Engineering in the Media: The Flint Water Crisis

        According to The Huffington Post, the Flint water crisis all started due to “a careless and poorly thought through engineering decision”. The environmental engineers from the state Department of Environmental Quality failed to put in chemicals in the corrosive Flint water. The city started using water from the Flint River in order to save money while there was pipe being built to use Lake Huron water instead. While using the Flint River water and not adding chemicals and properly carrying out test, the water became contaminated with lead from pipes and fixtures into the drinking water. The image above shows a woman holding water bottles with water in them containing lead. The environmental engineers should have first analyzed the two different water systems, Lake Huron and the Flint River, to see how different they were. They also should have analyzed the city’s water tanks, pipes, and pumps, which also contained corrosive lead. Of course, engineers do not take 100% of the fault, but it partially started with them improperly carrying out tests to make sure their design with the new water source wouldn’t end up poisoning people.

Cohen, Steven. "There's Plenty of Blame for Flint, Michigan's Water Crisis. "The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, Web. 12 Feb. 2016. 

Dur, Compiled by Jessica, and O. Network. "How Water Crisis in Flint, Mich., Became Federal State of Emergency." USA Today. Gannett, 20 Jan. 2016. Web. 15 Feb. 2016

Redirect Notice. Digital Image. Redirect Notice. Web. 15 Feb. 2016

By: Fiona Muegge