I was born in Flint, Michigan.
To me it was never a beautiful place, or a nice place, or even an interesting place. It was, what I came to understand in retrospect, an industrial city characterized by labor strife and provincialism. Most citizens were dependent for their livelihoods, either directly or indirectly, upon the many automobile plants located there, and for a time they exercised union dominance by exploiting their protected positions. Until the factories started shuttering Flint plants in the 1980s, intentional disruptions to the production line, fabricated workers’ compensation claims, drug and alcohol parties in the parking lots, group slowdowns—these are things I recall many people bragging about, a blue-collar superiority born from a proud history as the birthplace of General Motors and the UAW. I’ve read accounts by others who have fond memories of living there and, having worked with Michael Moore on The Flint Voice and Michigan Voice, I am familiar with his passionate advocacy of the area. What most people knew about Flint until recently likely came from Moore’s documentary about the auto industry’s role in Flint’s demise, Roger & Me.
Regardless of one’s view of the cultural or aesthetic qualities of Flint, the serial violation of its citizens by the current state bureaucracy has few historical precedents, and none justifiable. In 2012, the state of Michigan took over control of Flint due to a fiscal state of emergency; all decision-making responsibility was shifted to the governor. Decades-long dumping of industrial waste into the Flint River led to clean-up initiatives by the predecessor to the EPA, yet its waters remained far from pristine. Reports of continuing contamination continued over the years, with a study in 2011 stating that the water in the Flint River was 19 times more corrosive than that found in Lake Huron. With that knowledge, potential 2016 Republican Party presidential candidate and current Michigan governor Rick Snyder decided to switch Flint’s water supply from Detroit to the Flint River in April 2014, with an anticipated $5 million in savings over the two years it was to await the completion of a pipeline to Lake Huron. To make the water drinkable, in accordance with federal law, Flint was required to add an anti-corrosion agent at a cost of about $100 a day to prevent lead leaching. The state decided it was too much to spend. Experts say this additive could have prevented 90% of the damage that was to come.
Despite claims by Flint’s then-mayor, Dayne Walling, that “the water quality speaks for itself,” and “residents won’t notice any difference,” residents did notice the change. Citizen complaints about water quality began almost immediately: it looked brown, foamy, murky; smelled like rotten eggs; tasted bad. Officials offered reassurance that the water supply was fine and arranged for cameras to film them drinking the brown water, stating, “People are wasting their precious money buying bottled water.”
In June 2014, at about the same time that there was an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease, activists filed suit to stop the city from using river water for its drinking supply, a suit that was eventually dismissed. In July, an epidemiologist working for the Michigan Health Department sent an e-mail to her superiors reporting a spike in blood lead levels. The agency concluded that it was a seasonal effect and took no action. The next month the city issued a boil advisory after E. coli was discovered in the water supply, and flooded the system with chlorine in response. Along with complaints that the water tasted of bleach, citizens developed unusual rashes and mysterious illnesses, lost hair, and their pets fell ill. When Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, an assistant professor of pediatrics, first went public with the results of her study of lead poisoning in Flint’s children at a September 2014 press conference, she was attacked by Governor Snyder and other state and local officials, saying she was causing hysteria and panic, that her findings were false, and that she was an unfortunate researcher. Within weeks, General Motors’ decision to stop using water from the Flint supply because it was rusting their auto parts, and local hospital claims that the water was damaging their equipment, elevated media attention to the problems the pediatrician had reported.
After tests in January 2015 determined that Flint’s water supply contained high levels of trihalomethanes in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act, a result of the chlorine added to kill the E. coli bacteria, Detroit’s water department offered to reconnect Flint to its supply in January 2015 and to waive the $4 million connection fee, but the governor’s office declined. Government officials continued to maintain that the water was safe, but secretly started stocking their offices with bottled water for themselves and their employees, while Flint’s then-mayor proclaimed that his “family and [he] drink and use the Flint water every day, at home, work, and schools.” Reassurances by Governor Snyder relayed the opinion of a state health worker referring to lead poisoning: “It is just a few IQ points … . It is not the end of the world.” Water tests in February revealed amounts as high as 104 ppb in Flint homes; the EPA requires action after only 15 ppb are exceeded; public health officials say there is no safe level for lead in the water. An internal EPA memo from June 2015, which was reportedly shared with the governor, warned of lead leaching from the corroded pipes. When the ACLU leaked the memo, the EPA denied its impact, saying that any conclusions would be premature; Director Dan Wyant of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality dismissed it, saying, “Anyone who is concerned about lead in the drinking water in Flint can relax.” Researchers from Virginia Tech conducted their own studies and reported in August that lead levels in nearly half of the homes tested were high enough to cause lead poisoning; Wyant again disputed the results. In October, Governor Snyder reversed his protestations, declared that Dr. Hanna-Attisha’s results were accurate after all, and accepted Detroit’s offer to connect to its water system, but the egregious damage cannot be undone.
