by Katrina Custardo
The city of Flint, Michigan, still does not have clean water. Or did you forget? I know it’s easy to get caught up in whatever new headline President Trump has made or whatever is going on in Congress, but there’s this city in Michigan that got thoroughly screwed over by its governor, causing its children to be poisoned and its residents to have to suffer through using bottled water for such simple things as cooking a family meal and taking a bath.
About a year ago, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder decided to put profit over his citizens. After months of the contaminated water being given to the public, without their knowledge, this became national news when a high number of Flint’s children started developing lead poisoning. Every day, the media updated us on what was happening in Flint and whether the governor was going to get impeached (which he didn’t). Then, all of sudden, Flint disappeared. Today, there is no news on Flint unless you search for it. If you did search, you would find that more than 1,700 residents in Flint are seeking more than $700 million from the Environmental Protection Agency over the water crisis, accusing them of not correctly handling the city’s water crisis. The complaint says that the EPA “failed to follow several specific agency mandates and directives,” as well as failed to keep an eye on local and state officials to make sure they were taking the right steps to fix the crisis. As we all know now, those officials did not take the right steps to stop the crisis because Flint still does not have clean water, and instead, residents have to use bottled water for everything.
The government should focused on fixing the water crisis. This has been going on for far too long. It’s the governor’s fault in the first place for not wanting to spend money on fixing the old pipes and allowing a harmful amount of lead to get into the water stream and affect the residents, specifically children. Snyder should have been impeached over this because this shows he does not care about his residents, the people he is supposed to put before money and profits. But in the case of Flint, Snyder ignored the people he is supposed to serve.
Do you remember how outraged everyone was over the fact that Snyder knew there were dangerous amounts of lead in the water and didn’t tell the Flint residents? Do you remember when everyone was outraged when Snyder didn’t get impeached over this? That outrage should still be there, because Flint still does not have clean water. Snyder is still not being held responsible for this terrible act that he forced his citizens to go through. He still deserves to be impeached.
The residents of Flint do not deserve to be forgotten. They have suffered through horrendous circumstances put there by the person who pledged to serve them. Their children have been poisoned by something that should have been easily fixed. This should not have happened and should have been fixed a long time ago. I remember Flint, and I urge you to remember it, too.