ensures that residents anywhere in the United States have clean drinking water.
How many children did the Flint water crisis?
The impoverished city of Flint, Michigan is currently facing a lead poisoning crisis that is threatening the health and well being of more than 26,000 children.
What were the lead levels in Flint Michigan?
Flint continues to make progress in reducing lead in its drinking water. In 2016, tests showed Flint's drinking water contained high levels of lead contamination (20 parts per billion). Government standards require action to be taken if lead levels top 15 parts per billion.
What's the crime rate in Flint Michigan?
Taking the city's current population into account, there have been 21.71 violent crimes committed per 1,000 people, . 825 homicides per 1,000 people and 2.9 non-fatal shootings per 1,000 people in 2021.
Who was affected most by Flint water crisis?
The Flint water crisis was one of the country's worst public health crises in recent memory. The case became emblematic of racial inequality in the United States as it afflicted a city of about 100,000 people, more than half of whom are African-Americans.
How many children did the Flint water crisis?
The impoverished city of Flint, Michigan is currently facing a lead poisoning crisis that is threatening the health and well being of more than 26,000 children.
What were the effects of the Flint water crisis?
The results – 26.3% of residents exhibited depressive or anxious symptoms, and 29% met criteria for trauma – revealed “a steep and broad mental health toll,” the researchers said.
Is Flint Clean Water 2022?
Media Contacts. Flint, MI – The City of Flint agreed to complete identifying and replacing the remaining residential lead water pipes at no cost to residents by September 2022, in an agreement approved by Flint City Council last month.
How much money did the EPA give Flint?
The EPA provides $100 million from the federal funding appropriated in December 2016 to accelerate and expand the city’s replacement of lead service lines in Flint and to make other water infrastructure improvements.
What was the problem with Flint water?
Flint’s water supply was plagued by more than lead. The city’s switch from Detroit water to the Flint River coincided with an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease (a severe form of pneumonia) that killed 12 and sickened at least 87 people between June 2014 and October 2015.
What was the Flint water crisis?
One of the few bright spots of the Flint water crisis was the response of everyday citizens who, faced with the failure of city, state, and federal agencies to protect them, united to force the government to do its job. On the heels of the release of test results in the fall of 2015 showing elevated lead levels in Flint’s water—and its children— local residents joined with NRDC and other groups to petition the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to launch an immediate emergency federal response to the disaster. The EPA failed to act, which only spurred residents on.
What is the intent of the EPA to sue Flint?
The notice alleges several failures to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act , including numerous violations of the federal Lead and Copper Rule.
What is the Flint River?
For more than a century, the Flint River, which flows through the heart of town, has served as an unofficial waste disposal site for treated and untreated refuse from the many local industries that have sprouted along its shores, from carriage and car factories to meatpacking plants and lumber and paper mills. The waterway has also received raw sewage from the city’s waste treatment plant, agricultural and urban runoff, and toxics from leaching landfills. Not surprisingly, the Flint River is rumored to have caught fire—twice.
Why did Flint declare a state of emergency?
Newly elected Flint mayor Karen Weaver declares a state of emergency in response to the elevated lead levels in the city’s water. Over the next month, Governor Snyder declares a state of emergency for Genesee County, and President Obama declares a federal emergency in Flint, freeing up funds for federal support.
What is the plan of Governor Snyder?
Governor Snyder announces a plan to ensure residents have access to safe drinking water, including testing school water for lead (which soon reveals elevated lead levels at schools), distributing thousands of free water filters, and expand ing water and blood testing. Soon after, the governor approves $9 million in funding to address Flint’s water crisis.
What percentage of children in Flint have elevated lead levels?
Hanna-Attisha’s research found that 4.9 percent of Flint children under the age of 5 had elevated blood lead levels after the city began drawing water from the Flint River, compared with 2.4 percent before that switch. In one ward, nearly 16 percent of young children had elevated lead levels, compared to just under 5 percent previously.
What was the Flint River water system exposed to?
Life in Flint was already hard before the city’s switch in April 2014 from Detroit’s water system to the Flint River exposed residents to lead, E. coli bacteria, and a cancer-causing byproduct of chlorine.
What is the treatment for lead poisoning?
The only treatment for lead poisoning, chelation therapy , is used only in the most severe cases and isn’t appropriate for people with lower blood lead levels, like those seen in Flint.
How many people died in Flint, Michigan from Legionnaire's disease?
