3-News

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Monday, February 22, 2016 — 3A

trust free filters provided to the 
community by the government.

“I 
don’t 
feel 
like 
the 

(government-issued) filters are 
even adequate, because I don’t 
know how well they filter out 
the lead,” he said. “I just know 
that my filter filters out the 
lead, and I don’t trust theirs.”

At his home, Worswick still 

gets Flint city water, which he 
noted comes with challenges 
that can’t be solved just by 
filtering all drinking water.

“I don’t like the fact that I 

have to shower in lead water, 
but it’s whatever. I have to live 
with it,” he said.

Christopher 
Miller, 
a 

freshman physics and math 
major, is shoveling snow off a 
bench on campus. He works for 
UM-Flint part time.

Miller 
is 
one 
of 
three 

people on his street who have 
well water — but many of his 
family and friends are not as 
fortunate, he said. His friends 
come to his house regularly to 
take showers.

Miller said the unfolding 

magnitude of the water crisis is 
still unimaginable. 

“It was just sort of surreal 

for a while just because they 
had been talking about it for 
a long time — how there was 
something in their water — and 
it just wasn’t right,” he said. 

“My sister is dealing with it, 
and she was just starting to 
notice hair falling off — her 
skin would be really red when 
she got out of the shower for 
whatever reason and she didn’t 
know (why),” Miller said.

He added that any trust 

between 
Flint 
residents 

and 
their 
local 
and 
state 

governments that once existed 
has disappeared.

“At first it was like, ‘There’s 

no way the city of Flint is just 
going to allow the poisoning 
of 90,000 residents — no, they 
totally did,” Miller said. “It just 
helps to further cement the 
dichotomy — the line of trust 
that is just never gonna come 
back in terms of citizens and 
their government. It’s never 
gonna come back.”

Miller said he is further 

angered by the fact that national 
media, not the months of Flint 
residents’ complains, sparked 
governmental attention to the 
water crisis. 

“It was going on for a solid 

year and a half before the 
rest of the world picked up,” 
Miller said. “There’s a city of 
100,000 people being poisoned 
and no one seems to care just 
because 
they 
have 
shoddy 

infrastructure.”

Larry 
Tucker, 
a 
Flint 

resident who regularly uses 
UM-Flint campus recreational 
facilities, on Friday said he 
believes the government must 

take immediate action. He’s not 
alone in these sentiments by 
far — some state residents have 
called for moretransparency 
from Gov. Rick Snyder (R) 
while others call for his arrest.

Tucker added that the crisis 

has deeply impacted his level 
of trust in the government.

“I don’t trust whoever I’m 

drinking water from — no way,” 
he said. “Just because they 
put up a sign there that says 
‘filtered’ doesn’t necessarily 
mean it’s filtered because the 
government is always going to 
cover themselves.”

Caniejrah Marshall, a junior 

communications major at Mott 
Community College in Flint, 
works in a student convenience 
store in the Harding Mott 
University 
Center 
on 
the 

University’s Flint campus. Soft-
spoken, she answers questions 
as she checks out customers.

She said the water crisis 

has been particularly difficult 
for her to deal with due to her 
severe eczema, a condition that 
inflames the skin.

She noticed her skin turning 

extremely dry after showers 
directly after the city switched 
from using Lake Huron’s water 
to the Flint water supply. She 
suffers from regular itching 
spells and takes Benadryl on 
a nightly basis to alleviate the 
irritation.

Before government agencies 

and 
local 
charities 
began 

providing free bottled water to 
Flint residents, Marshall said 
she paid seven or eight dollars 
for cases of water, a costly 
expense. And though she has 
been buying bottled water, she 
continues to bathe in the tap 
water.

“I have no choice but to take 

a shower. It kind of makes you 
feel helpless because I can’t 
help but to take a shower — I 
can’t help but to cook in the 
water and I heard somewhere 
that they could’ve fixed it a 
long time ago so it would’ve 
been better if they just fixed 
it and treated it right in the 
beginning so people wouldn’t 
have to go through this,” 
Marshall said.

