“Vehicle City” to Poisoned City: Flint, Infrastructure and the Racial Politics of Pollution

Maxwell Johnson

Photograph Credit: Brittany Greeson, “We Fear the Water.” See the amazing full set of images at http://www.brittanygreeson.com/we-fear-the-water

Quick Timeline

• 1904–1975: Flint Booms
  Much like Detroit, Flint grew as a center of automobile manufacturing.
• Late 1970’s — Present: Flint’s Economy Tanks
  With the downsizing of the industry’s workforce, Flint’s economy cratered.
• 2002–2004: The First State of Emergency
  Michigan Governor John Engler declares a state of economic emergency in Flint and hands over power to an emergency manager. Ed Kurtz, the emergency manager, goes all Ben Wyatt (without the stabilizing presence of Chris Traeger) and starts slashing the budget.
• 2011: The Second State of Emergency
  Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, bolstered by a new law giving him greater leeway over Michigan municipal financial management, declares a state of economic emergency in Flint and again an emergency manager implements austerity measures.
• 2013: Flint decides to switch water suppliers
  Touting purported, unverifiable savings in excess of $200 million, and perhaps motivated by a desire to maim the Detroit water system as a public utility, Flint’s emergency manager decided to switch the city’s water supply from Detroit Water to a newly-formed private regional water provider: the Karegnondi Water Authority.
• 2014: A New Pipeline
  In order to connect to the KWA, Flint needed a pipeline that realistically couldn’t be completed until 2017, and in March they were unable to come to a deal with the Detroit water system to continue service until 2017. In the meantime, then, city leaders decided to use water from the Flint River.
• 2014: Flint and Michigan leaders decide they don’t need corrosion control
  After consulting the state, Flint declined to implement corrosion controls at its water treatment plant for the Flint Water. As a result, water was famously subjected to lead contamination from local pipes.
• 2015-Present: Flint switches back to Detroit Water and still needs to overhaul their water infrastructure
  Even after city leaders finally recognized the crisis and switched back to Detroit Water, as many as 30,000 pipes need to be replaced. The sheer scale of the problem — workers replaced only 600 pipes last year — as well as Flint’s demographics, has fostered state and national-level inaction.

Current Situation
On March 27, 2017, Michigan and Flint authorities reached an agreement to spend at least $87 million to replace at least 18,000 city pipes by 2020. Thirteen people, including Flint’s last two emergency managers and numerous state water officials, have been charged for perpetrating a cover up of the Flint water crisis, which raised lead levels in as many as forty percent of Flint homes, exposed as many as 8,000 children to high levels of lead, doubled the number of children with elevated lead levels in their blood, and sparked a Legionnaires disease outbreak that killed 12 people. Flint residents still cannot drink their water without a filter. Governor Snyder’s legal bills to avoid personal indictment — which, of course, are charged to the state — have reached $3.5 million.

So how did we get here? How did this problem evolve over the last 50 years, and how did it accelerate so recently?

FYI

• Rick Snyder, governor of Michigan for 7 years with a 44 approval rating. Term limited, Snyder will leave office in 2018.
• Detroit Water & Sewerage Department (DWSD): A public utility that provides water to 126 towns from the Detroit River and Lake Huron. In recent years, DWSD has struggled financially, and critics have floated the idea of privatizing it.
• Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA): Formed in 2010 and named after a local Native American term for “lake,” KWA is a municipal corporation building a series of water pipelines from Lake Huron directly to Flint and other towns in the area.
• Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ): Created in 1995, MDEQ is a public agency designed to promote clean air, water, and land in the state.

Historical Background

Gaining and Losing Industry
On July 4, 1984, investors in Flint’s flashy new amusement park, Autoworld, inaugurated a new era for tourism in Flint, or so they hoped. An offshoot of the Six Flags empire, Autoworld promised to delight patrons with a variety of rides and themed exhibits about the auto industry. Families could explore a replica of Flint circa 1900, ride a ferris wheel, see a film in the IMAX theatre, and watch a mock assembly line in motion. Unfortunately, the public was not as enthused as hoped. Autoworld closed less than a year after it opened. After several failed attempts to reopen the park, Autoworld was demolished in 1997. The demise of Autoworld is painfully emblematic of Flint’s troubled history.

