Running head: FLINT WATER CRISIS 1

Flint Water Crisis

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Flint Water Crisis

Introduction and Background

      Flint people have been going to Churches for donated water for two years since the state

declared the water safe and stopped giving the same away in 2019 (60 Minutes, 2021).

Residents of Flint, Michigan, woke to a new source for their tap water on the 25th of April,

2014, when city officials switched from piping the Great Lakes to the Flint River. The

brownish lead-contaminated water sparked a public-health crisis that persists to date. 

      Initially, Flint used to get water from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.

Because the city was undergoing a financial crisis, they needed to make adjustments to their

budgets. Officials unwittingly voted to change their water supply to the Karegnondi Water

Authority as a cost-cutting measure. As the piping process proceeded, the city officials

elected to temporarily tap Flint River water into the households, introducing them to the

colorized contaminated water (60 Minutes, 2021). Public outcry from the residents was

ignored, partially because of their predominantly African American descent and consistent

denial by the authorities who claimed Flint Water was safe.

      In late 2015, several leaked memos by the Environmental Protection Agency and other

institutional or individual studies that Flint water had a toxic amount of lead. The government

denial slowly relented as the city, state, and national officials gradually acknowledged Flint's

water crisis and how it posed a public health hazard. The national government declared a

state of emergency in response to the public health crisis and started distributing bottled water

to residents. Despite switching back to the Flint River as a water source, damaged pipes sill

supplied contaminated water (60 Minutes, 2021). Residents still rely on donations to access

drinking and cooking water, as they mistrust the government on the restoration of safe water

into the community (60 Minutes, 2021). 

      The Flint Crisis was not without legal consequences. Residents are still battling a class-

action suit for compensation from the state. More than a dozen state and city officials also

face criminal charges for endangering public health. People of Flint have contended with

medical costs, deaths, and lower living standards because of the lead-poisoned water that has

changed their lives while the government attempts to hide the real causes and impacts of the

catastrophe (Frontline PBS, 2020).

Risk Analysis and Management for Critical Asset Protection (RAMCAP) Plus.

      Risk Analysis and Management for Critical Asset Protection (RAMCAP) is a

methodology that analyses and manages the risks linked to terror attacks against critical

infrastructural asses (Pesch-Cronin & Marion, 2017). However, while the framework applies

predominantly to terrorist risks, Seven Analytic Steps of RAMCAP Plus help assess and

mitigate any other risks against infrastructure. For instance, RAMCAP Plus could have been

used to analyze and mitigate the risk associated with switching from one water source to the

next. RAMCAP Plus assesses the protection, which is the avoidance of adverse effects, and

resilience, which is a rapid return to fully functional after such events (White, 2019). 

      The first step is asset characterization and screening, which analyzes processes to isolate

critical assets and hazards (White, 2019). The Flint water system is a critical infrastructure

because it supplies the entire town with a necessity without which they cannot live. Asset

characterization and screening also forecast the possible consequences of a course of action.

Analysts should have reported that changing from one water source to another exposes the

people to contaminated water. Years of using water from the Great Lakes had proven safe, so

switching to a new source would expose residents to contamination from the new source.

Water from the Flint River was exposed to lead poisoning while that from the Detroit River

was not.
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      In the Threat Characterization stage, the risk mitigation team identifies the specific

hazards of action. The main threats in the switch of water source in Flint were a public health

crisis among the people and corrosion of the pipes that supply it. Eventually, the scientists

linked Legionnaires disease to the Flint River water (Frontline PBS, 2020), an example of the

characterized threat. Other than the health issue, changing the water source would have social

and political effects because the people would blame the government and therefore engage in

a civil action against them. 

      In the consequence analysis stage, analysts consider the worst outcomes possible from a

given course of action. The consequence analysis in Flint would have been easier if the

relevant individuals could test the Flint River water before the switch was made. If the lead

poisoning were clear, the consequence analysis would encompass the Legionnaires outbreak

and other diseases to the new water source (Frontline PBS, 2020). Other impacts of lead-

poisoned water are lower cognitive capacities among the children in the community and

death from several conditions that spiked when the Flint Water Crisis began. 

      Threat Assessment is the fifth stage of the RAMCAP Plus, which includes evaluating the

asset value and extent of the threat (White, 2019). Valuation of Flint's water system would

show that it benefits over 100,000 people, supplies a basic need, and affects the living

standards among those who utilize it. Flint authorities would have enough data to assess the

risk faced by people if the water system is switched in the risk assessment stage (White,

2019). 