On top of the lead, residents suspect other contaminants in the river. Ten people in Flint have died from Legionnaire’s Disease, a lung infection caused by bacteria that thrives in water, since the city began using the Flint River for drinking water.
What is the uncertainty haunting the Flint family?
Uncertainty haunts parents of Flint, as every rash , every tantrum raises alarms. Elizabeth Tramble worries about how the lead in Flint's drinking water will affect her children. Fabrizio Costantini for STAT. F LINT, Mich. — Uncertainty haunts the mothers and fathers of Flint. No one can tell them how much toxic lead their children may have ingested ...
Where does Elizabeth Tramble live?
Elizabeth Tramble, a single mother, lives in Flint, Mich. , with five girls under the age of 9. She said that the water has given her skin problems and that it made her ill while she was pregnant with her youngest child. Her daughter Tatinasia has experienced strange hair loss.
Is lead in water a neurotoxin?
Lead, a neurotoxin, doesn’t circulate long in the blood before it’s absorbed into bones and other organs or excreted.
Who is the pediatrician who helped expose the Flint water crisis?
Flint pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who helped expose the water crisis, tells Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson that the health effects of lead exposure are not immediately seen. "It's known as a silent pediatric epidemic," she says. "It's something that we see years if not decades after exposure to lead.".
Why did Flint refuse to treat water?
Flint's refusal to treat the water with an anti-corrosive reflects how the U.S. has been slow to protect drinking water, Hanna-Attisha says. Congress did not prohibit the use of lead pipes that provided water for human consumption until 1986.
Why is lead exposure so difficult to treat?
Lead exposure is difficult to treat because it is an irreversible neurotoxin, Hanna-Attisha says. "There is no cure. There is no antidote," she says. "However, there is so much that we can do and that we are doing to minimize, to mitigate, to buffer the impact of the exposure.
Is the water infrastructure in the US in bad shape?
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, water infrastructure in the nation as a whole is in horrible shape , water quality engineer Marc Edwards told Hobson last year. "I think the best grade the drinking water pipes system has gotten in the last six years is a D-minus," Edwards says.
What percentage of Flint children have lead?
During the same period of Flint’s water source change, 5.1 percent of Jackson, Michigan, children ages 5 and under, 8 percent of Grand Rapids, Michigan, children and 7.5 percent of Detroit children had blood lead levels higher than the CDC reference point (compared with 3.7 percent of Flint children).
What was the lead level in 2015?
The mean blood lead level in 2015 during the height of the water crisis was 1.3 micrograms per deciliter, up from 1.19 in 2014 before the water source switch. “The Flint River water exposure particularly raised concerns about the potential health impact on children,” says lead author Hernan Gomez, M.D., a medical toxicologist ...
What water source did Detroit switch to?
In 2014, the city switched its water source from Detroit to the Flint River, which led to tainted drinking water that contained lead and other toxins. Tests found a concerning increase in the number of children with elevated lead levels in their blood after the water switch.
When did lead levels drop in New Jersey?
Childhood blood lead levels in the city have been on a steady decline since 2006, with the exception of two spikes — including between 2014 and 2015 when lead contaminated the city’s drinking water — according to a study led by Michigan Medicine and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
Is lead bad for Flint?
For Flint children, risks of the most severe consequences of lead exposure — which are most concerning when exposure is prolonged over years — are low compared to children growing up in the city a decade earlier, Gomez notes. Authors of the study note several limitations.
Is there a safe level of lead in blood?
There is no known safe blood level of lead, and the ultimate public health goal is for children to have zero amounts of lead in their system. “We wanted to provide a complete picture of blood lead concentrations of Flint children before, during and after their exposure to contaminated drinking water,” Gomez adds.
Is there lead in water in Michigan?
“It’s unacceptable that any child was exposed to drinking water with elevated lead concentrations. There is no known safe blood level of lead, and the ultimate public health goal is for children ...
Where is lead toxic?
According to a recent investigation by USA Today journalists, unsafe levels of lead have been found in nearly 2,000 communities across the country – and many of the most dangerous levels have been found in schools and day care centers.
Is lead a neurotoxin?
Lead is a potent neurotoxin that damages the central nervous system and causes growth and developmental delays, learning disabilities, impaired speech and coordination, lower IQ, and behavioral problems such as hyperactivity, impulsivity, and violence. Children and unborn babies are particularly vulnerable because of their small size and rapidly growing brains and nervous systems, but no one is immune to this toxin’s devastating effects.