Tag Archives: flint

ArtPrize piece on ‘Flint’ receiving attention from artists, public

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“Flint” by Ti-Rock Moore is on display at Fountain Street Church as part of the church’s ArtPrize Nine exhibition.

By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma

joanne@wktv.org

 

ArtPrize has barely been open a week and Ti-Rock Moore’s piece has already been called “moving” and “powerful.”

 

The piece, titled “Flint” is brown water constantly flowing from a bright white water fountain. The purpose of the piece, signals the ongoing situation in the majority black town, as well as, the extreme limitations placed on communities of color due to flawed infrastructures that privilege the needs of affluent and of the predominantly white communities, according to Moore’s ArtPrize artist statement. In 2014, lead was discovered in the Flint water system after cost-cutting measures. The city still does not have safe water to drink for all of its citizens.

 

Moore’s piece, which is on display as part of the Fountain Street Church ArtPrize Nine exhibition, recently receive the American Civil Liberties Union Award during a special reception at the church for ArtPrize artists and friends.

 

“Our Constitution provides for equal protect of the law,” said the jurors’ statement. “Civil rights laws protect against discrimination based on age, race, religion, gender, disability, and national origin. Ti-Rock Moore’s art reveals a stunning example of injustice against people of color based on the condition of municipal finances in the City of Flint, Michigan. People were poisoned because of money.”

 

Born and raised in New Orleans’ French Quarter, Moore followed disparate career paths before emerging in 2014 with protest works created, in part, in response to the devastating, lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina. At that time, Moore renamed herself in homage to colorful and controversial twentieth-century painter Noel Rockmore, a New Yorker turned New Orleanian who, like Moore, had been the child of artists. Moore’s self-identification (petit or ‘tit in local parlance) with the mercurial Rockmore as a kind of spiritual protégé positions her within both local history and artistic traditions, while her work focuses on dismantling the structures that support racism.

 

Artist Ti-Rock Moore

In “Flint,” the public water fountain has long been a passive symbol of separatism in the United States, one of the more visible manifestations of the Jim Crow era. Although the legal dismantling of the Jim Crow system of apartheid took place more than half a century ago, The Unites States remains deeply divided by race and class, according to a press release from Fountain Street Church. In such a volatile historical moment, the role of the artist is paramount, even essential, as a voice that both incites and instructs all of us to not remain complacent and to act upon our beliefs and stand up for what is moral and just, the press release states. If not now, we might ask ourselves, when? We are in just such a moment that requires—no, demands our attention and our action: to either squelch the flames of hatred and intolerance once and for all, or to stand by and watch as we reduce everything to embers.

 

Fountain Street Church is one of a few ArtPrize venues that award cash prizes to its participating artists. Along with the ACLU Award, which is a $1,000, the church also award a Social Action Committee Award, which was presented to Patrick Foran, Bufafalo, New York, for “State of Exception.” “We were fascinated by how Patrick Foran took iconic media imagery and, with an economy of means, presented a triptych full of foreboding. He reminds us of the power of imagery to form our understanding of the news we are bombarded by each day. The scale of the images and the mastery of craft help crystallize his powerful statement.”

 

The jurors were Kendall College of Art and Design Professor Emeritus and artist Darlene Kaczmarczyk and artist, social activist, and dedicated ACLU supporter Max Matteson. The jurors also presented two $250 Special Recognition Awards to Rebekah Modrak, of Ann Arbor, for “TheImplicit Jacques Panis on Shinola’s Quest to Revive American Manufacturing,” and Nick Reszet, of Reno, Nevada, for “Transitus.”

 

Twenty-six artists are featured at Fountain Street Church, 24 Fountain Ave. NE, all who have works that represent the venue’s theme “Art to Change the World: Inspiring Social Justice.” The exhibit is open during regular ArtPrize hours, noon to 8 p.m. Monday – Saturday and noon – 6 p.m. Sunday. For more information about Fountain Street Church and its ArtPrize exhibition, visit http://www.artprize.org/fountain-street-church

Gerald R. Ford International Airport reacts to Flint airport incident

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Officials at the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in a statement released to today said “the airport is safe and secure and there are not alert changes, but visitors may notice an extra security presence in our passenger areas due to the events in Flint today.”

