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The Water Crisis
The Water Crisis
There is a global water crisis going on right now and more than 2.6 billion people are suffering from it! However, there are different versions of it and this passage is going to teach you about them. The three different ones are, the Flint water crisis, the African water crisis, and the Chinese water crisis.
The Flint water crisis
The Flint water crisis
Flint is a city in Michigan. On April 25th, 2014, Flint switched its water sources from the Detroit River to the Flint river. The reason they switched was because the Flint river was cheaper. When they switched they stopped using corrosive control. Corrosive control is a fluid that you put on metal so that it doesn't corrode. Since they stopped using the corrosive control, it led to the toxic water. This toxic water infected 100,000 people in Flint.
This image is a worker pumping out water in a fire hydrant in Flint Michigan .
Because Michigan did not use the corrosive control, the water in the Flint river rusted the pipes (in Flint they are lead pipes) which led the water to get contaminated infecting over 100,000 people in Flint. Residents in Flint noticed it was foul smelling and discolored but the governor denied and said it was ok to drink. “At city meetings, residents were repeatedly told the water was safe to drink,”(CNN.com) Soon after the governor was proved wrong and said that his machine for testing lead levels in water broke. The flint water crisis has done its damage and the state of michigan has already switched back.
The African Water crisis
The African Water crisis
The African water crisis is very different than the Flint water crisis. In the African water crisis, people need to walk hours to get water, and guess what, it’s not even clean! They have to walk miles because they don’t have access to water in their towns and they can’t build wells because they don’t have money to build wells. Half of africa is desert so it is really hot there, the reason there isn't water there is because the sun evaporates it all. The only sources of water are rivers and lakes. The reason that they can’t move is to a different country is because none of the countries have water.
In Africa, 2.6 billion people are affected by the water crisis. Each day, kids miss school ( if there even is a school there) girls walk hours through deserts or thick forests with 30-50 pound jugs, wearing no shoes, screeching pain running along their feet as they walk, slowly gaining splinters, thirsty, and hungry, everyday. Also families get sick, and over 4,000 people die from the dirty water. The way the water is dirty is because it there is a lack of sanitation so feces gets into it. Also, they have open waterways so dirt gets into it. When you drink contaminated water, the dirt clogs your digestive system, giving you diarrhea. The african water crisis is being helped by foundations such as water.org. They are helping by installing wells in villages so that everyone has water.”1 M are people killed by water-related disease each year,” (water.org).
This is an image of people in africa fetching water.
The Chinese water crisis
The Chinese water crisis
The Chinese water crisis is similar to the flint water crisis. In Dawu, central China’s Henan Province, people say they are being killed by the water. The yinghe river is polluted with carcinogens which cause cancer. The Yinghe river passes near the village and has been polluted for over a decade with cancerous water. Only 20% of china’s water is drinkable and usable for baths.
This is the yinghe river in china filled with garbage.
One villager named Wu Zongjun says that he knows ten people in his village since 2010 diagnosed with cancer from the polluted water. "Now there are people passing away due to cancer every year," says Wu Zongjun (CNN.com).
I hope this has taught you something new and encouraged you to help the water crisis.
Glossary
Glossary
Crisis-intense difficulty, or danger
Feces- waste after digestion
Foul- disgusting, unpleasant
Pollution- harmful poison
Sanitation- good health condition
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