In the early 20th century, Flint grew into a major national automobile manufacturing hub. General Motors (GM) was responsible for much of that growth — by 1978, over 80,000 factory workers found employment at the local GM plants.

Like Detroit, Flint’s dependence on the auto industry also spurred the city’s economic downfall. By the late 1980’s — and throughout the next two decades — American automakers responded to increasing international competition and rising fuel prices by cutting jobs and moving factories south to American states less favorable to unions or to Mexico. GM ultimately cut tens of thousands of people from Flint’s workforce. A once vibrant city of 200,000 — (roughly the size of current-day Richmond, Virginia) transformed into a skeleton city. By 2015, under 100,000 people lived in Flint, roughly 63 percent of whom were African American or Latino, and Flint’s median income had declined to around $24,000.

Corporate relocation, automation, and white-flight meant that the those left behind in Flint were struggling to find meaningful work and financially trapped — unable to leave in search of better opportunities. As the city further deteriorated, with no upward mobility and dropping tax revenue resulting in cuts to government services like police, crime prospered, earning Flint the title of murder capital of America by 2013.[1]

The Effects of Demographic Change
A city’s demographic changes affects every level of its functioning. When Flint went through an extreme population loss of 50%, many things happened — chief among them, losing income and sales tax revenue from 100,000 citizens.[2]

In 2002, Flint was placed under a state of financial emergency by then-governor John Engler. Flint officials fought the takeover in court; the court upheld the action, and Flint, burdened with $30 million in municipal debt, lost control over its finances.

Under draconian cuts by city manager Ed Kurtz, who — among other things — laid off workers, slashed salaries, cut back on public employee benefits, and decreased the city’s retirement contributions for public workers, Michigan officials ended the takeover in 2004. This left Flint with around $8 million in debt, but not significantly altered

In 2011, Engler’s successor Rick Snyder, armed with a 2012 bill that vastly strengthened the governor’s power to take control over municipal finances, appointed emergency managers for seven different municipalities or school districts, including Flint. Snyder’s chosen emergency managers thereafter privileged balance sheets above all else, a significant factor in the Flint water crisis.

The Decision

In 2013, with direction from Kurtz (whom Snyder had appointed to a second stint as Flint’s emergency manager) Flint’s city council voted to switch the city’s water provider from the publically-owned and run Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) to the newly-formed Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA) — -which is still building a series of pipelines to bring water from Lake Huron to mid-Michigan. The decision-making process remains contested territory and has significant legal ramifications. If, for instance, Snyder pushed the water provider change at all costs as a political ploy, he might be legally liable.

Proponents of the KWA argued that the project could and would save Flint money. But, recent documents obtained by the Motor City Muckraker, an independent Detroit newspaper, appear to indicate that DWSD offered Flint officials a better deal than the KWA. Snyder’s critics allege that the governor really pushed for the change as a means to eventually privative DWSD.

After negotiations regarding a temporary water contract until the pipeline was ready broke down, DWSD terminated Flint’s water contract, effective April 2014. This meant Flint would need a stopgap water provider until the KWA pipeline was finished. City officials then perplexingly chose to pump water directly from the Flint River– the city’s water source until the mid-1960’s — and to revamp the town’s water treatment facility accordingly. On April 25, 2014, Flint cut off its Detroit water supply and silently began poisoning its own people.

The Crisis

The water crisis unfolds like a slow-moving horror film…

When they consume water from the Flint River, residents notice that it smells differently. The bitter taste indicates it contains significantly more mineral deposits.

In May, 2014, Even before lead concerns spread, E. coli and other bacteria are detected in the water and residents are advised to boil it.

In August 2014, Flint officials pump chlorine into the water to kill the invasive bacteria. The levels are high enough to create total trihalomethanes (TTHM), a pollutant that irritates skin and can damage immune systems. Flint residents begin to complain of rashes and hair loss.

tate still officials refuse to recognize a problem…even though GM stops using the water in its Flint factory.

In February 2015, lead samples taken from the house of Flint resident LeeAnn Walters show lead concentrations of 105 parts per billion. 15 parts per billion require immediate intervention, and any level is considered unsafe for children.

In March 2015, the city council votes to switch back to DWSD water, but emergency manager Jerry Ambrose vetoes the measure due to cost concerns, even though DWSD offered to waive the reconnection fee.

