{"id":1059,"date":"2021-06-14T18:54:55","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T18:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/michigan-voices\/?page_id=1059"},"modified":"2021-06-14T18:54:57","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T18:54:57","slug":"s2e9-transcript","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/michigan-voices\/s2e9-transcript\/","title":{"rendered":"S2E9 Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

0:00<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*A sound effect of a running faucet is heard. After a few moments, the faucet is turned off, and the sound of rushing water ceases.*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0:09 \u2013 Julia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about the last time you had a glass of water. Do you know where it came from? Did you assume it was safe to drink? In 2014, the city of Flint, Michigan changed its water source from Detroit Water and Sewage to the Flint River, a decision which marked the very beginning of what we now know as the Flint water crisis. Seven years later, Flint is still without clean water, but attention around the issue has largely died down. People not directly impacted by the water crisis, while sympathetic, might view the issue as an isolated incident, unable to affect them, but it\u2019s not just a Flint thing. Hi I\u2019m Julia Peck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0:47 \u2013 Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019m Noah Pinter. You may have heard my sister Sarah Pinter speak about her work in environmental sustainability in the previous episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0:54 \u2013 Julia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in this episode, we\u2019re going to discuss water safety in the state of Michigan. We expected to cover Flint in this episode, but, throughout our research, we discovered that lead contaminants in water is potentially a much larger issue than most people realize. In this episode, Noah and I sat down with our friend, Connor Jenkins, to learn about a research project he conducted in which he predicted lead contamination across the state of Michigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1:20 \u2013 Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Um, my name is Connor Jenkins, and I\u2019m a senior studying Biology, Health, and Society at the University of Michigan, and I\u2019m minoring in Water and The Environment. Through my minor is what I\u2019m actually doing this research project for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1:34 \u2013 Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you so much for sitting down to talk with us today, Connor. I would like to start actually by discussing the stakes of this project. We\u2019ve heard a lot about lead and water in the media in recent years, and I wanted to ask you: what is the problem with lead? What effects does it have on people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1:52 \u2013 Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s listed as a possible carcinogen by the CDC, so it could cause cancer, but the big problem with lead is it creates a lot of developmental problems for kids, so the people most at risk of adverse effects of lead poisoning and lead exposure are children, and children who are exposed to lead have chronic issues for the rest of their life. There\u2019s learning disabilities, there\u2019s behavior problems, they don\u2019t read as well, they don\u2019t write as well, and that just affects the rest of your life. So the state of Michigan is very very bad about that whole thing. There was legislation surrounding lead testing in schools that was introduced recently after the Flint Water Crisis because there was an advisory committee that basically said, \u201cmaybe test your schools\u201d. And so in 2018 a bill was introduced requiring testing after unsafe levels of lead were found in like 57 of 108 Detroit schools, or something insane like that. Um, but the bill has actually stalled in committee ever since 2018, so still, to this day, even though we\u2019ve had like very clear results saying that lead is everywhere, there is still nothing that requires lead testing schools \u2013 which is bad *laughter*. Our kids are directly at risk, and also a lot of the buildings \u2013 a lot of the infrastructure of these buildings was made prior to the Safe Drinking Water Act, which was in 1986, and that was what actually banned lead pipes in schools. So basically, if your school was built in the 1970s or before, it probably has lead pipes, and you\u2019re probably being exposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3:39 \u2013 Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, taking a lot of the \u201cscience-y\u201d stuff out of it, lead in water affects children?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3:45 \u2013 Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3:46 \u2013 Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Michigan is really bad at identifying where there is lead in water?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3:50 \u2013 Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, um, and it\u2019s not just Michigan, it\u2019s the entire United States, and the thing about lead exposure is that it is completely preventable. We still use lead pipes because they are in place already, and it\u2019s really really really expensive to get them out because, if you try to get them out section by section, you end up damaging other sections, and more lead goes into the water. So, in order to remove lead pipes and the infrastructure that we already have in place, you have to remove all of it at once, which is billions and billions of dollars \u2013 so that\u2019s not great. And there have been efforts to try to regulate and standardize lead testing across the United States because there are states that are better at it. Not a ton, but there are some. And actually, this is- this is kind of what got me going on the project is that the US government Accountability Office found that 41% of districts nationwide, which serves like 12 million students, had not tested for lead anytime in the last year, and the 43% of schools that did test for lead, 37% of those schools did find lead. And lead testing is only mandatory in eight states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5:04 \u2013 Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that\u2019s disturbing information to hear, right? That this lead in water problem is bigger than just Flint, bigger than just the state of Michigan. This is affecting children all across the United States, and, by and large, as a country we\u2019re failing to do anything about it. Especially \u2013 the notion of \u201cwe need to protect our children\u201d I do not think is a partisan idea. It is clear that action needs to be taken. Why don\u2019t we transition into talking about the actual methodology of the project itself? I know you expressed to me that you began by collecting a lot of prior data. Um, can you elaborate on that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5:45 \u2013 Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, so the point of collecting the data was, um, in order to make a model to predict what zip codes were at risk in the state of Michigan, we had to use data that existed from other states that were better at lead testing. So, California is great. There\u2019s very standardized, regulated testing procedures in place in California. New Jersey is also very good. And actually Ohio, as embarrassing as it is, is much better than Michigan. So, to get our project going, we decided to focus primarily on Ohio just because it has the most similarities with Michigan in terms of race proportions and infrastructure and environment and \u2013 yeah, so that was what the data was for basically: was to decide what state we were basing our model off of in order to make predictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6:46 \u2013 Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you say \u201cwe\u201d. Who\u2019s \u201cwe\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6:48 \u2013 Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah! Um, I mentioned earlier that I am being mentored by Jason Duvall from PitE, who has been great, and also Dr. Colacino in the School of Public Health at The University of Michigan. Um, he\u2019s helped me a lot so far. And then Eric Johnson, who is a data science major at the University of Michigan, has been incredibly incredibly helpful. Um, this project could not be done without him. He\u2019s kind of the brains behind the operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7:18 \u2013 Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is he the guy that we should talk to \u2013 like \u2013 in terms of inquiring how the data was processed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7:25 \u2013 Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Um, that one we did together. The statistical analysis part he might be better at. I know a little bit about it. I can explain what the results mean basically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7:39 \u2013 Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What were your findings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7:41 \u2013 Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah so basically, um, we used data from the US census and then also the public data warehouse that the state of Ohio has. Um, and we tried to find predictors for positive lead tests. So basically, we\u2013 we found the pure number of positive lead tests by zip code in Ohio, which took a lot of data cleaning and a lot of data finding, and then we just tried out predictors to see if we found any correlations. We tried five predictors in total, um, which were mortality rates, cancer incidence rates, race, poverty levels, and graduation rates. Um, and we only found correlation between three things: Race was correlated with the number of positive lead tests, poverty level was related to the number of positive lead tests, and cancer incidence was. So those three things are what we\u2019re using\u2013 are the three predictors we\u2019re using for our final model. Our final model is not done yet, but we do have\u2013 We haven\u2019t basically put the Michigan data in yet \u2013 but we do have the model finished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8:58 \u2013 Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, pretty much, the conclusion is that poorer and browner communities are more likely to be, like, victims of lead poisoning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9:06 \u2013 Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, that\u2013 that\u2019s exactly it. If you increase the amount of non-white people in a zip code by 1%, you expect the number of positive lead tests to increase by 0.34 tests, which doesn\u2019t sound insane. But, you know, if you increase a zip code by 10% of non-white people, you suddenly have almost two more positive lead tests. So you do expect more white zip codes to have much fewer positive lead tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9:39 \u2013 Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you know of, like, any actionable items that, like, listeners could take away? Like any policies or petitions that they could sign? Is there anything that we as, like, quote unquote \u201cMichiganders\u201d can do to help the state of Michigan?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9:56 \u2013 Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the most important thing right now is just, um, calling your representatives and demanding\u2013 cause there is legislation that\u2019s just been stalled for years and years and years, and it\u2019s because it\u2019s an incredibly expensive task. So it just has not been prioritized by leaders so far because lead poisoning does not show up unless you test for it. So if you don\u2019t test for it, it\u2019s easy to sweep under the rug. So demand legislation. Um, Demand yearly (at least) testing, um, of all drinking sites\u2013 in schools especially. Cause you want to feel good when you send your kids to school. That is kind of the whole point is that there is a safe environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

