4/24/2023 0 Comments Flint water crisis![]() Yet very little media coverage of the spill discusses the economic impacts it has had on roughly 550 Navajo nation farmers who had to choose whether or not to continue watering their crops, either from the river or from EPA-provided barrels that were previously used for oil storage.įurthermore, unlike the situation in Flint, no criminal investigation has been launched regarding these damages. Recent articles, for example, demonstrate that the Navajo Nation has battled issues of water contamination for decades (Morales, 2016), most recently dealing with last year’s Gold King mine spill which contaminated the San Juan River-the Nation’s primary irrigation source-with arsenic, cadmium, and lead (Duara 2015). Who suffers? Unequal risks and unequal responses to environmental hazardsĪcross communities government responses are not uniform. The differences in government responses in Porter Ranch and Flint provoke the question: Do government reactions depend on their conceivable level of responsibility in the wake of disastrous events? That is, what role does self-preservation play in the way governments respond to disasters caused internally instead of at the hands of a private entity? Furthermore, the differences between government responses in Porter Ranch, Exide, and Flint suggest that the location of an incident and the community impacted might influence how a government responds to a hazards event. However, when the state was made aware of the company’s leak public officials swiftly began to address and redress the situation. In this case, Southern California Gas Company delayed informing the government and the community about the spill from its pipes. The same cannot be said for the Porter Ranch leak. Not only are government officials at all levels to blame for the inept response, it was government entities-both the state of Michigan and the town of Flint are implicated-whose decisions and actions put contaminated water into Flint households in the first place. As a result, families in Flint suffered devastatingly. For example, the water contamination in Flint, Mich., was covered up and informing the public was drastically delayed. These instances point us toward a line of critical inquiry: What factors influence the attention and level of government response, accountability, and effectiveness in the wake of a community harmed by a technological disaster? One factor worthy of scrutiny is whether the culpable party is a private operator or a government entity. headlines, such as the Las Animas Gold King Mine spill and the natural gas leak in Porter Ranch, Calif. What factors influence the attention and level of government response, accountability, and effectiveness in the wake of a community harmed by a technological disaster?īeyond lead poisoning, other types of technological failures have dominated recent U.S. is also problematic in the soil, and in households containing lead paint (The Washington Post, 2016 Weesjes, 2016). As pointed out by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at a recent Democratic presidential debate, lead exposure in the U.S. With all eyes on Flint, the disaster has revealed that poor infrastructure has resulted in lead contamination in water systems across the United States-Cleveland, Ohio, Sebring Ohio, Jackson, Miss, Newark, N.J., Estes Park, Colo. As such, questions about influences on government preparedness, accountability, and response become critical for redressing current crises and preventing similar ones in the future. In its wake, other incidents of technological accidents and environmental hazards have gained visibility. Beyond that, the crisis highlights the extent to which disparate vulnerabilities to risk and disproportionate impacts of hazards can become issues of environmental injustice. The shocking mix of mishandlings and cover-ups that followed is also alarming, as citizens around the country must wonder if their community is the next Flint. The lack of ability to apply critical response lessons from Hurricane Katrina to the Flint crisis is troubling. ![]() Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has even admitted that the mishandling of the crisis in Flint constitutes “his Katrina” (Fournier, 2016). Former FEMA head Michael Brown harkened back to Katrina, suggesting the government should have applied lessons learned from that hurricane to the water-contamination crisis in Flint (Young, 2016). has served as a flashpoint for highlighting failed government responses in the wake of disastrous circumstances. Mary Fran Myers Gender and Disaster Award.
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