She said she is additionally 

troubled with the fact that 
government officials now face 
million-dollar projects to fix 
and replace the pipe system, 
whereas it would have initially 
cost $35,000.

Though she said she is 

appreciative of national and 
local efforts to provide water 
and filters, she worries about 
those who don’t have cars and 
therefore access to pick up 
bottled water.

Damario Mason works with 

Sodexo catering on UM-Flint’s 
campus. He said his aunts 
and cousins have experienced 
symptoms of lead poisoning, 
and his family recently decided 
to leave Flint.

“They’re losing hair. They’re 

getting rashes and it’s just not 
livable anymore so they just 
decided to leave,” Mason said. 
“I saw my little cousin the 
other day and she had a huge 
rash on her arm, and I knew 
she wouldn’t normally get that 
just from regular water.”

Denazia 
Pettway, 
a 

freshman public health and 
sciences major from Detroit, 
lives on UM-Flint’s campus.

Pettway 
said 
she 
only 

drinks tap water on UM-Flint’s 
campus thanks to a notification 
from University officials that 
it’s safe, and accompaying 
water filters. 

She added that she was 

disturbed 
by 
a 
lack 
of 

governmental 
accountability 

surrounding the water crisis.

“They just wanted to live 

their lives, but people are 
getting sick and people are 
dying and people are sad and 
they don’t know what to do 
because this is Flint,” she said. 
“Flint is not the richest city. 
Flint is very poor, and so they 
don’t have the money to go out 
and move — they don’t have 
that money. They don’t have 
those resources, so they have 
no choice but to sit in Flint and 
use water bottled water for 
everything.”

solutions.

Panelist Dr. Terry Thompson, 

assistant 
professor 
of 
the 

Department of Public Health 
and Health Sciences at the 
University of Michigan-Flint, 
has been working with a team 
of researchers on community-
based participatory research for 
what he calls the ‘91st day.’ He 
said the 91st day occurs after 
media coverage slows down and 
emergency funds stop coming.

“As you know, emergency 

funds, water and all this usually 
happens for 90 days. But what 
we’re interested in is what 
happens on the 91st day after 
CNN has gone,” he said. “So 
that’s what we’re interested in. 
We’ve got to find explicitly what 
is it that is needed, what is that 
gap.”

The event featured videos 

including from the local Fox 
News channel, “Let it Rip: Flint 
water crisis special” and “When 
the Water Runs Dry: Voices from 
the Detroit Water Crisis.”

Panelist Dr. Jerome Nriagu, 

a recently retired professor 
of 
Environmental 
Health 

Sciences at the School of Public 
Health, said he has done work 
on childhood lead poisoning 
in Flint and Detroit with a 
focus on the future of the water 
source. Nriagu said many of the 
solutions to decontaminate the 
water that were discussed in the 
Fox News video such as treating 
river water will not work even in 
the short term.

“First of all, somebody says 

you can treat Flint River water, 
the answer is no,” he said. 
“Because it’s contaminated with 
organic compounds and we still 
don’t know how to remove some 
of these organic compounds 
from any river water. So the 
idea that you can treat river 
water, from my own research 
experience, is false.”

Both Thompson and Nriagu 

discussed the possibility of 
removing and replacing the pipes 
of contaminated communities 
as a long-term solution to the 
water crises. Thompson said 

the procedure for removing 
pipes is not too complicated and 
takes a few hours, adding that 
community members should be 
trained to replace the pipes so 
they can feel involved.

“The people would feel that 

they are part of the solution 
and that confidence in itself will 
do so much for a community,” 
Thompson said.

All panelists said they agreed 

that that it is important for 
communities to feel empowered 
and to use their voices to show 
what the media will not show.

