Flint, Michigan, and the Politics of Safe Drinking Water in the United States

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Sara Hughes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Financial Distress ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Structured Interviews

Flint’s drinking water crisis has brought renewed⸺and needed⸺attention to the importance of safe drinking water in the United States. The Flint water crisis was the result of a confluence of factors operating at multiple scales in time and space. My aim is to draw out more explicitly the role of policy, and specifically rationalized policy, in incentivizing and allowing the mistakes and decisions that most proximately led to the Flint water crisis. I build on and extend existing analyses of the Flint water crisis, drawing on thirteen semi-structured interviews and publicly available reports, testimony, newspaper articles, and secondary data. My analysis brings to the fore the particular vulnerability to the marginalizing effects of rationalized policy and its implementation of poor and minority communities in the United States, and it reveals the stickiness and entrenchment of these rationalized policies. The response to the Flint water crisis, both in Michigan and nationally, has centered on renewed commitment to risk-based standards and rulemaking for safe drinking water protections, and maintains interventionist approaches to municipal financial distress. I discuss important alternatives that are emerging and indicate areas for future research on the politics of safe drinking water.

scholarly journals Between Confrontation and Cooperation: Right to Water Advocacy in the Courts, on the Streets, and at the Capitols in the United States

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 3541
Author(s):  
Sabrina Kozikis ◽  
Inga T. Winkler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Water Movement ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
The United States ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Contamination Rate ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Human Right

Communities across the United States face a widespread water crisis including risks of contamination, rate increases, shut-offs for non-payment, and dilapidating infrastructure. Against this background, a right to water movement has emerged which has found its strength in coalition-building and collectivity. Activists demand change using the framing of “water is a human right”, socially constructing the right to water from below. Based on more than 25 semi-structured interviews with water advocates and activists, our article explores how movement participants used the human rights framework to advocate for clean and affordable water for all. We used political opportunity theory and conceptions of government “openness” and “closedness” to examine when and how advocates decided to use confrontational and cooperative approaches. We identified a push and pull of different strategies in three key spaces: in the courts, on the streets, and at the Capitols. Advocates used adversarial approaches including protests and civil disobedience, reliance on human rights mechanisms, and to a more limited extent litigation simultaneously with cooperative approaches such as engaging with legislators and the development of concrete proposals and plans for ensuring water affordability. This adaptiveness, persistence, and ability to identify opportunities likely explains the movement’s initial successes in addressing the water crisis.

scholarly journals Approximating Community Water System Service Areas to Explore the Demographics of SDWA Compliance in Virginia

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (24) ◽  
pp. 13254
Author(s):  
Cristina Marcillo ◽  
Leigh-Anne Krometis ◽  
Justin Krometis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Water Quality ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Negative Binomial ◽  
Water System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Drinking Water Quality ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Community Water ◽  
Service Areas

Although the United States Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) theoretically ensures drinking water quality, recent studies have questioned the reliability and equity associated with community water system (CWS) service. This study aimed to identify SDWA violation differences (i.e., monitoring and reporting (MR) and health-based (HB)) between Virginia CWSs given associated service demographics, rurality, and system characteristics. A novel geospatial methodology delineated CWS service areas at the zip code scale to connect 2000 US Census demographics with 2006–2016 SDWA violations, with significant associations determined via negative binomial regression. The proportion of Black Americans within a service area was positively associated with the likelihood of HB violations. This effort supports the need for further investigation of racial and socioeconomic disparities in access to safe drinking water within the United States in particular and offers a geospatial strategy to explore demographics in other settings where data on infrastructure extents are limited. Further interdisciplinary efforts at multiple scales are necessary to identify the entwined causes for differential risks in adverse drinking water quality exposures and would be substantially strengthened by the mapping of official CWS service boundaries.

scholarly journals Michigan Oil and Gas Update

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Horn ◽  
Joshua D. Beard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Protection Agency ◽  
Part C ◽  
Underground Injection ◽  
Injection Control

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (“EGLE”), formerly the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, is in the process of seeking primary enforcement responsibility from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) for its Underground Injection Control (“UIC”) program for Class II wells pursuant to Part C of the Safe Drinking Water Act (“SDWA”).

scholarly journals Preliminary Study of Lead-Contaminated Drinking Water in Public Parks—An Assessment of Equity and Exposure Risks in Two Texas Communities

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 6443
Author(s):  
Leanne Fawkes ◽  
Garett Sansom
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
The United States ◽  
Median Income ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Public Parks ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Contaminated Drinking Water ◽  
Lead Levels