A month later, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), urged to test Flint water by city residents whose skin burned and hair was falling out, stonewalls requests for aid in an effort to downplay the nascent public relations crisis.

In August and September, 2015, a Virginia Tech water research team led by renowned water expert Professor Marc Edwards volunteers to supplement a small National Science Foundation grant and extensively tests Flint water samples. Edwards’ team struggles to convince Flint officials and the MDEQ that their evidence proves distinct lead contamination in the city’s water supply.

In September, 2015, State officials also dismiss and seek to discredit the public findings of Doctor Mona Hanna-Attisha, the Director of Hurley Medical Center’s pediatric residency center, who had examined blood samples from Flint children and found that the number of Flint children with elevated blood levels has doubled since the switch.

On September 25, 2015, seven months after the tests taken at Walters’ house and six months after the city council tried to move away from Flint water, the city issues a lead advisory to its citizens.

On October 16, 2015, aided by a $9 million state appropriation bill agreed upon over the previous week as well as a $2 million appropriation from the Flint government, Flint reconnects to Detroit water, which is now run by a new entity, the Great Lakes Water Authority. After reconnection, it still takes 3 weeks for the Detroit water to fully permeate the Flint water system.

In late December MDEQ Director Dan Wyant resigns.

Finally, in January 2016, Snyder and former President Barack Obama declare a state of environmental emergency in Flint.

The Root Causes

The crisis’ spread and the many illnesses it sparked can be traced to misconduct instead of incompetence. Water authorities skipped safety protocols, suppressed vital information, and then tried to cover-up their actions — illegalities that allowed the crisis to grow exponentially.

Skipping Safety Protocols
First, MDEQ allowed the city to bypass adding anti-corrosive phosphates, which would have cost at most $100 per day, into the water supply. This, combined with the massive amounts of chlorine added to the supply, corroded the city’s pipes and leached lead into the water in high concentrations. All this was unreported by MDEQ and, in fact, MDEQ threw out samples with higher concentrations of lead on specious grounds to avoid federal intervention.

Suppressing Vital Information
When EPA employee Miguel A. Del Toral sent his superiors and MDEQ officials a report outlining the high levels of lead in June 2015, state officials suppressed his findings.

The Cover-Up
First, MDEQ altered its lead tests. Officials threw out samples from Walters’ house that showed higher concentrations of lead on specious grounds to avoid federal interventions. Next, MDEQ officials tried to smear Del Toral after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published his report in September, 2015. By calling Del Toral a “rogue employee,” MDEQ hoped to discredit his conclusions.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Legal Action
By July, 2016, Michigan Attorney General had brought charges against nine Michigan officials for their roles in the Flint Water Crisis. Most of the charges relate to suppressing or tampering with evidence of elevated lead levels, and, though two people have accepted plea deals, most of the officials are facing at least five years in prison. Shuette then charged four more people — including Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose, the two most recent Flint emergency managers — for fabricating a false story to allow Flint to join KWA. Early and Ambrose each face over 45 years in prison if convicted. On June 14, 2017, Shuette charged Nick Lyon, the director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and four other officials with involuntary manslaughter for not warning the public about the nascent lead poisoning disaster. Snyder has thus far avoided indictment, and it remains unclear if he escape legal culpability for his role.

Misplaced Blame
Some commentators have blamed the crisis on local Democratic governance, but that analysis seems misplaced in light of Republican control of the Michigan legislature and Flint’s emergency managers. State and federal officials are surely to blame for much of the crisis, and their inaction and obfuscations harmed many people.

However, left undiscussed, or at least under discussed, in much of the media analysis of Flint, I would argue, is the prevalence of nationwide environmental inequality. Environmental racism is real, as polluters are most often concentrated near poor, minority communities and officials more easily ignore environmental problems when they affect minority communities.[3] Snyder’s description of Flint as his “Katrina” is perhaps more apt than he would like to admit — officials exacerbated the pain of poor, black Americans in both places through willful ignorance and mismanagement. As a result, the African American communities in both Flint and New Orleans inordinately felt the brunt of environmental crises in ways that may never be ameliorated.

