Question

Review the case study "Don't Drink the Water in Flint, Michigan" located in Connect. Write as synopsis (a brief overview) of the case. Please prepare your synopsis as if I (and your colleagues) do not have the whole case study. Your synopsis should be concise, complete, and fully describe the situation “as you see it.” The synopsis should not exceed 4-5 paragraphs. Identify three (3) problems (Stop 1) and utilizing the material (Stop 2) we have covered in the course so far and make three (3) recommendations (Stop 3) to solve the problems. Each problem will require a justified recommended solution.

Answer 1

Review the case study "Don't Drink the Water in Flint, Michigan" located in Connect. Write as synopsis (a brief overview) of the case. Please prepare your synopsis as if I (and your colleagues) do not have the whole case study. Your synopsis should be concise, complete, and fully describe the situation “as you see it.” The synopsis should not exceed 4-5 paragraphs.

Flint, Michigan is a small town near Detroit. In order to make the municipalities well off to provide more benefits to the citizens, they decided to draw new water supply from lakes and decided to disconnect the supply from Detroit which was rasing prices YOY. After disconnecting the water supply from Detroit, they realised that it will take many yeas to develop the water pipelines from lake and decided to use river water for drinking and other domestic purposes.

The river water was not cleaned as per expectations and over a period of time, people started feeling the bad effects of polluted water. It has resulted in stunted growth for small children to skin rashes and other problems. People have to avoid using the same and have to change their life styles accordingly.

Not only, it was negligence but also was a criminal complicit angle to it. The authorities were very much aware about the same, however, they have decided to ignore the problem. They did not entertain complaints and willingly miscommunicated to citizens that there is no problem.

Identify three (3) problems (Stop 1) and utilizing the material (Stop 2) we have covered in the course so far and make three (3) recommendations (Stop 3) to solve the problems. Each problem will require a justified recommended solution of 1 page each.

Support your recommended solutions with rational thought learned from the course material, other courses, online resources provided for this course, and real-life experience.

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Three Problems and Solutions:

1. Poor decision making: The authorities made their decisions without any sufficient data to back up the things. They did not try to know why Detroit was charging high. Even basic checks like the quality of river water, time required to install pipelines from lakes was not determined while making a decision to stop taking supplies from detroit. Moreover, they have not thought of a plan B. Henceforth, the authorities should be mentored and coached for making sound decisions.
2. Polluted Water: Polluted water is a health hazard and it needs to be taken care off in a time bound way. The solution can be : Till they don't have the required plant to clean water, they should consider taking supplies from detroit. In addition to installing a plant to clean water, they should expedite the proposal to take water from the lakes at the earlier. There needs to be clear milestones to achieve the goals. taking water from river is not an option till it is cleaned and purified. Health and well being is non negotiable.
3. Transparency: Had there been transparency in the conduct of authorities, the crisis would not have been blown to this level. Hence, there needs to be better checks and balances in the system to avoid such happenings again and again. Not only checks and balances, the other ways in which such disasters can be avoided is to make authorities aware about laws, consequences of telling lies , falsifying matters etc.