 

Earlier today, an officer at Flint’s Bishop International Airport was stabbed in the main terminal. According to reports, the FBI is investigating the incident.

 

“We send our thoughts and prayers to our friends at the Bishop International Airport,” the release stated. Officials reminded visitors that if they ever see anything suspicious in or around the Gerald R. Ford International Airport, they should call airport police at 616-233-6055.”

Flint pediatrician sees ripples of hope in water crisis

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Dr Mona and Kari Moss
Kary Moss, Executive Director, ACLU of West Michigan with Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha

By Victoria Mullen

victoria@wktv.org

 

“When I first heard there was lead in the water, it was a call to action,” said Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, director of Hurley Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Residency Program.

 

The 39-year-old mother of two daughters shared her perspective on the Flint water crisis with a crowd of 400 at the ACLU’s third annual luncheon, ‘Standing Together For Justice’ on Wednesday, May 18, at Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park.

 

“Pediatricians–we know about lead, it’s a no-brainer,” said Dr. Mona. “We know what lead can do to our children, especially our most vulnerable children. It impacts cognition, it impacts behavior, it impacts the entire life-course trajectory.”

 

The Flint-based pediatrician sees many of the city’s poorest families, and it was Dr. Mona who raised the alarm about the harmful lead levels seen in Flint-area children after the emergency manager ordered a switch from treated Lake Huron water to untreated Flint River water in April 2014. The idea was to save $5 million in less than two years.

crowd

 

The extent of the problem came to light after a Virginia Tech researcher had discovered Flint River water to be 19 times more corrosive than water from Lake Huron. Dr. Mona compared Flint children’s blood tests with results from kids in adjacent Genesee County. What she found disturbed her: A shocking rise in lead levels between January and September 2015. She saw lead levels that were twice what they were a year before, and sometimes even three times higher, depending on the child’s location within Flint.

 

“We can’t take this away,” said Dr. Mona. “There’s no antidote, there’s no pill.”

 

When state officials refused to acknowledge the problem, Dr. Mona felt the urgency to share these findings with the public.

 

“We normally don’t release medical findings at a press conference,” said Dr. Mona. “But we had this ethical, moral and professional obligation to share this information with the public as quickly as possible, because it was so dangerous.”

 

The state still refused to acknowledge the issue.

maddow
Curt Guyette on the ‘Rachel Maddow Show’

 

ACLU investigative reporter Curt Guyette was one of the first reporters to uncover the story and try to get the state government to pay attention to the issue.

 

“I was hired to investigate and write about issues involving emergency management in Michigan, and I started going up to Flint because they were under the control of an emergency manager,” Guyette said. “It was the emergency manager who unilaterally made the decision to begin using the Flint River as the city’s water source.

 

“People were complaining about the qualify of the water, the way it looked, the way it tasted, the way it smelled. And so we did a short documentary about the problems people were experiencing.”

 

Said ACLU attorney, Jay Kaplan, “Nothing like this should ever happen in any civilized place, especially where the government is not being responsive. We’re concerned about communities and we’re concerned about people. We work to ensure that everyone is afforded their rights and their civil liberties, regardless of one’s economic status or where they live or what their race might be.

 

“Everyone is afforded those protections, and I think sometimes it can be selective in terms of the way the government will work.”

 

consititution and postcard

The irony of this tragedy occurring in a state that is surrounded by the largest source of fresh water in the world is not lost on Dr. Mona. Two years on, the water is still not safe to drink. But she wants people to know that something positive has come out of this tragedy.

 

“There are Flints everywhere,” she said. “There are injustices everywhere and there have been so many bright stories that have happened because of Flint. People across the nation are talking about lead, they’re talking about infrastructure, about democracy, about environmental injustice, about poverty, about forgotten people in forgotten places.”

 

Dr. Mona is working to actively flip the story. She directs the Michigan State University and Hurley Children’s Hospital Public Health Initiative, an innovative and model public health program to research, monitor and mitigate the impact of lead in Flint’s drinking water.

 

“We want the word ‘Flint’ to not mean disaster,” she said. “We want it to mean hope. So, we are working everyday to wrap these children around with interventions to promote their development.

 

“Flint kids are smart and they’re strong and they’re beautiful. We’re going to make sure they don’t slip through the cracks and that they get everything that they deserve.”

