After reading the two articles, they
can easily be compared to the situation happening in Friendswood. The first article, “East Chicago Lead Contamination
Galvanizes Residents”, is about a neighborhood in East Chicago where there are
high levels of lead and arsenic around the homes. The residents are actively
attempting to work with the city and the EPA to fix the problem and offer
solutions. The second article, “Drinking Water in Newark Schools Known to Have
Lead Problem at Least 6 Years Ago” is about the public schools in Newark that
have high levels of lead in the drinking water. Although there is a large
number of people questioning the safety of the water and the effects it will have
on their children, the governor of the state and other officials are not
worried at all. There is a question of ethics and morals in both of these
articles, and in Friendswood. Who is in the right, and who is in the wrong.
In the article about the lead and arsenic
in the neighborhood in East Chicago, the residents are working to better the
living situation with the government officials. Likewise in Friendswood, a
member of the community, Lee, is actively trying to understand the problem in
Rosemont. She is collecting soil samples and observing the environment; things
the EPA and other officials should be doing instead. In the West Calumet
Housing Complex the residents were asked to vacate their homes due to a
contamination problem. The residents, “banded together and put pressure on
government officials to meet the needs of those affected by the lead and
arsenic contamination” (2). They successfully set up meetings with these
officials and are compromising a solution to their housing fluke. The difference
between their situation and Lee’s, is that the government officials and the HUD
are supporting the residents in Chicago and are actively working with them to
better the situation. With Lee, the government and the community think she is
crazy and are not in support of her efforts to discover the problem in
Rosemont. These Chicago residents put matter into their own hands, and even
called the senator and scheduled meetings and hearings on their current
situation. First and foremost the government officials and the EPA should have
handled the situation properly from the beginning, by organizing housing
alternatives and plans for improvement, they are being ethical in the sense
that they are complying with the residents. The residents are also being
ethical by caring about their environment around seeking help when they knew
they could not do it themselves.
In the second article, Newark public
schools are having lead problems in the drinking water, but government
officials and the EPA do not seem to care about the negative effects. They
first started seeing high levels of lead in the water 6 years ago, but are only
now releasing the information to the public. This makes it seem like they are
not actively trying to fix the problem, instead they are taking their own,
sweet time by not taking quicker actions. This is very similar to the situation
with Lee, because she is trying to convince the mayor and the EPA that there is
a problem in Friendswood, but they keep pushing her concerns aside and tell her
everything is fine. The city officials in Friendswood are being unethical, just
like the government officials in Newark are being unethical by pushing the
problem aside. A quote from the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, said, “there
is no danger in Newark at the moment”, even though there was lead found in the
water 6 years ago by the EPA and they have done nothing about it (2). It is not
the job of the city officials to push aside problems effecting public schools,
they are suppose to fix the problem. They are being unethical by ignoring their
situation and putting it on hold.
Works Cited
Lyons, Craig. "East
Chicago Lead Contamination Galvanizes Residents." Post-Tribune.
N.p., 30 Dec. 2016. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-east-chicago-awakening-st-0101-20161230-story.html>.
McGheehan, Patrick. "Drinking Water
in Newark Schools Known to Have Lead Problem at Least 6 Years Ago." The
New York Times. N.p., 8 Apr. 2016. Web. 5 Feb. 2017.
<https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/nyregion/drinking-water-in-newark-schools-known-to-have-lead-problem-at-least-6-years-ago.html?_r=0>.
Steinke, Rene. Friendswood.
New York: Riverhead , a Member of Penguin Group (USA), 2014. Print.
