A decade ago, in April 2014, the source of the water for the town of Flint in Michigan was switched from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the Flint River. The move by local and state administration was made to save $5-7 million, but ended up exposing 100,000 people – including up to 12,000 children – to lead in their water. A new study has shown how this affected the educational outcome of school-age children for years to come.
Scientists looked at how the crisis impacted school children grades 3 to 8, and discovered that math achievement was massively reduced and the rate of special needs classification increased – especially among boys – following the
Lead Piping Corrosion And Its Impact
Authorities in Michigan did not consider that the switching of water to the Flint River might affect the lead piping in the system. Officials
Two months later, a research team led by pediatrician Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha showed that
In this new study, the team used the type of pipes of children’s homes as a proxy for possible lead exposure. They found that children from homes with both safer copper pipes and more dangerous lead ones experienced those drawbacks. The crisis certainly affected children – but this finding doesn’t allow a direct connection to lead exposure.
Children consume water outside the house, so they might be getting exposed there. There might be other lead fixtures in the system even when copper pipes are in place, thus still leaching lead into the water. Plus, there could be some psychosocial effects of the crisis that have affected the kids beyond
The Piling Costs Of The Flint Water Crisis
In November 2021, a $626 million settlement for the victims of the crisis was
“Existing estimates of the health effects of the crisis, ranging from 50 to 400 million dollars, use only the lead effects,” the authors write. “This study ought to draw attention to the large potential costs of these water crises and motivate preventative measures, which by comparison are cheap,” the authors wrote.
The paper is published in the journal