           Finally, with all the RAMCAP Plus information, the deliberate comprehension and

response to the identified risks lead to the last stage, which is risk management (White,

2019). It is noteworthy that the last stages of RAMCAP Plus include owner-initiated

isolation, evaluation, and mitigation of risks assuming they are protecting and re-establishing

the value of the asset before an attack or intervention. 

Recommendation 

      After conducting the RAMCAP Plus analysis, some recommendations could have been

made to the government to mitigate the public health risk expected to emerge after the water

source switch. Assuming the old and new sources were already chosen, the relevant

institutions should have been involved before the Flint Water Crisis. Firstly, the Flint Rivers'

water should have been tested for lead poisoning, considering other factors. Flint was an

industrial hub and the home for automakers for many decades in the past. The presence of

automotive industries should have hinted at the likelihood that Flint water had lead poison.

      Before the Flint River water is was tested for carcinogenic contaminants, the relevant

consultants should have recommended that water from Detroit is maintained as the new

pipelines were made. The option to switch to an untested source posed high public health

risks and endangered the assets too. The public faced the potential risk of cancer and other

diseases if the lead-contaminated water was piped to their homes.

Similarly, the lead would be corrosive and therefore destroy the existing infrastructure

by corroding the pipes and other systems to purify and distribute water into Flint homes. The

final recommendation would be that the city only switches to a temporary water source if

tested. There was a need to analyze and mitigate the possibility of a public health crisis and

destruction of infrastructural assets from the change.

Flint Water Crisis and the Preventive/Monitoring Processes

      Flint Water Crisis exposed the failures and loopholes in the existing

preventive/monitoring processes (Ruckart et al., 2019). The first area of failure in the crisis

was communication between different stakeholders in the environmental, health, and

administrative sectors about a water system. Authorities concealed the looming threats and

risks to the Flint crisis because of poor communication between the different agencies that

should have had their finger on the pulse of the city's situation. 
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      The environmental health infrastructure and surveillance protocols around the Flint water

situation also show that water systems' monitoring and protection are wanting. Changing a

water source without testing the new one is a clear indication that there are no stringent

protective measures about how environmental assets are utilized. Moreover, state and local

officials' surveillance measures were unprofessional, disregarding professional advice while

endangering the public (Ruckart et al., 2019). Relevant authorities did not execute the correct

measures to ensure that environmental threats were mitigated using tested methods. 

           Additionally, the officials insisted that the water was safe without scientific proof of

the same while rubbishing warnings from medical professionals, scientists, and other

knowledgeable individuals. The evidence of Flint's failures emerged from the criminal

charges against the officials that authorized the change in water source without proof of

safety (Click on Detroit, 2018). New systems are unnecessary to mitigate the risks posed by

Flint families because the ones in place are suitable only if they are correctly implemented,

and protocol is not ignored.

CIP recommendations on how cities and states can prevent another Flint Water Crisis

from taking place again

      Cities can prevent crises similar to the one in Flint by applying some CIP

recommendations. Firstly, government officials cannot make any infrastructure changes

without professional guidance from the relevant qualified personnel. For instance, officials'

switch in the water source should only be done if medical professionals and scientists

approve after testing the change's safety. Secondly, critical infrastructure should be monitored

at all times and tested for valuation and safety before these are ever used. Untapped assets

should be tested in case they are integrated into future systems. These recommendations

would have helped Flint prevent the public health epidemic and other effects of exposing a

community to lead poisoning.

References

Click On Detroit | Local 4 | WDIV. (2018, April 6). Failure in Flint: Inside the Water Crisis

[Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r093aIVeL4o

Frontline PBS. (2020, December 10). Flint's Deadly Water (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

[Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oVEBCtJgeA

Pesch-Cronin, K. A., & Marion, N. E. (2017). Critical infrastructure protection, risk

management, and resilience: a policy perspective. Taylor & Francis Group.

Ruckart, P. Z., Ettinger, A. S., Hanna-Attisha, M., Jones, N., Davis, S. I., & Breysse, P. N.

(2019). The Flint water crisis: a coordinated public health emergency response and

recovery initiative. Journal of public health management and practice:

JPHMP, 25(Suppl 1 LEAD POISONING PREVENTION), S84.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6309965/

White, R. (2019, January). Risk Analysis for Critical Infrastructure Protection: Theories,

Methods, Tools and Technologies. In book: Critical Infrastructure Security and

Resilience, 35-54. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330071456

60 Minutes. (2021, January 12). The legacy of the Flint water crisis [Video]. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYiVHh4U4pE