10:39 \u2013 Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You mentioned that your parents are educators. Do they\u2013 Have they  dealt with\u2013 soft of\u2013 water crises stuff?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10:47 \u2013 Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know the school that I went to is\u2013 is very underfunded and very poor and, you know, everyone in the school basically drinks from one drinking fountain. So the potential for lead exposure is not low, and it\u2019s also an old building. Pipes could be up to 8% lead until 2014. So there\u2019s still been pipes being installed and built that contained lead even after the Safe Drinking Water Act was passed. Basically, I mean we have crumbling infrastructure all over the United States, um, and there\u2019s just lead everywhere. There\u2019s lead paint I\u2019m sure everyone\u2019s heard about. So, it\u2019s just everywhere, and we do need to be doing more to test it. And it\u2019s all\u2013 it\u2019s such a man-made problem that is so so preventable if the resources are given to people. And it\u2019s always the people who are already at a disadvantage who are facing these exposures, whether it be because of race or income or socioeconomic status, which is why we\u2019re kind of creating a heat map, is because we want to say with data, very explicitly, \u201cthese are the zip codes that we think are at risk, so focus legislation. Focus testing efforts. Rebuild infrastructure all in these specific sites, which we\u2019ve identified for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12:18 \u2013 Julia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To close out this episode, Noah and I want to take a moment to recognize our relationship with this issue. We\u2019re students at the University of Michigan: a wealthy, primarily white institution. We\u2019re not victims of lead contamination and have always had the luxury of not needing to worry about the water coming from our faucets. We aren\u2019t ending this episode pretending that we\u2019ve fixed this issue. We haven\u2019t. As Connor suggested, the best thing all of us can do is contact our local representatives and demand annual water quality testing both in schools and everywhere else. In the spirit of raising awareness on this issue, we\u2019ll conclude this episode by hearing testimonials by the communities affected by this problem. What follows are real recordings taken from public forums on the Flint water crisis. Thank you for listening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

13:06 \u2013 Voice #1 (Tiara Dansaw)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who\u2019s tired of this? Who\u2019s tired of trying to fight for our human rights? Who\u2019s tired of not being able to turn on your faucet and drink water? Who\u2013 Who\u2019s tired of having to pay water so you can have something to drink in your house? Who\u2019s tired of having to heat up your water so you can take a bath? This is enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13:40 \u2013 Voice #2 (Broghan MacIntyre)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just want to point out that I have switched between three different schools in between this water crisis, and that\u2019s crazy because I\u2019ve switched three schools in the span of four years. And, coming from a personal note, I now have a rash from the water, so\u2026 it was covering my entire body, but now it\u2019s just on my arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14:09 \u2013 Voice #3 (Keishaun Wade)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a deliberate decision by our elected officials that did not take into account our humanity or who we are as people. It poisoned us, and, again, it was a deliberate decision. Our government failed us. It\u2019s simple. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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