Draft of Project 1

Hello peers, I want you to know that this rough draft is my attempt to write the essay based purely on memory of all the sources I have gathered collectively for this paper and is more of a detailed outline if you will. In post-production I will rewrite to accommodate to the sources that I have gathered, thank you.

Rough Draft

Water: one of the basic necessities for human life. Every human life, especially in America, has the right to basic necessities for living. What could possibly get in the way of pure water? Politics. In Flint, Michigan there is a crisis that has been going for more than a year over a natural resource found in every human body. The current water source of the city of Flint, the Flint River, has high levels of lead and other toxins that have poisoned thousands of Flint residents and children. Since back in 2013 suspicion on the safety of the water had risen among concerned residents and experts yet, government officials kept telling the people to "relax" and to continue consuming the falsely promoted safe Flint River water. Now, how did Flint Michigan end up in a state of emergency over a crisis of a natural resource? Let's wind the clocks back about two years.

In early 2013, Governor Rick Snyder's state officials appointed emergency managers to the city of Flint in order to help the city cut back on costs since Flint was in financial debt. What did this mean? It meant cutting back anywhere in the branches of the city government expenses, including their water resource. At the time, Flint would get its water from the city of Detroit through a pipeline (which Detroit got the water from the Great Lake of Heron). The price to pump the water however, was a bit costly for the city of Flint and therefore, emergency manager of Flint Darnell Earley signed into affect in late 2013 the decision for Flint to build its own pipeline to the Lake of Heron that which would finish being constructed until 2016. In the meantime, the city would terminate its contract with Detroit's water system and get their own water from the nearby Flint River.

On April 25th, 2014 the city of Flint, Michigan officially shut off the pipeline connected to Detroit and was now using Flint River water. Over the course of the next months, concerns immediately began to rise from residents of the city. People were reporting rashes, foul stench from the water they were using and the water was reportedly brownish or orange. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality reported to the Flint residents "to relax" and the water was safe to drink.

For months researchers from Virginia Tech were examining the lead levels in Flint's water and it got to the point where these researchers began to make their results public and donate water filters to the community of Flint. Soon after the rising questioning of the water, one local Flint woman brought the truth to light once and for all: Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha. Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician of the Hurley Center Hospital near Flint, Michigan; announced her report on the inceasing levels of lead in children's blood before and after the switch to the Flint River water in September 2015. The results indicated an increase of about 6% in lead in the bloodstreams of the youth of Flint. These results caused a Public Health state of emergency claim in Genesse County. 

The immediate release of her information caused state public health officials to disclaim the pediatrician's report....until they double checked their claims and confirmed her numbers to be true. The crisis caught the attention of national news and by December 2015, the city of Flint declared a state of emergency and soon after, Federal government aid came to the rescue,a little too late to reverse the health damages done to the citizens of Flint.