Audience members listen as Professor Yanna Lambrinidou begins her lecture with some background of the Washington D.C. lead-in-water crisis. (Photo by Andrew Strack)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn 2001, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) discovered that, when they switched from chlorine to chloramine to treat drinking water, the water began leaching lead from their service lines at rates well in excess of EPA standards requiring immediate remediation. However, \u201cutility scientists and engineers decided to hide five samples,\u201d explains Lambrinidou, referencing the first incriminating samples taken.<\/p>\n
The WASA chief engineer mistakenly thought\u201ccrisis averted.\u201d Incidences of elevated blood lead levels in children increased by 9.6 times in 2001, according to information from one area hospital, which also reportedspikes in infant deaths and miscarriages.<\/p>\n
A WASA technician, Jerome Krough, began calling consumers individually to warn them. He was fired \u2013 the second piece in a years-long cover-up that would spur D.C. residents to begin their own water testing, results communication via chain email, and database creation.<\/p>\n
Today, WASA is still fighting families in court over damages resulting from the lead-in-water crisis, says Lambrinidou. She blames the longevity of the issue, in part, on \u201can institutional disregard for community voices.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Flint, Michigan<\/h3>\n Enter Flint, Michigan, Lambrinidou\u2019s second case study in communication and perceptions of authority.<\/p>\n
Flint is a town with 42 percent of its residents living below the poverty line, which switched from using treated Great Lakes water to untreated Flint River water in 2014. Within a month, the EPA began receiving reports of skin rashes and brown, rotten-egg-smelling water. General Motors claimed the water was \u201ctoo corrosive\u201d for contact with vehicle parts.<\/p>\n
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), however, claimed the water met EPA standards \u2013 before it had even been tested for lead.<\/p>\n
Flint parents began seeing stunted growth, hair loss, and stomach pain in their children, and eventually turned to Virginia Tech for help testing their own water. They collected over 250 samples, 30 percent of which exceeded EPA standards requiring immediate remediation.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlint has a very serious lead-in-water problem,\u201d the university announced. EPA Regional Regulations Manager Miguel delToral eventually stepped in, urging his superiors to take action.<\/p>\n
However, \u201ctraditional power structures that assume ‘experts know best’ are the norm,\u201d says Lambrinidou, and MDEQ continued to use misleading testing methods to avoid taking responsibility. Flint eventually reverted to its former water source, but court cases and medical implications from the crisis are ongoing.<\/p>\n
Concerning the media attention and remediation that has been achieved, the dominant narrative is that Flint families \u2013 the grassroots researchers and organizers who were working to improve the situation months before the EPA stepped in \u2013 were \u201csaved\u201d by the experts, says Lambrinidou. \u201cEngineers have a critical role to play helping communities save their own day,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n
\u2018Holes in the system\u2019<\/h3>\n Lambrinidou says there are \u201choles in our regulatory system that create and perpetuate injustice\u201d \u2013 such as layman research being discredited, parents of lead-poisoned children being kept out of remediation forums, and less-educated citizens not knowing how to request helpful documents through the Freedom of Information Act. Engineers tend to value methodical efficiency, \u201cvalues [which] can stunt the engineer’s ability to bring long-standing systemic change.\u201d Lambrinidou says that positive community change often happens with \u201cslow and messy progress towards people’s empowerment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moving forward, Lambrinidou’s work in this field is \u201cbringing social justice perspectives into federal policy making.\u201d She asks, \u201cWhat role do technical interventions play\u201d in these multi-layered crises? \u201cWhat conditions allow communities to save themselves,\u201d rather than relying on outside regulators?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yanna Lambrinidou wants to teach today\u2019s engineers-in-training how to listen to their clients and extended communities. To that end, the professor in Virginia Tech\u2019s Department of Science and Technology has ... read more about Engineering ethics expert brings questions about communication, authority and civic responsibility to Flint crisis<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5590,14184,5592,17562,17364,5643,12579,6287,7682],"tags":[],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-30124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology","category-campus-guests","category-chemistry","category-digest","category-engineering","category-environmental-sustainability","category-pre-professional-health","category-social-work","category-suter-science-seminar"],"yoast_head":"\nEngineering ethics expert brings questions about communication, authority and civic responsibility to Flint crisis - EMU News<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n