The Flint River winds its way through the center of the city, flowing into a long, concrete channel built by the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control. Through this stretch, the river is at its least inviting, its least "natural," taking on the appearance of an oversized gutter bearing the city's runoff and refuse. It is scenes like this that first sprang to mind when residents learned they were expected to drink from the river. Nevertheless, in the warmer months one can often find fishers casting their lines from the river bank; a tangle of fishing line wrapped around a lampost attests to their presence. Not everyone, clearly, has been deterred by the signs that now dot the riverwalk warning of PFAS in the fish. How much of the chemical is ending up in human bodies through this route, however, remains one of the many unknowns about the flow of toxins through the city and its inhabitants.
As Flint grasps for ways to reinvent and revitalize itself, city boosters have begun to promote recreational activity in and around the river, and the land along its banks has become the object of ambitious development schemes. Selling residents on these visions, however, will require convincing them to see the river as an asset rather than a liability, a place of respite and beauty rather than a mangled industrial gash bearing risk and danger.
The Flint River winds its way through the center of the city, flowing into a long, concrete channel built by the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control. Through this stretch, the river is at its least inviting, its least "natural," taking on the appearance of an oversized gutter bearing the city's runoff and refuse. It is scenes like this that first sprang to mind when residents learned they were expected to drink from the river. Nevertheless, in the warmer months one can often find fishers casting their lines from the river bank; a tangle of fishing line wrapped around a lampost attests to their presence. Not everyone, clearly, has been deterred by the signs that now dot the riverwalk warning of PFAS in the fish. How much of the chemical is ending up in human bodies through this route, however, remains one of the many unknowns about the flow of toxins through the city and its inhabitants.
As Flint grasps for ways to reinvent and revitalize itself, city boosters have begun to promote recreational activity in and around the river, and the land along its banks has become the object of ambitious development schemes. Selling residents on these visions, however, will require convincing them to see the river as an asset rather than a liability, a place of respite and beauty rather than a mangled industrial gash bearing risk and danger.