While 
much 
of 
the 

conversation in the media about 
water has been centered on 
Flint, panelist Alexis Ramsey, 
a charter commissioner for the 
city of Highland Park, said in 
2014 it was reported that over 
1,000 children in Highland Park 
had higher lead levels than the 
children of Flint and that there 
had been a 35 percent increase in 
water bills for bad water.

“We just want people to 

understand that we are fighting 
the same fight, no different 
than Flint, and our citizens and 
residents are facing the same 
thing,” said Ramsey.

Panelist Kim Sims, mayor of 

Muskegon Heights, noted that 
her city was one of several that 
avoided hiring an emergency 
manager, which Flint had while 
the crisis was unfolding. She 
added that her city has its own 
water filtration plant, saying 
she hoped to learn from the 
other panelists about water 
management.

“We do have our own water 

filtration plant that we own and 
operate completely,” she said. 
“At this point we are our own 
customers because we had two 
customers who decided to leave 
us for another municipality. I’m 
hoping to gain some knowledge 
actually while I’m here and 
assist the conversation however 
I can.”

Panelists also discussed the 

evident health issues facing the 
children of Flint.

Panelist and activist Monica 

Lewis-Patrick, co-founder of We 
the People of Detroit which aims 
to provide resources for Detroit 
citizens to better their quality of 

life, said children have already 
started showing health problems 
from the contamination.

“One of the things we know 

from working on the ground in 
Flint for almost two years is that 
teachers are already reporting 
that they are seeing behavioral 
issues and acting out increased 
in the classrooms,” said Lewis-
Patrick. “We also know that 
with these children, especially 
poor white, Black or brown 
children will be more likely to be 
incarcerated as opposed to being 
treated.”

Charles 
Ransom, 

Multicultural Studies librarian 
at the University Library, served 
on the committee that organized 
events for Black History Month. 
He said this event related to 
Black History Month because 
water 
crises 
are 
primarily 

happening in communities with 
a large population of African 
Americans.

“Just like what the speakers 

were saying, most of the cities 
that have been affected by the 
water issues are chocolate cities, 
they are Black cities,” he said. “It 
seems to follow the same script 
— the city loses money, the city 
has an asset, it’s water or it’s the 
water treatment plant and they 
lose it or something goes wrong.”

LSA junior Lauren Miles said 

she came to event because she 
was curious and had not gone 
to an event for Black Heritage 
Month yet. She said she wanted 
to know more about the water 
crisis in Flint.

“I knew of Flint, I didn’t really 

know the details of it and I really 
wanted to know the details 
because I keep on hearing things 
about water,” Miles said. “I took 
a one-credit class last year about 
water, it was more of a global 
view on water. This is another 
side of that conversation that is 
important; I think it’s everyone’s 
main concern.”

She added that though the 

event focused on Michigan, she 
thought anyone can learn from 
the issues discussed.

“I think we can take things 

from here and apply it to 
things that are happening 
all around the world,” she 
said.

taking place at the University. Prof. 
Gallimore said the University is a 
partner and subcontractor for the 
firm.

The X3, which is based on a 

series of thrusters developed at 
NASA, works by ejecting plasma at 
extremely high speeds out of the rear 
of a device, providing forward thrust. 
Plasma is ejected at speeds of up to 
30,000 meters per second, which is 
equal to about 65,000 miles per hour.

Scott Hall, a Ph.D. candidate 

in the Department of Aerospace 
Engineering, is the lead graduate 
student on the project. He said 
while the NextSTEP funding has 
only occurred in the past week, 
development of the design has been 
underway for some time.

“The funding through NextSTEP 

has been active for about a week, and 
the proposal for that was originally 
made about a year ago,” he said. 
“However, the X3’s development 
started somewhere around 2010 and 
the thruster has been assembled and 
operational since September 2013.”

The X3 is competing against two 

other designs for use in the XR-100 
system. According to Hall, this 
design is the only one of the three 
that has been created by members of 
a university.