Any one of these acts of falsehood, deceit, intentional poisoning, and abuse can stand alone as horrific, but how can we decide which was the most unethical? No need to answer, as what comes next takes that prize.
Shortly after a class action suit was filed against the governor, the state, Wyant, Flint, and others, Snyder assembled an advisory task force to review the water testing and blamed the problem on Wyant, a subordinate who just a couple of months earlier he had publicly credited with doing a great job, stating how much he appreciated Wyant’s work. Wyant resigned, in turn blaming his staff for the problems. The state attorney general, who had declined an earlier request to initiate an investigation, announced in the media how important it was now to do so, to maintain public trust in government. Snyder declared a state of emergency for the county in which Flint resides, and citizens took to public protests at the State Capitol. In response to demands that he take accountability and resign from his office, he instead offered, “Your families face a crisis, a crisis you did not create and could not have prevented. I am sorry, and I will fix it.” Such equivocal and innocuous language could be said by any government official in the aftermath of a hurricane, an earthquake, a snowstorm causing power outages—any event that affects a sizable number of citizens.
The people whose lives Snyder destroyed through his role as a public servant and leader of a state are among the poorest in the nation. The average household income in Flint is $23,131 per year; the median home value is $29,000. The unemployment rate is 13%, and 41% live below the poverty level; there is no grocery store within the city limits. It’s the home of choice for some and of last resort for others. It’s been variably labeled for decades as the one of the worst places to live and the most dangerous U.S. city.
When Snyder came to power in 2011, one of his first legislative acts was to shift the tax burden to these very citizens, increasing their annual taxes by over $900 million, and at the same time cutting corporate taxes by more than $1.7 billion a year. Would he have enacted these wrongs upon a prosperous population, or one predominately White? Many claim not, and believe that Flint was treated in such a cavalier manner because it is poor and predominately Black. Hopefully, the swarm of media and investigators now focusing on Snyder’s activities will be able to answer those and numerous other questions.
Public leaders have a more acute role of responsibility and trust than do those in any other sector, because they have the power and authority to affect the lives and livelihoods of all citizens, and spend the citizens’ money to enact their vision. Snyder has abused a population that was in dire need of help even before he publicly derided a truth-telling physician, played fast-and-loose with the health of this and future generations, kept the dangerous truth from citizens, and now seeks a handout from others. One day the lead may be cleaned from the city of Flint, but it is suspect whether we can say the same about his character or reputation.
Many states are facing aging infrastructures and depleted budgets, but should the solution be, as Snyder directed his new emergency financial manager shortly after taking office, “Simply do one thing and one thing only, and that’s cut the budget—at any cost.” He turned a cost of $100 per day to prevent a disaster, even though, from all evidence, he was fully aware it could occur, into a taxpayer bill that is expected to top $750 million. The populace is also forced to pay in ways that can’t be calculated, through their health, vitality, their children’s futures, and, bitingly, still some of the highest water rates in the nation for poison water they can’t drink. After 30 days of drinking only bottled water, the measurable levels of lead in the blood will decrease dramatically, but the harm to their bodies remains unmeasurable: a damaged frontal cortex and hippocampus affecting the ability for abstract thought, planning, attention, learning, reading, memory, and other cognitive impacts. Lower IQs, life-long behavioral problems, mental retardation, convulsions, coma, and death are a few of the things we’ll see emerge from this crisis.
What does a governor do when thus exposed? Snyder has refused to resign, nor has he taken accountability and come clean about what he knew when. What he has done is hire two public relations firms, with the public asking where that money is coming from. When asked to testify before Congress, he declined. His website celebrates how much money he has brought into the city and state through taxpayer aid, as if this were an accomplishment. If these people are not the ones most deserving of protection, who are? If this crisis for which he was responsible isn’t enough to warrant his resignation, what is? We are all waiting for answers.