Plastic bottles are now a staple in Benton Harbor. They are the only safe source of water in this city of almost 10,000 inhabitants. The plumbing at the site, which is 100 miles south of Chicago, is contaminated with lead. People can no longer drink tap water.
This humanitarian disaster has gained weight in the national debate, taking the shape of yet another case of racial inequality. About 85% of the population of Benton Harbor is black. The conversation about how public investments disfavor this slice of demographics is old —and unresolved—. In the United States, there is talk of “environmental racism” to describe the phenomenon of segregation that has pushed non-white populations to neighborhoods more damaged by industries and pollution.
“Imagine it was a white town,” says Edward Pinkney, an environmental rights activist and leader of the Benton Harbor Community Water Board. “Let me describe a scene: a white woman with a baby in her lap, saying the lead will kill him. The government would send the army, the National Guard, President Joe Biden would come here. We don’t care.”
The Benton Harbor case has angered local leaders not only because of the race issue, but also because it repeats already memorized plots, like Flint’s. The city made headlines in 2014 for a similar lead contamination scandal. An estimated 100,000 people were exposed to water poisoned by the dangerous metal.
“We expected the authorities to have learned something, but they didn’t,” says Pinkney. More than that, he accuses Benton Harbor City Hall of negligence. The activist claims that data from the authorities themselves have pointed to the contamination for at least three years, but the pipes have not yet been changed — and it could take up to two years for this to actually happen.
A sheet he contacted Benton Harbor City Hall but got no response.
In 2018, tests detected a contamination of 22 ppb (parts per billion) of lead, above the level of 15 ppb considered a red line by health authorities. There is no safe value of the metal for human consumption, and health risks include brain damage. Lead contamination is the result of a number of factors, such as corrosion of old pipes.
Activists say the issue only captured the attention of the rest of the country when several organizations sent a joint petition to US environmental authorities. They also threatened to sue the government. This month, a state of emergency was declared. “If we hadn’t taken action, nothing would have happened. You wouldn’t have even called me,” says Pinkney.
He praises efforts to distribute free bottled water as an alternative to lead-contaminated liquid. But he says it’s as effective as putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.
What may ultimately remedy the problem, for the activist, is the approaching election for the Michigan government. “Politicians know that the problem cannot extend until the state election next year.” Gretchen Whitmer, the current governor of the state, recently visited the city. For Pinkney, solving the water crisis will be central to the election campaign.
The local communities, however, are tired of a management model in which the authorities only implement public policies when the time comes to guarantee the vote at the polls. The problem, according to these groups, is greater — and reflects a historical disregard for specific parts of the population.
“It’s pretty clear that there is a pattern of divestment in infrastructure, as well as a pattern of divestment specific to communities of color,” says Michigan-based journalist Anna Clark. She is the author of the book “The Poisoned City” about the Flint case. “This type of situation has life and death consequences for people,” he says.
Clark claims that, like Flint, the Benton Harbor disaster is the result of bad decisions made in the past. It can’t be a scarcity problem after all. Benton Harbor is on the shores of the famous Great Lakes. “We have a lot of water. This is not a natural disaster,” says the journalist.
There are similar cases in other parts of the country, where authorities have also neglected water infrastructure. Not by chance, in the investment plan that serves as a banner for the Biden administration, one of the proposals is to change lead-contaminated pipes. The Michigan government says that, alone, it needs more than R$160 million to carry out this work.
Benton Harbor, however, cannot wait years for all the pipes to be replaced. “People need water to drink today and every day,” says Clark. Not just for drinking, by the way. Residents of this city cannot rely on tap water to perform a series of intimate and mundane tasks, such as brushing their teeth and making coffee. “Many of us are privileged not to have to think about how water affects so many small parts of our lives.”
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