Inside Flint’s water crisis
Evidence of lead contamination was dismissed as resulting from a laboratory refurbishment
It was during a typical lab exercise in October 2014 that I knew something was really different about our water. Our undergraduate students at the University of Michigan–Flint were making copper sulfate solutions for a spectrophotometry exercise. But instead of clear blue, all their solutions were cloudy, even though we were using water purified by reverse osmosis. I knew that this could be bad: the only insoluble sulfate salts are lead, mercury (I), barium and calcium. It turned out to be evidence of the true nature of Flint’s nightmare.