Flint, Michigan lies seventy miles from one of the freshest lakes in the world. Flint is a town that is run by an auto-motive business. Once the auto-motive business decided to close the town started going into a deficit. Two years ago, to help fix the problem, they changed their water system. Fifteen percent of homes are boarded up and abandoned. When that business decided to close up everything started to fall apart. According to local officials, about 40% of residents are below the poverty rate.
“We thought it was a joke,” a long-time Flint resident Rhonda Kelso said. “People my age and older thought ‘They’re not going to do that.’ ” says Cnn
Soon after the town made the switch, they began to notice a change in the water. The water started to look more of a brown color instead of a normal clear look. Residents in Flint Michigan also said that it started to smell as well.
The water was turning brown because the lead in the aging pipes caused some of the particles to leak into the water. Instead of notifying the residents of the problem, officials maintained there was nothing wrong with the water even though there were several signs of damage.
The people working on trying to fix the problem in the town are now finding that there is a blueprint of all the houses in little square units all connected in some way. They will try to compare the map to all the houses and pipes in real life and see what they can do. The difficult thing in doing this is that if they take the pipes out, they risk destroying the protective phosphate (film) that is starting to rebuild the pipes. The phosphate over time will allow clean water to travel through. The process is slow but they will eventually get the problem fixed.
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/01/465150617/flint-begins-the-long-process-of-fixing-its-water-problem
