How The Sports World Is Coming Together To Help Flint’s Water Crisis

If you haven’t been keeping tabs on the national headlines, Flint, Michigan is currently in the midst of a water crisis. In an attempt to cut costs, the city switched their water source from Lake Huron — a nice, clean body of water — to the Flint River, which is all sorts of disgusting and poisonous.

The Flint River is notorious for containing decades-worth of factory runoff. Flint River water is 19 times more corrosive than Lake Huron’s. And corrosive river water improperly filtered, as Flint’s is, will strip everything it touches of iron and other debris as it moves through the pipes. It’s so dangerous, GM’s Flint Engine Operations won’t even use it in the plant. They’re bypassing the city supply for a nearby township’s water.

BOLD CLAIM: When GM won’t use water to make a car, humans probably shouldn’t drink it.

Obviously, drinking or using tap water that looks like this is not ideal for human survival:

Thankfully, while the city’s residents fight for the right to clean water, several figures around the sports world have stepped up to support the people of Flint through their battle.

Detroit Lions defensive end Ziggy Ansah bought 94,000 bottles of clean water and delivered them on Friday.

https://twitter.com/ttwentyman/status/690588000389038080/photo/1

The Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires asked fans to donate water before a recent game, and they managed to collect around 40,000 bottles to be sent to Flint, which is located just over 60 miles from Windsor.

Washington Redskins defensive lineman Terrance Knighton and some of his teammates decided to pitch in and donate 3,600 bottles, as well.

Surprisingly, none of the Michigan-based professional teams have (publicly) addressed the issue or offered to help out, but the Pistons did send out this tweet on Friday morning. (It was deleted several hours later.)

Whoops.