The appalling water crisis in Flint, Michigan rose to national conversation in 2016. High levels of lead contamination in the residents’ drinking water still persist, and the health issues and negative developmental impacts this lead poisoning has had on the lives of children and residents in Flint reverberate to this day.
The city of Flint is sadly not a lone incident. Serious concerns surrounding water infrastructure have mounted in St. Joseph, Louisiana, where drinking water turned toxic by lead and copper. Water contaminated by corrosive asphalt in Corpus Christi has impacted nearly 1,000 Texans during the Holiday Season.
This year, our Native American community boldly led the charge of opposition against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The battle against DAPL to protect the human right to clean water and honor its sanctity continues, with the recent arrest of 5 Water Protectors and calling of SWAT teams to the sacred site. In early December, thousands of army veterans stood in a beautiful display of solidarity with the Native Water Protectors as human shields protecting all Americans and their right to access clean water: for in the words of Mr. Jade Emilio Snell, a veteran of the Marine Corps on-site for DAPL opposition, “It's about protecting Americans. If that pipeline bursts, it will affect our culture, our drinking water, everything."
And, these concerns over pipeline explosions and spills, which in turn threaten the human right to clean water, have real grounding. The website, “Pipeline Accidents Happen,” details the 25 pipeline accidents which occurred in 2016 alone: a statistic which continues to fuel the activism of Water Protectors at the Standing Rock Sioux as well as environmental and human rights activists in Florida opposing the Sabal Trail Pipeline and their Texan counterparts organizing against the Trans-Pecos Pipeline.
From drinking water turning toxic in American cities to fights against oil pipelines attempting to sustain clean water sources, the battle-cry of the Standing Rock Water Protectors, Mni Wiconi or “Water is Life,” encompasses why these communities’ concerns are, at heart, ours: water is a human right.
With a 60% and 77% African American population in the areas of Flint and St. Joseph respectively and the Native population at the Great Sioux's Standing Rock, many have invoked the term “environmental racism” to describe these communities’ ongoing battle for clean water this year.
Either way, 2016 will sadly go down as the year the Struggle for Water began.
