This story was written by Teen Vogue's 2024 Student Correspondents, a team of college students and recent graduates covering the election cycle from key battleground states.
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From wildfires in Hawaii to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, to floods in Miami, young people are growing up in a world where devastating environmental tragedies are the norm. The climate crisis means we’re all experiencing more frequent and more extreme adverse weather events. And, thanks to bureaucratic mishandling and inaction, we've also experienced other environmental disasters, from chemical spills and leaks to lead-contaminated pipes and faulty water treatment plants.
These crises have helped undermine some young Americans’ trust in government and informed their perspective on the 2024 presidential election.
Teen Vogue spoke to two students who’ve lived in Philadelphia and Flint, cities impacted by recent water crises. Sultan Smalley, 19, and Deanna Yasin, 24, share how a water crisis comes to define the land and how people cope and come together. And they talk about their experience navigating community care and action amid the 2024 presidential election.
Sultan Smalley, Philadelphia
In March 2023, the Trinseo Altuglas plant in Bristol, Pennsylvania, located along a tributary of the Delaware River, suffered what the company said appeared to be equipment failure resulting in the leak of thousands of gallons of a latex emulsion used in the production of acrylic plastics that are then used in applications, including medical and automotive items. Grocery store shelves in Philadelphia emptied overnight as residents who rely on the river as one of their primary sources of water frantically bought bottled water and essential supplies.
Sultan Smalley, a youth organizer and communications co-lead with the Sunrise Movement’s Philadelphia chapter, says details about the spill were hard to come by at first. He thinks he found out about the spill on Instagram. “In the beginning, we didn’t know exactly where [the spill] happened and who was affected… It was just confusing,” Smalley tells Teen Vogue, reflecting a broader air of confusion and perceived miscommunication in the aftermath of Trinseo’s chemical spill.
The accident occurred less than two months after a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that burned for days, releasing nearly one million pounds of vinyl chloride, the principal component of PVC plastic, into the air and local waterways. “With those two things in mind, it just [felt] like there’s a lack of regulation when it comes to ensuring that we don’t allow certain types of dangerous chemicals [within] the periphery of places we need [to] get resources from,” Smalley says.
The Pennsylvania chemical spill was resolved within the week, but for Smalley, the crisis confirmed his growing concerns about governmental oversight and deregulation. “Living through the water crisis last year was yet another reminder that the government will never legislate against corporate interests if it is not strongly pushed to do so. I never really trusted them to do this in the first place…. Rather, this reaffirmed my prior [distrustful] view of our government, particularly [at the] state and federal [levels], given the unfortunate lack of regulation to prevent disasters like that from happening,” Smalley says.
The crisis reinforced Smalley’s commitment to his activism work, including providing mutual aid to fill in the gaps and reach different communities across the city. His climate-focused work has also led him to participate in other forms of advocacy. “Our fight over here [in Philadelphia] is really connected to our fights in so many other areas. It’s climate, but it’s also fighting imperialism, it's also fighting ableism, it’s also fighting exploitation [and], white supremacy,” Smalley says.
Deanna Yasin, Flint and Ann Arbor, Michigan
In April 2014, the city of Flint switched the source of its drinking water to the Flint River. However, the city failed to properly treat the water to prevent lead contamination from local pipes, resulting in discolored, foul, and hazardous water being pumped directly into homes. Flint residents complained for months of skin rashes, hair loss, and a variety of other health issues that were largely overlooked by Michigan state government officials. An entire generation of children, students, and organizers have grown up amid and tried to reconcile with the aftermath of that crisis.
Deanna Yasin was at school at the University of Michigan-Flint in 2018, after the crisis became national news. She says her campus took steps to protect the student body from the city’s contaminated water. “[As students], we did not experience even a percentage of what actual residents went through. Our water was filtered…. They did extra filtering for us,” she tells Teen Vogue.“The only times [I] was exposed to like, ‘Hey, this is the reality of living in Flint,’ was [through] student-led [organizations], like Black Student Union…. But other than that, I feel like [it’s] kind of been brushed under the rug,” Yasin says.
Ultimately, the city switched back to sourcing water from Detroit’s system, but uncertainty, unease, and distrust remain among Flint’s residents. The crisis fractured the community, revealing gaping racial and class divisions and leaving profound psychological ramifications for many of the city’s residents, more than 56% of whom are Black and over 33% of whom live below the poverty level, according to the US Census Bureau. “The people who were clearly affected by the Flint water crisis were people of color — Black and brown people,” Yasin says. “People lost their jobs or had to move to avoid exposing their kids to high levels of lead.”
Flint’s water crisis is a testament to what happens when state and local governments fail their constituents and the profound distrust that can follow. “These [are] citizens let down by the government not giving a (excuse my French) damn about them,” she says. “What is the point of voting if nothing is ever gonna change?” Yasin added in a follow-up email: “It’s like comparing two terrible and unhelpful choices, but deep down there is no choice.”
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