Safe drinking water is celebrated as a public health achievement and is a top priority for the Environmental Protection Agency. Yet today, lead (Pb) contaminated drinking water has the potential to be a public health crisis in the United States. Despite efforts to provide safe drinking water, update water infrastructure, and ensure strict drinking water regulations, there are incidents of unsafe lead levels and reports of associated adverse health effects. While there has been increased attention paid to the quality of drinking water within individuals’ homes, little research has examined the presence and concentration of lead in water from drinking fountain sources located in public parks. In this study, we sampled drinking water from every accessible public park in the Bryan/College Station (BCS), TX metropolitan area (N = 56). With a lower detection level of 2.0 μg/L, we discovered a mean lead concentration of 1.3 μg/L across all sites and a maximum of 8.0 μg/L. Furthermore, neighborhoods below the median income for BCS were twice as likely to have detectable lead levels in their water and had 1.5 times the mean concentration. This study underscores the need for action and supports previous studies that have identified a disparate burden to lead exposure among low socioeconomic populations within the United States. By examining the water quality in drinking fountains in publicly accessible parks, the results of our study provide public health professionals with important information about where infrastructure should be improved and the potential harms of lead in drinking fountain water.

scholarly journals The widespread and unjust drinking water and clean water crisis in the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Tom Mueller ◽  
Stephen Gasteyer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
The United States ◽  
Clean Water ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Community Water Systems ◽  
Full Picture ◽  
Using Data

AbstractMany households in the United States face issues of incomplete plumbing and poor water quality. Prior scholarship on this issue has focused on one dimension of water hardship at a time, leaving the full picture incomplete. Here we complete this picture by documenting the full scope of water hardship in the United States and find evidence of a regionally-clustered, socially unequal nationwide household water crisis. Using data from the American Community Survey and the Environmental Protection Agency, we show there are 489,836 households lacking complete plumbing, 1,165 community water systems in Safe Drinking Water Act Serious Violation, and 21,035 Clean Water Act permittees in Significant Noncompliance. Further, we demonstrate this crisis is regionally clustered, with the specific spatial pattern varying by the specific form of water hardship. Elevated levels of water hardship are associated with the social dimensions of rurality, poverty, indigeneity, education, and age—representing a nationwide environmental injustice.

scholarly journals Acculturative Stress and Adjustment Experiences of Greek International Students

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-228
Author(s):  
Mixalis Poulakis ◽  
Craig A. Dike ◽  
Amber C. Massa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Acculturative Stress ◽  
English Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Consensual Qualitative Research ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Family Networks ◽  
Qualitative Research Methodology ◽  
International College

This study investigated eight Greek international college students’ experiences of acculturation and acculturative stress at a mid-western university in the United States. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants and Consensual Qualitative Research methodology was utilized for data analysis to identify contextual themes and domains expressed by participants. Seven domains relevant to extant literature were revealed: presojourn perceptions of the United States; postsojourn perceptions of the United States; acculturative stress problems in the United States; coping strategies for acculturative stress problems; peer and family networks: English language usage and difficulties; and cultural concerns regarding the United States or native country. Implications, areas for future research, and the study’s limitations are also discussed.

scholarly journals Preschool/Pre-Kindergarten Education Promoting Student Performance in Later Years: A Qualitative Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-58
Author(s):  
Carla J. Thompson ◽  
Giang-Nguyen Thi Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
School Readiness ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Early Education ◽  
School Achievement ◽  
Preschool Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Structured Interviews

A thoughtful decision confronting parents considering pre-kindergarten or pre-school programs across the United States provided from the literature has focused on school readiness of children within the pre-kindergarten years. Prior to children moving into kindergarten, parents are often concerned with the related potential for increased student achievement and student performance of these children in later years. Public opinion concerning the “worth” of preschool education as a readiness provider for preparing children to enter kindergarten adequately prepared for learning has been a topic of dissention among educators and parents for more than a decade. This qualitative study involved conducting structured interviews with five educators (two pre-school teachers, two kindergarten teachers, and one early learning district administrator) from the same school district located in the southeast region of the United States. The current qualitative study focused on eight specific interview questions generated from the literature review. Each of the eight interview question responses was examined relative to specific criteria, positioning, and information aligned from the related literature. Resulting literature analyses and discussions provide specific viewpoints from the interviews of the five educators regarding the merits and potential worth of early education experiences. Implications of the study findings involve describing potential future research efforts aimed at examining influences of early education or preschool experiences related to students’ performance levels and attitudes relative to later school achievement.

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