Flint’s Future
Flint’s long-term downward trajectory combined with very limited support from the state (beyond forcing austerity onto the city) spell out bleak prospects for Flint’s future. According to historian Andrew Highsmith, in a well-regarded book on Flint, most of the city’s attempts at urban renewal have only led to increased racial discrimination and sped up urban decline. Each installment of the city’s recent history has been dominated by a pro-growth coalition that has prioritized economic gains over racial equality, a nationally relevant dilemma.[4] Realtors, homeowners, and municipal officials, for instance, enforced rigid housing segregation in Flint into the 1960’s and 1970’s. Before the crisis, some commentators saw a few reasons for optimism in Flint — a farmer’s market, a couple of new restaurants — but the long term water crisis has perhaps permanently maimed any even limited resurgence.

America’s Lead Crisis is Here
The pipeline is expected to be completed by July 2017, at which time Flint officials will need to demonstrate to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — if the EPA still exists, that is — that the city can effectively filter the water. More generally, though, the Flint water crisis speaks to Americans’ paradoxical support for, but lack of desire to pay for, infrastructure projects.

Emerging research demonstrates that lead exposure can likely be linked to higher crime rates and juvenile delinquency. Flint is hardly alone in its lead problems. East Chicago, Indiana,for instance, another post-industrial facing similar struggles, recently appealed to the EPA for help with its own lead problems. East Chicago, with its estimated 65 percent combined African American and Latino population, has high concentrations of lead in its water emanating from a Superfund site. As many as one out of every five American water systems has lead contamination issues. The US would face a $3.6 trillion bill just to bring its infrastructure up to appropriate maintenance levels by 2020. Where would that money need to come from? Probably from tax increases — income, capital gains, gasoline.

But, in a country where the top marginal tax rate has declined from 92 percent under the Eisenhower presidency (when was that?) to just 39.6 percent today (with another tax cut on the horizon), and 57 percent of Americans feel they pay too much in taxes, Americans seem unlikely to approve such measures.

Flint remarkably became a national story, but it took years of harm to even make a blip on the national radar. Its decline from manufacturing hub to a national tragedy was both drawn out and rapid, as related to the national trajectory of the manufacturing industry as it was to specific, disastrous decisions made by policy-makers. But, the problem still remains, and Flint’s residents do not trust their damaged pipes. Fixing just the pipe problem will take years; it’s now an infrastructure problem more than a water source problem.

Snyder is term-limited, so the 2018 Michigan gubernatorial election will offer a distinct referendum on state-level management of Flint and related water issues. Shuette is likely to run on the GOP ticket. Gretchen Whitmer, a former Michigan legislator who is one of the frontrunners to win the Democratic nomination, has made Flint a central part of her early campaign.

Recently, Snyder’s government stopped giving Flint residents subsidies for their water, and Flint residents are now being billed, at the highest water rates in the country, for past-due water accounts, ordered to pay for water they see as poison. (You can donate to help pay for outstanding Detroit water bills at https://www.detroitwaterproject.org/) Researchers at the University of Michigan worked with google to create the MyWater-Flint app to keep residents informed about progress, but an app is not enough. News outlets rarely run stories on Flint anymore, and it is up to grassroots activism to keep the pressure on — to force progress on replacing the pipes, to reveal continued injustices. Please, keep the pressure up. Maybe even share this article! Remember: Michigan just agreed to withhold clean water from some of its citizens for what could be another four years. And even that was a win for Flint residents.

Photograph Credit: Brittany Greeson, “We Fear the Water,” https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/02/we-fear-the-water/459687/

[1] For, I would argue, the seminal work on American urban dissolution in the second half of the 20th century, see Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). “The convergence of the disparate forces of deindustrialization, racial transformation, and political and ideological conformity laid the groundwork for the urban crisis in Detroit and its northern counterparts,” Sugrue argues, “But the emphasis in this study on structural forces shaping the city should not obscure the role of human agency… The relationship between structure and agency is dialectical and history is the synthesis.” Sugrue, 11. For other analyses, see, among a panoply of works, Alison Isenberg, Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2005); Robert Self: American Babylon: Race and the Struggle For Postwar Oakland (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2005).

[2] See also the 1989 Michael Moore film Roger and Me for a personal look at the effect of GM’s job cuts.

[3] For an interesting analysis of environmental racism in a broader economic and political context, see Julie Sze, Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006).

[4] See Andrew R. Highsmith, Demolition Means Progress: Flint, Michigan, and the Fate of the American Metropolis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).