The city of Flint, Michigan has been without clean water for nearly two years. As a way to cut costs, the city went from using treated water from Lake Huron and Detroit, to the treated water from the nearby Flint River in April 2014. Shortly after the transition was made, citizens started complaining about the water’s taste, color and strange odor. As the water traveling from the Flint River went down aging pipelines, large traces of lead and other toxic metals entered the water and homes of Flint residents.

The water was switched back to the Detroit source back in October, but citizens are still receiving contaminated water and the government distributed water filters do not fit in all of the sinks of the people receiving toxic water.

Of all the individuals impacted by the water contamination, the children in the Flint community seem to be the most vulnerable.

According to Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician at the Hurley Medical Center in Flint, the number of children under the age of six who may have been exposed to lead has reached around 8,000.

In the more serious cases of lead poisoning, children of Flint have experienced skin rashes, digestive problems, hair loss and excessive crying and irritability.

Some parents, like Luke Waid, have filed federal lawsuits against Michigan state and Flint city officials, including Gov. Rick Snyder, after watching their children go through the symptoms of lead poisoning.

Waid’s two-year-old daughter Sophia was found to have high blood-levels of lead in her system. Blood-levels of five or greater are considered to be toxic. According to members of her family Sophia’s blood lead levels were tested at 14.

“She’s constantly irritable,” Waid said. “These guys (children) don’t have a voice of their own, so I have to be their voice. I have to stand behind my children.”

In light of the controversy surrounding the events of the contamination, the FBI is investigating the contamination of the drinking water. The announcement of the FBI investigation was made before a number of documents disclosed by the government were released.

In these documents, was evidence showing how state officials knew about the outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease and its connection to the contaminated water, 10 months before this information was released to the public.

Legionnaires’ disease is a severe form of pneumonia, caused by a bacterium known as legionella. In Flint, 87 cases of Legionnaire’s disease were reported, and 10 of these cases were fatal.

In January, President Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint, and in response, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took action and provided Flint with safe water, water filters and testing kits.

As for future government action within Flint, Gov. Rick Snyder is working to create discussion on the removal of the lead pipelines in Flint and other aging American cities when he speaks in front of a congressional commission inspecting the Flint water contamination crisis.

Although citizens of Flint have been receiving support, water and hope from the National Guard, FEMA and celebrities like Mark Wahlberg, Beyoncé and Cher, the fractured trust in their government will be difficult to rebuild.

One life-long Flint native, Sandra Westin, discussed the resilience of the city and its citizens in the middle of the crisis.

"We are Flintstones," Westin said, referring to the nickname for Flint residents, "And we are a strong group, a talented group of people from this area, from Genesee County. But it makes me sad that the people we trusted failed us. It's not us who failed them, they failed us."