View of the Flint River/ Photo by Michael Barera
On April 24, 2014, the water supply of Flint, Michigan was temporarily transferred to the Flint River while the construction of a new water pipeline was underway. This new pipeline would connect the city of Flint to the Karegnondi Water Authority, which was estimated to save the city $200 million over the next 25 years. Local officials touted the project as being beneficial to the community. However, when the water was switched to the Flint River, residents began to complain about the color of the water and the odor it produced. Unbeknownst to the residents of Flint, the city’s aging pipes had begun to corrode, which caused significant amounts of lead, a neurotoxin that can cause irreversible damage to the human brain, to seep into the water supply.
As water from the Flint River began flowing into resident’s homes, many noticed the unusual coloring of the water and a foul odor, but local officials reassured residents the water was safe for consumption. Eventually, government officials would begin testing the water. In August, they detected E. coli and total coliform bacteria being detected in August, followed by disinfection byproducts known as trihalomethanes, and culminating in the discovery of lead on February 25. The results were catastrophic. For 18 grueling months, residents were forced to drink bottled water or risk the consequences of drinking the contaminated water flowing from their faucets. Thousands of residents who consumed the water before the dangers were understood were condemned to live a life afflicted with a condition known as elevated blood lead levels, and there were several reported deaths from Legionnaires’ disease in the city. Elevated blood lead levels are especially damaging to children, who can experience developmental complications as a result of the increased levels of lead in their body. The water was so highly contaminated that a General Motors plant switched its water supply to prevent further damage to its machinery. However, action was not immediately taken due to how the government in Flint operated. At this time, the city of Flint was being run not by its local, democratically elected government, but rather by emergency managers who were appointed by the state government to resolve Flint’s mounting debt crisis and were not accountable to public opinion. It wouldn’t be until January 5, 2016 that Michigan Governor Rick Synder finally declared a state of emergency in Flint, despite the fact that Snyder had previously admitted that lead exposure was becoming a problem in Flint. In all, the crisis is estimated to have cost the city of Flint $400 million, and the ludicrously slow response from government entities caused the city to become a warning symbol of the dangerous effects of government mismanagement.
Photo by Sam Trejo
Ten years later, the aftermath of Flint still has not fully dissipated. While the lead levels in Flint’s water supply are now within the legal limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), public trust of the Flint water supply has been shattered. To this day, many residents still use bottled water, even after the water supply had been switched back to Detroit and the corroded pipes replaced. It is not difficult to understand why residents of Flint would still be cautious trusting government entities. The city’s poverty rate is 33.3%, which has caused many to see the Flint crisis as yet another example of environmental injustice that continues to be left unresolved by the federal government. Had Flint been a wealthier neighborhood, it is likely that the crisis would have been resolved in a more timely manner, followed by swift reparations to compensate affected residents. But Flint is not a wealthy city, and the fight for accountability and indemnification has been long and arduous.
In the search for justice, the residents of Flint have turned to the judicial system. Several government officials in the state government were charged in criminal prosecutions, however, the charges were eventually dropped after a Michigan judge dismissed the case on procedural grounds, exemplifying a lack of true accountability. In November of 2021, a civil case brought by Flint residents against the state of Michigan, the city of Flint, and select businesses involved in the crisis would ultimately end in a settlement that will award $626 million to families affected by the water crisis; however, how the money will be distributed is still being determined. In addition to these delays, some residents are still waiting for their damaged pipes to be replaced. In fact, a federal judge back in March of 2024 held the city of Flint in contempt for failing to remove the lead pipes in a timely manner. These delays in obtaining justice have caused a great amount of frustration among Flint residents.
Pipes from Flint, Michigan that came into contact with contaminated water from the Flint River
Photo by VCU Capital News Service
While Michigan continues to grapple with the aftermath of the Flint crisis, in recent years, the federal government has stepped in to help prevent future disasters like Flint from occurring on a national scope. In 2021, Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which dedicated $15 billion to the removal of lead pipes throughout the United States. At the executive level, in the years following the crisis, the Environmental Protection Agency created a new rule that required the water supplies of schools and day care facilities to be tested for lead to protect children from exposure. Recently, the Biden Administration directed the EPA to create a new rule that will remove all lead pipes across the country within the next 10 years. The EPA also reduced the lead threshold needed for intervention from 15 parts per billion down to 10 parts per billion, meaning that localities will be held to higher standards for water quality. These policies are a noticeable divergence from the lack of action taken by the state of Michigan, demonstrating the need for increased federal involvement in protecting the health of all American citizens.
While these actions that have been taken have helped to reduce the amount of lead present in daily life, there is still much work to be done. In Flint, children who grew up during the water crisis now face lifelongs challenges caused by the toxins that they consumed from the contaminated water, even while some residents are still struggling to have their pipes replaced. Across the United States, there are still thousands of localities that rely on aging pipeline infrastructure, with a significant portion of those pipes containing unacceptable amounts of lead. Despite the new rule created by the Biden Administration to remove all lead pipes within ten years, it remains to be seen what the incoming Trump administration will do to protect American citizens from environmental hazards. The EPA will likely languish under this new administration, with its rulemaking power being heavily restricted to favor corporations, and the agency already does not adequately enforce the existing standards. Even if the EPA rule is upheld throughout the Trump Administration, the funding provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is only a third of the estimated $45 billion needed to fully replace lead pipes across the country, with some estimates ranging as high as $90 billion.
This ultimately begs the question: what can be done to ensure a similar disaster does not happen in the future? To start, Congress must make it a priority to pass legislation that will provide additional funding to state and local governments for the removal and replacement of lead pipes to ensure that the ten-year benchmark set by the EPA is reached. Another law that Congress should pass could ensure that new infrastructure projects are created from non-hazardous materials to prevent other types of chemicals from seeping into water supplies. Additionally, the EPA must ensure that existing rules and regulations are being rigorously enforced, along with a thorough review of the current allowable limits for lead concentrations in drinking water to ensure it is consistent with existing medical information. Rates of testing for lead in drinking water must also be increased, especially in schools, daycare centers, and other locations frequented by children. As for Flint, the EPA should send regulators to oversee the removal of the remaining damaged pipes to ensure the removal is swiftly executed. At the state level, the state of Michigan should ensure that the money awarded to families by the settlement in the civil case is awarded as soon as possible to assist families who have experienced permanent impacts as a result of the crisis.
Overall, the Flint Water Crisis is the epitome of how various political, social, and economic institutions can collide to create an ecological disaster with devastating effects on the future health of American citizens. All across the nation, the infrastructure that we rely on everyday is decaying, and it is high time that this country faces a reckoning regarding the effort that must be undertaken to protect the quality of our drinking water. At all levels of government, decisive action must be taken to prevent another Flint-level disaster. The cost will be substantial and the effort monumental, but it is surely a worthy effort to safeguard the health and futures of generations to come.
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