We as a full FCS community had the honor of hosting Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, whose research helped expose the Flint water crisis. She was here for the public on Tuesday, October 30th at 6:30 pm at Friends Central School, Shallcross Hall at the City Avenue campus. But the students were lucky enough to meet her in person. She will met with the Lower School, Middle School, and the Upper School during their assembly periods. Dr. Hanna-Attisha also wrote a well-reviewed book called What the Eyes Don’t See about helping discover the Flint water crisis.
The Flint crisis started when the city of Flint was losing money. So Flint switched from Detroit water to water from the Flint river. But river water is harder to treat than lake water and this treatment was being done by a water plant that had not been operational for 40 or 50 years. The problem was that the pipes that take water into houses are made of lead. To stop the lead from infecting the water, water plants are supposed to put an anti-corrosive chemical in the water, but Flint didn’t. This led to lead getting into the water. Lead is terrible for a child’s brain, because the lead builds up and blocks neurological pathways which obviously affects the brain. We hope you came to see Dr. Hanna-Attisha!
by Zachary Dunne ’25