The Poisoned City - Honors 370

Lake Huron

Lake supplying the DWSD with water Used to be called "Karegnondi" -- it would be Flint's proposed new water source, but it would be raw and the city would have to treat it first

federal poverty level

Long before the emergency managers came to town, residents had urged their leaders to relieve the burden of pricey water. Monthly rates in Flint were among the most expensive in the country, and yet 42 percent of residents lived below the federal poverty level. Many residents just couldn't afford their bills. But at this point it was difficult for the city to do much about it. Its infrastructure was built to serve Flint when it had twice the people it had now; to maintain it, fewer ratepayers had to carry a heavier burden.

Robert Kehoe

Med School grad hired by Kettering "While on GM's dime, and alongside other titans of American business, Kehoe spent the next forty years delaying and defeating legislation that would put limits on environmental pollution in the United States. He was the architect of a monumental doubt strategy about lead that would later be mirrored by both the tobacco industry in the face of cancer concerns and fossil fuel companies in the face of climate change." "with lead poisoning in particular, which develops slowly with cumulative exposure, it is difficult to present conclusive proof that lead itself, even in small amounts, is the problem.40 Kehoe and his peers exploited this research gap. They pointed out that not everyone exposed to lead got sick, and that the symptoms of lead poisoning look an awful lot like other diseases.41 Those who were worried about lead's noxiousness might be spreading hysteria when it could all just be a misdiagnosis. They also shifted blame whenever possible. Kehoe, Kettering, and others insisted not only that laborers who got sick were at fault, but that if a child was poisoned it was probably because its parents were neglectful." "by the mid-1940s even Robert Kehoe acknowledged that "serious mental retardation" was evident "in children that have recovered from lead poisoning," though he had a much narrower definition of lead poisoning than today's standard, and he nonetheless continued to offer his assistance to the LIA.51 He and other proponents of lead also still argued that the threat wasn't as much the material itself as the circumstances of people who were exposed to it."

GI Bill

"After the war, the GI Bill provided low-cost mortgages for all veterans, though only a minuscule number of them went to returning soldiers who were not white, in part because very few developments would let them purchase a house in the first place."

pattern of inequality

"An astonishing difference in water bills across the invisible border between Flint and its suburban neighbors; tap water that was more discolored in some neighborhoods than in others. The disparities in the water traced a pattern of inequality and disinvestment that was decades in the making. The whole city was exposed to toxic water—and so were commuters and other visitors—but the people who had it worst lived in the poorer, more decayed neighborhoods. And they tended to be black." "the contradictory reports were not random: they more or less followed the pattern of inequality that dated back to Flint's development as a segregated city. People who lived on streets that were pockmarked with the most unoccupied homes and empty storefronts—that is, the poorest of them—generally had worse water. People who lived in denser areas were less likely to see, taste, or smell the same problems." "The highest tested sample came in at 1051 ppb, and in a couple of hard-hit zip codes, one in five homes had high lead. In keeping with the pattern of inequality built into the region, it could be presumed that commuters were also exposed to the toxic water, but far less than the people living in the city."

Browning Ave.

Where the Walters's home was located -- their house was considered "ground zero" of the lead contamination crisis "Built in 1922, when General Motors was developing segregated neighborhoods in the city, the house on Browning Avenue was in a redlined working-class area."

Federal Housing Administration (FHA)

a. a government agency that itself took part in enforcing the redlining African Americans and other minorities from receiving secure house loans. The FHA was given directions to "reject loans for 'all blocks in which there are more than 10% Negroes or race other than white' as well as 'areas in which there are a considerable number of Italians or Jews in the lower income group'".

chlorine treatment

added during water treatment in order to disinfect water. The city of Flint resorted to this treatment, in excess, after advisories were issues for coliform bacteria present in the water. Unfortunately, elevated levels of TTHMs (trihalomethanes), a byproduct of chlorine treatment, were found in the water, and these substances are carcinogenic.

racially restrictive covenants

agreements for house ownership that were set in place in order to "keep people out based on their race". These agreements were used extensively by General Motors in Flint for the employee housing they built, but also was used widely by other neighborhoods throughout Flint. These covenants played a huge roll in the systematic opression of African Americans in their communities, being as these individuals were not able to reside in neighborhoods deemed "safe" enough to receive low-interest home lones and another benefits, as part of the New Deal. This resulted in their inability to improve their own communities and elevate their status in the community.

orthoposphates

also called "phosphates", orthophosphates are one type of Corrosion Control Treatment added to water in order to prevent the breakdown of the buildup on water pipes, an especially big issue in Flint due to the fact their pipes are old, and the water from the Flint river is highly corrosive. This process prevents harmful metals from leeching into the water.