The X3 design is also further 

ahead of competing designs in terms 
of development, Gallimore wrote in 
an email.

“It is more mature than any of 

the others, which means the risk 
of developing it is lower,” he wrote. 
“Also, it appears to be lighter and 
more efficient (in terms of converting 
spacecraft power to thrust) than the 
other systems.”

Hall also noted that the X3 design 

has a proven track record.

“The three different concepts are 

all electric propulsion, but they are 
all very different types,” he said. “The 
thruster we have developed here has 
a very proven track record: It is based 
on a series of thrusters developed at 
NASA.”

According to Gallimore, the short-

term goal is to bring the design to a 
level of readiness within three years.

“The goal is to bring the technology 

up to a readiness level in three years, 
that a follow-on contract could get 
the system ready for use in space a 
few years after NextSTEP is done,” 
he wrote.

Even if the design is ready in three 

years’ however, it will be longer until 
the X3 design can be tested or put 
to use in space. Gallimore said he 
believes one of the limitations will 
not be the U-M thruster, but rather 
the spacecrafts that would use it.

“The power system needed to 

drive this thruster is years away from 
development, so while the XR100 
system could be ready by 2020, I 
doubt we will have a spacecraft large 
enough or powerful enough by then 
to use it,” he said.

Hall agreed and said it will take 

some time for the design to be put to 
use.

“Realistically, it would probably be 

10 years or so until something based 
on this work was operated in space,” 
he said. “But our project is ambitious 
and if successful will get us much 
closer than we are right now to being 
ready to fly for the first time.”

Hall 
added 
that 
there 
are 

several other potential uses of this 
technology beyond just propelling 
humans to Mars.

“The X3 was developed not only 

with Mars missions in mind, but also 
a range of other applications,” he said. 
“The thruster was designed to be run 
down to as low as 1 kW and up to 200 
kW, so it has a huge range of ‘throttle 
ability,’ as we say. Something like it 
could be used to maneuver heavy 
satellites in orbit around Earth, for 
cargo tugs to places like Mars, to 
crewed mission to places like Mars, 
and as a way to get a very large probe 
to deep space much quicker than by 
traditional means.”

FLINT
From Page 1A

NASA
From Page 1A

PANEL
From Page 1A

non-students.

Several of the representatives 

voiced concerns that the Connector 
often runs regardless of whether 
people are riding it, meaning it 
often runs empty.

CSG representatives added that 

the Connector also has a marketing 
issue — few people know of its 
existence. Business junior Danny 
Kaprielian, the representative from 
Detroit Urban Debate Education, 
remarked that he had not heard of 
the Connector until this meeting. 
His organization sends students to 
Detroit regularly.

The 
Connector 
is 
funded 

through the Office of the Provost 
and will expire June of this year. 
The funding will then need to be 
renewed.

The 
transportation 
issue 
is 

one that underscores the lack of 
communication and coordination 
across 
student 
organizations 

working in Detroit organizers said, 
which is what the Detroit Congress 
is working to combat.

Bennett said some of these issues 

with the Detroit Connector are to 
be expected, such as a disconnect 
between those who are running the 
transportation and those who need 
to use it.

“So I guess it’s just a lack of 

communication in different aspects, 
as one might expect,” Bennett said.

The meeting ended with a 

broader discussion on what the 
organizations can do to strengthen 
the 
relationship 
between 
the 

University and the city of Detroit.

Patel said he finds it helpful to 

structure the Detroit Congress’ 
meetings around common problems 
that all the student organizations 
can relate to.

“It’s very beneficial to talk about 

broad issues surrounding Detroit 
engagement like social justice, 
community service, business and 
transportation, like we discussed 
today,” Patel said.

The next meeting will be in 

March. Bennett and Patel said 
they’re 
attempting 
to 
bring 

University 
administrators 
to 

upcoming meetings.

DETROIT
From Page 2A

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

