WATER RELATED DISEASE AND CONTAMINATION IN THE WATER SYSTEM Flashcards
FLINT WATER CRISIS
A story of environmental injustice and bad decision making, the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, began in 2014, when the city switched its drinking water supply from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in a cost-saving move. Inadequate treatment and testing of the water resulted in a series of major water quality and health issues for Flint residents—issues that were chronically ignored, overlooked, and discounted by government officials even as complaints mounted that the foul-smelling, discolored, and off-tasting water piped into Flint homes for 18 months was causing skin rashes, hair loss, and itchy skin. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission, a state-established body, concluded that the poor governmental response to the Flint crisis was a “result of systemic racism.”
Later studies would reveal that the contaminated water was also contributing to a doubling—and in some cases, tripling—of the incidence of elevated blood lead levels in the city’s children, imperiling the health of its youngest generation. It was ultimately the determined, relentless efforts of the Flint community—with the support of doctors, scientists, journalists, and citizen activists—that shined a light on the city’s severe mismanagement of its drinking water and forced a reckoning over how such a scandal could have been allowed to happen.
Flint Water Crisis Summary
Lead levels in Flint water
Soon after the city began supplying residents with Flint River water in April 2014, residents started complaining that the water from their taps looked, smelled, and tasted foul. Despite protests by residents lugging jugs of discolored water, officials maintained that the water was safe. A study conducted the following year by researchers at Virginia Tech revealed the problem: Water samples collected from 252 homes through a resident-organized effort indicated citywide lead levels had spiked, with nearly 17 percent of samples registering above the federal “action level” of 15 parts per billion (ppb), the level at which corrective action must be taken. More than 40 percent measured above 5 ppb of lead, which the researchers considered an indication of a “very serious” problem.
Even more alarming were findings reported in September 2015 by Flint pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha: The incidence of elevated blood-lead levels in children citywide had nearly doubled since 2014—and nearly tripled in certain neighborhoods. As Hanna-Attisha noted, “Lead is one of the most damning things you can do to a child in their entire life-course trajectory.” In Flint, nearly 9,000 children were supplied lead-contaminated water for 18 months.
More problems 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. The third-largest outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease recorded in U.S. history—as well as the discovery in 2014 of fecal coliform bacteria in city water—was likely a result of the city’s failure to maintain sufficient chlorine in its water mains to disinfect the water. Ironically, the city’s corrective measure—adding more chlorine without addressing other underlying issues—created a new problem: elevated levels of total trihalomethanes (TTHM), cancer-causing chemicals that are by-products of the chlorination of water.
4 CATEGORIES OF WATER RELATED DISEASES
1: Water-borne diseases: infections spread through contaminated drinking water
2: Water-washed diseases: diseases due to the lack of proper sanitation and hygiene
3: Water-based diseases: infections transmitted through an aquatic invertebrate organism
4: Water-related vector-borne diseases: diseases transmitted by insects that depend on water for their
propagation
EXAMPLES OF WATER BORNE DISEASES
DIARRHOEAL ILLNESSES, TYPHOID FEVER
EXAMPLES OF WATER WASHED DISEASES
ROUNDWORM INFECTION, HOOKWORM INFECTION
EXAMPLES OF WATER BASED DISEASES
SCHISTOSOMIASIS (BILHARZIA)
EXAMPLES OF WATER RELATED VECTOR BORNE DISEASES
MALARIA, JAPANESE ENCEPHALITIS
HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING
Hydraulic engineering is an important component of environmental management in which relevant activities include drainage, stream canalization, lining of streams and canals, land levelling and filling to eliminate depression areas, seepage control, piped or covered canals and drains, weed control, improved water management, diking and dewatering, and strict discipline in the use of water. These measures promote community health and contribute to its economic development. As a rule, no single method used by itself is sufficient to prevent occurrence of any or all of the listed diseases. An integrated control approach is needed, if permanent results are to be achieved. Integrated control must include good planning of environmental management methods, combined with whenever appropriate, chemical and biological control measures.
