Zachre Andrews

Key Items From Proposal:

I plan to create a new section that will discuss more in-depth the racial implications that are a result of certain water infrastructure that was created. I will explain the history of it as well as the currently policy in place that keeps this issue existent. I will share some case studies from different areas that further this point as well. Together, I will include information regarding the past and present which will put this issue of water accessibility in context. More information regarding my proposal can be found here.

1. Itzchak E. Kornfeld. “Water: A Public Good or a Commodity?” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of International Law) 106 (2012): 49–52. https://doi.org/10.5305/procannmeetasil.106.0049.
   1. This source will allow me to get a better understanding of how water is viewed in the United States, specifically how some view it as this public good and how others view it as a luxury. This source will help me understand how this issue differs in different regions across America.
2.  Patel, A. I., Hecht, C. E., Cradock, A., Edwards, M. A., & Ritchie, L. D. (2020). Drinking Water in the United States: Implications of Water Safety, Access, and Consumption. Annual Review of Nutrition, 40, 345–373. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-nutr-122319-035707
   1. This source discusses the general safety of water in America as well as access which is very important. This source studies access of clean water across all of America so it will point out the disparities in this depending on different regions.
3. Jackie Verrecchia. “The Feasibility of Septic Systems for Households in Poverty in Lee County, Virginia.” Journal of Appalachian Studies 24, no. 2 (2018): 223–235. https://doi.org/10.5406/jappastud.24.2.0223.
   1. This link explains the history of water infrastructure in the United States and will explain how from the very start, it was specifically meant to disconnect certain groups from clearn water.
4. Gasteyer, Stephen P., Jennifer Lai, Brittany Tucker, Jennifer Carrera, and Julius Moss. “BASICS INEQUALITY: Race and Access to Complete Plumbing Facilities in the United States.” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 13, no. 2 (2016): 305–325. doi:10.1017/S1742058X16000242.
   1. This is another article which focuses on putting this issue in perspective of race. It goes through when certain policies were created and discusses the racial bias between such policies.
5. The following are all case studies of different regions and how racist policies play a role in the lack of access of clean water:
   1. Pannu, Camille. “Drinking Water and Exclusion: A Case Study from California’s Central Valley.” California Law Review 100, no. 1 (2012): 223–268.
   2. Lewis, David Rich. “Native Americans and the Environment: A Survey of Twentieth-Century Issues.” American Indian Quarterly 19, no. 3 (1995): 423–450. https://doi.org/10.2307/1185599.
   3. McCoy, Christine, Jeff Cooley, and Kevin D. White. “Turning Wastewater into Wine.” Water Environment & Technology 16, no. 11 (2004): 26–29. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43888907.
   4. Callihan, Amanda. “The Drinking Water Supply Crisis in Flint, Michigan: What It Exposes About Enforcement of Water Supply Law and Public Health in the United States.” Tulane Environmental Law Journal 29, no. 2 (2017): 303–321. https://www.jstor.org/stable/90008699.
6. “Water Infrastructure Financing: History of EPA Appropriations” (Congressional Research Service, April 10, 2019), https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/96-647.pdf.
   1. This article describes the current issue of how their is a lack of funding to improve these programs in these impoverished locations. This article will put the issue in perspective as it describes the problem now and what is being currently done to combat it.

Link to WikiProjects that I added:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Discrimination

Wikipedia:WikiProject Civil Rights Movement

Topic #1: Water Supply and Sanitation in the United States

I’m interested in this topic of water supply and sanitation because I want to understand how this issue contributes to environmental racism. At first glance, this issue may not seem too complex, but areas that lack clean water are often home to Black and low-income households. When looking at the current article on this topic, there is a lot of information regarding the water system infrastructure currently in place, but there is not that much information regarding racial implications of this problem. If I were to get this topic approved, I would continue to expand on this and incorporate information about the Flint water crisis as well as Benton Harbor and many other places to allow others to see this issue through a different lens.

References:

Arku, Frank S. “Time Savings from Easy Access to Clean Water: Implications for Rural Men’s and Women’s Well-Being.” Progress in development studies 10.3 (2010): 233–246. Web.

Kuehn, Bridget M. “Urgent Efforts Needed to Increase Access to Clean Water, Sanitation.” JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association 326.7 (2021): 592–592. Web.

“Funders’ Support For Water And Sanitation Efforts: Examples of Foundations’ Support for Access to Clean Water and Sanitation.” Health Affairs 39.2 (2020): 343–344. Web.

Banks, Lena Morgon et al. “Are Current Approaches for Measuring Access to Clean Water and Sanitation Inclusive of People with Disabilities? Comparison of Individual- and Household-Level Access Between People with and Without Disabilities in the Tanahun District of Nepal.” PloS one 14.10 (2019): e0223557–. Web.

Mangai, M.S, and M.S. de Vries. “Co-Production as Deep Engagement: Improving and Sustaining Access to Clean Water in Ghana and Nigeria.” The International journal of public sector management 31.1 (2018): 81–96. Web.

Fighting Poverty in Kenya Water Pumps for Farmers / MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. New York, N.Y: Infobase, 2010. Film.

Flint Water Crisis : Impacts and Lessons Learned : Joint Hearing before the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy and the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, April 13, 2016. Washington: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2017. Print.

Inwood, Joshua F.J. “‘It Is the Innocence Which Constitutes the Crime’: Political Geographies of White Supremacy, the Construction of White Innocence, and the Flint Water Crisis.” Geography compass 12.3 (2018): e12361–n/a. Web.

Robinson, Tomeka, Garrett Shum, and Sabrina Singh. “Politically Unhealthy: Flint’s Fight Against Poverty, Environmental Racism, and Dirty Water.” Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research 1.2 (2018): 303–324. Web.

Waldron, Ingrid. There’s Something in the Water : Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities / Ingrid R.G. Waldron. Winnipeg ;: Fernwood Publishing, 2018. Print.

Hello! My name is Zachre Andrews and I am a sophomore at Baker College. I am majoring in Statistics and Economics, as well as minoring in Data Science. I'm excited to venture out into a variety of topics in this course. Some things that interest me are Climate Change, AAPI, BLM, the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Venezuelan Crisis. I also want to learn more about certain systems in the world and how they prolong years and years of suffering for certain groups to understand what can be done to reconstruct these systems to benefit all people.