Dirty Water

Flint has a water problem. A while ago the city of Detroit, who supplied Flint with water, put the water bills up several times. The city of Flint paid the increase for a while before deciding they could not pay to get Detroit out of its financial difficulties – after all, it has its own. Flint has its own river and city officials decided water could be sourced from there to save money. The river is dirty and so a high level of chemicals had to be used. The end result was increased levels of the byproduct trihalomethane as well as odor and discolouration in the water. Water rates remained one of the top three monthly outgoings for most households.

My friend, a resident of Flint, recently received a letter reassuring her that the $100 she pays for she pays a month for water was giving her water that was safe to drink, a problem that most of the town worries about regularly. That is, it is safe as long as she isn’t pregnant or suffering from a weakened immune system. The problem is that many of the city of Flint actually do have serious health problems due to a variety of complex factors, most down to poverty. My friend has a special filter on the tap to ensure the water is safe to drink, it costs around $30 and others rely on bottled water, but for many of the people of Flint both these options are way out of reach. Actually, quite a few of the people of Flint can’t even afford to pay for their water full-stop, dirty or not. Asking around water rates are regularly around $100-150 a month. It is not unusual for those who are unemployed to get cut off, depending on neighbours in the street for water. Meanwhile in Detroit the city is $15 million dollars worse off as a result of Flint going to its own resources and local protests continue.