 

 

 

Could a Flint-like drinking water crisis happen in the City of Wyoming?

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UPDATE: The City of Wyoming has published a FAQ sheet about the quality of our drinking water. Go here to download the pdf.

By Victoria Mullen

By now, you’re likely aware of the Flint water crisis—residents of Flint have been using contaminated drinking water beginning in April 2014, when the city switched water sources from treated Lake Huron water via Detroit to the Flint River. The idea was to save money, but the corrosive river water, with its lower pH and higher saline content, eroded the protective coatings in household lead pipes, exposing bare metal and allowing lead to leach into the water supply.

Even though Flint residents had been complaining about the quality and odor of the water since mid to late 2014, state officials didn’t acknowledge the situation until the late fall of 2015. By then, between 6,000 and 12,000 Flint residents had already presented with severely high lead levels in their blood and a wide range of serious health problems. An outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease that killed 10 people and sickened 77 may also be linked to the change.

The crisis is both tragic and ironic. Michigan is surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes, a huge source of drinking water for many cities and towns. This never should have happened. (As an aside, the Flint water crisis has caused such an uproar that it now has its own Wikipedia page.)

Why is lead so dangerous?

It’s a heavy metal that doesn’t belong in the human body. When you ingest helpful minerals such as calcium, iron and zinc, your body distributes it to the bloodstream, nervous system, tissues and organs. The same goes for lead, which can cause harm wherever it ends up. For example, in the bloodstream, lead can damage red blood cells, limiting their ability to carry oxygen to the organs and tissues. This can cause anemia. In the brain and nervous system, it can be disastrous.

Lead is particularly dangerous to children because their growing bodies absorb more lead than adults do, and their brains and nervous systems are more sensitive to the damaging effects of lead. The kids in Flint affected by this crisis will have lifelong health and learning deficits.

We take a lot for granted
At the turn of the 20th century in the U.S., the life expectancy for men was only 48 years; for women, it was 52. Compare that to 75 and 80, respectively, in 2000. Common outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery took a huge toll on human life.

The addition of chlorine to drinking water in 1908 resulted in a dramatic decline in fatalities from waterborne illnesses.

And we use a lot of water
Just turn on the tap and voila!, safe drinking water, right? Since 1966, City of Wyoming’s water treatment capacity has grown from 32 million gallons per day to 90 million gallons per day. We sell some of the water to Kentwood
, Byron Center and Gaines Township, so as a bonus, Wyoming residents pay less for their water than Grand Rapids residents do. Plant improvements have occurred over the years to accommodate continued growth in the region. As changes in our region occur, the Drinking Water Plant will continue to evolve.

Five years ago, Wyoming’s Lakeshore water plant north of Holland pumped about 30 million gallons to more than 220,000 users in 13 communities each day. Water use varies with the seasons; more water is used in the hot summer months. In 2011, Wyoming spent $73 million expanding the plant, increasing the daily capacity to 120 million gallons—an annual capacity of about 44 billion gallons.

While the City of Wyoming is responsible for providing high-quality drinking water, it cannot control the variety of materials used in household plumbing. When your water has been sitting for several hours, you can lower the risk of lead exposure by flushing your tap for 30 seconds to 2 minutes before using water for drinking or cooking.

Could a Flint-like crisis happen to us here in the City of Wyoming and Kentwood?
The answer is no, and here’s why: We’ve been using Lake Michigan as our source for drinking water since 1966 and will continue to do so. The water is treated before it reaches your tap.

In order to ensure that tap water is safe to drink, EPA prescribes regulations, called Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) that limit the amount of certain contaminants in our drinking water. Wyoming’s water treatment process provides multiple barriers, including clarification, filtration and disinfection, to lower the risk of contaminants in finished tap water. In 2014, monitoring of treated water samples from the lakeshore treatment plant yielded a 100% contaminant removal rate, highlighting the effectiveness of the treatment system in microscopic particle removal.

Testing is also performed to detect the presence of Cryptosporidium and Giardia, which are protozoan parasites that occur in natural surface waters such as lakes, rivers and streams.

Each year, the City of Wyoming sends out a water quality report to its residents. In 2014, water quality met and exceeded all state and federal guidelines for safe drinking water.

For more information about our drinking water, go here.