Several US Cities Suffering Toxic Water
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - In the wake of the Flint, Michigan water crisis, residents in other US cities are following suit by turning to social media to condemn government inaction on toxic drinking water and call for federal help.
A photo of what appears to be polluted water surfaced on Twitter over the weekend showing brown-colored running water coming from a tap in Lousiana. The caption reads “If you think the #flintwatercrisis was an isolated event, you’d better think again. This is water from St. Joseph, Louisisana.”
The post was retweeted by several activist accounts, including @Fintvictim and sounded the alarm about another US city coping with unclean water.
Flint residents filed a class-action lawsuit against Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder in November for failing to add an anti-corrosive agent to the city’s water, which consequently eroded pipes and let lead seep into the flow. When found in excessive levels in children, lead is a toxin that can lead to long-term neurological damage.
Chris Sellers, a professor of history at Stony Brook University, wrote on The Conversation that “the physical conditions that have made it literally toxic for Flint residents are neither as exceptional nor as recent as much of the media coverage suggests.”
Sellers said that the Flint case is not isolated, noting that an estimated six million miles of lead pipes across the country carry water to homes that are highly likely poisoning residents, San Francisco-based website Salon reported on Tuesday.
In a 2011 National Resources Defense Council study, 19 cities were found with pollution and deteriorating plumbing. These included: Albuquerque, Denver, Phoenix, San Diego and Fresno.
It was also reported that while some cities did a good job of filing right-to-know reports, others published information that was incomplete, misleading, or buried deep in reports. Moreover, nearly all the cities in the study failed to report on the health effects of contaminants found in the water to their residents.
