After writing about the water crisis I finally looked into it, I think I avoided it because I didn’t want to have anymore white guilt than I already experience on a daily basis.  However, I couldn’t ignore it anymore after discovering that pretty much every celebrity was donating bottled water to Flint, even those who didn’t even know it was a city a week ago, and would have a difficult time finding it on a map.  Their generosity makes my one case of water donated on Saturday look quite meager.

It is truly alarming to discover that Flint, which once was a thriving city of 200,000 could be so mismanaged and run into the ground that it chose a new water source that made no sense financially or environmentally.  I’m haven’t dug deep enough to determine how this whole shit storm can be rectified, but what would seem to make the most sense is to allow Flint to pipe back into Detroit’s water supply and utilize that until the new pipeline to lake Huron can be completed.  Not even sure if that is an option, but water as I indicated doesn’t seem to be the only problem that plagues Flint.  It is a city that is one of the worst places to live in the entire United States and it needs more than just bottled water from celebrities to truly make a difference in the lives of its citizens.

So, while the city of Flint has been poisoned by it’s emergency city manager, and the state of Michigan ignored all of the pleas from the minority of people who spoke up against what had transpired with their water, (who were minorities) a new water system is like putting a band aid on a gun shot wound.  When all of the dust settles they will be a city comprised of a large percentage of citizenry who live well below the federal poverty line.  The only way this could be considered somewhat worth it is if the attention brought on the city of Flint due to the water crisis makes people actual give a shit about the overall conditions of the population of Flint and not just the quality of their drinking water.  Hopefully, it isn’t another situation where everyone pats themselves on the back for coming to the rescue and life ends up going on as usual in Flint after the water problem is solved, because life in Flint is the closest thing to third world living you can experience in this country.

The reports are of people having stomach issues, their hair falling out, and children’s growth being stunted.  However, clean drinking water, while helpful, doesn’t make up for the median household income being so low that pretty much everyone who lives in Flint is receiving government handouts and probably wouldn’t know a fruit or vegetable if it bit them in the ass.  There may be an avenue for the citizens of the city of Flint to pull out of the slow burn their city has been experiencing since General Motors put the entire town in their rear view mirror, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario where a class action suit on behalf of the entire city of Flint actually does anything but make Jeffrey Feiger or another wind bag attorney a whole bunch of money.  (Plus there’s that whole governmental immunity thing that may make it impossible for any monetary gain if someone is dumb enough to file a suit against the City of Flint, State of Michigan, Rick Snyder, or Michigan department of environmental quality)

Hopefully the water crisis not only brings about an overall improvement for the residents of Flint, but it also brings people to the realization that clean water is something the citizens not just of the Untied Staes, but the entire world deserve.