The Economic Origins of the Flint Water Crisis.
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A political system through The Michigan emergency management law (PA 436) that remains in place, gave rise to the water crisis. I consider the decision to return to Detroit’s water pipeline a remarkable one since it overcame the extreme budgetary and democratic limitations. The city water system was permanently damaged by the government institution through unaccountable public spending. The Flint water supply to the entire City was contaminated and affected the entire city causing illnesses, Kring (2019). It was disastrous to pump water directly from The Flint river inadequately treated water into people’s homes. The decision to purchase Lake Huron water from Detroit city was made while the city was controlled by an austerity-driven emergency manager Clark (2019).
The emergency manager was mandated to cut expenses of the city and had a political power to dispense with the elected city leadership. When the flint water quality dramatically declined, the leadership severely limited Flint resident’s recourse while the local media covered their concerns, it declined to address them. Lack of sustained media coverage and attention of residents’ concerns before 2015, created a further constrained economic and political situation that escalated the dangerous health effects.
According to Clark (2019), it was credible institutions interventions that led to the questioning of officials and documenting evidence of contaminated water and the dangerous health effects that were being experienced by residents opened channels to a large donation from a local philanthropic institution that was for the switch back to the Detroit water system. Studies of Austerity politics of the flint water are moved beyond the locating of character and impacts of neoliberal policies to an understanding of how to contest them by attracting credible resources as viewed by neoliberal austerity regimes.
References
Clark, C. (2019). Race, austerity and water justice in the United States: Fighting for the human right to water in Detroit and Flint, Michigan. In Water politics: Governance, justice and the right to water (pp. 175-188). Routledge.
Clark, C. (2019). 13 Race, austerity and water justice in the United States. Water Politics: Governance, Justice and the Right to Water, 175.
Krings, A., Kornberg, D., & Lane, E. (2019). Organizing under austerity: how residents’ concerns became the Flint water crisis. Critical Sociology, 45(4-5), 583-597.