Safe Drinking Water Act (1974)

an act passed under president Gerald Ford, which "laid out minimum quality standards and developed assistance programs to help drinking water systems meet them", in order to establish a "national baseline for tap water". This act occurred in the aftermath of municipal water emergencies that occurred in New Orleans and Pittsburgh, in which contaminants in the water systems caused serious health issues to citizens. The city of Flint ended up violating this act when using an excess of chlorine compounds in the water for disinfection purposes.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security "On January 5, 2016, nearly three months after Flint reconnected to Detroit's water system, Governor Rick Snyder followed Mayor Weaver and declared a state of emergency." --- "A mobile health clinic rolled through town. Governor Snyder also asked President Barack Obama to designate Flint as both a federal emergency and a federal disaster, which would bring still more resources to the city to manage the crisis, including grants and low-cost loans to pay for home repairs and business losses, and recovery coordination from the Federal Emergency Management Agency."

Imagine Flint

an example of how the "People [of flint] also began reckoning with the effect on the value of their homes and their ability to move." "the new citywide master plan that included the "Beyond Blight" framework—continued its effort to revive neighborhoods, water crisis be damned."

Legionella pneumophila

bacteria causing legionnaire's disease

National Association of Real Estate Boards

board that mandated racially restrictive covenants both in GM neighborhoods and throughout Flint Realtors could lose their license for the supposed ethical violation of showing a house to a person of color in a white area.

"disease detectives"

concerning Legionnaire's disease: "the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did deploy twenty epidemiologists to Philadelphia, the largest team it had ever sent for a medical investigation.22 They worked with the state to review medical records and autopsy reports and conduct interviews. The "disease detectives" were featured in a Time magazine cover story, "Tracing the Philly Killer."23 Or, as Newsweek put it in bellowing black-and-white the same week, "Mystery of the Killer Fever." The publicity caused occupancy at the Bellevue-Stratford to plummet to 4 percent before the hotel temporarily closed."

lead (lead levels)

contamination of this toxic metal occurred in the drinking water of Flint. No amount of lead exposure is safe, and there is no cure for lead poisoning. UM-Flint found the elevated levels, but also utilized a biased testing loophole which lowered levels of lead by flushing the lines prior to collecting testing samples.

Modern Housing Corporation

created by GM "to entice new workers and help them get settled in Flint. It advertised in large eastern cities, appealing to demobilized World War I soldiers. A New York Times brief headlined "Detroit Needs Labor" noted that "Flint, where the General Motors Company has made plans for building 1,000 homes for workingmen, is declared to be particularly short of labor, and all classes of workers are wanted at the Chevrolet plant."5 GM eventually constructed nearly three thousand homes in the neighborhoods of Civic Park, Chevrolet Park, and Mott Park.6 They were not sold on the public market, and they were offered to workers on friendly terms: 10 percent down payment, 6 percent interest, and mortgage payments that were about 1 percent of the total cost. But even if they could afford them, black people—who could work only in lower-tier jobs at GM, such as janitors or laborers in the dangerous foundries—were not allowed to buy them.7 Multifamily dwellings, liquor sales, and outhouses were all banned from GM-developed neighborhoods, and, as if they were an equivalent nuisance, so were people who were not white. This was explicit: the houses could not "be leased to or occupied by any person or persons not wholly of the white or Caucasian race.""

American Water Works Association (AWWA)

formed in St. Louis after the city had lost massive population to a cholera outbreak in the water "The men formed the American Water Works Association with an aim to professionalize water service, exchanging information that would spare cities from having to repeat the costly mistakes that had hindered others." paricipation in the AWWA was voluntary though!

World Health Organization

had a standard of 10 ppm for max lead in water to be safe

"the dangles"

a term for lead poisoning described the symptoms of London laborers working in print shops using lead ink; "their wrists and feet drooped strangely"

Genesse County Hispanic/Latino Collaborative

"An outcry led the state to clarify that proof of citizenship was not necessary to receive water, and to lift the photo ID requirement. Bilingual speakers were made available on the state's 211 help line, and cards with basic water information were created in English, Arabic, and Spanish. The Genesee County Hispanic/Latino Collaborative and two churches that served the Spanish-speaking community helped to fill the trust gap by going door-to-door in neighborhoods with sizable Hispanic populations"

New Flint (1957)

"As the region grew, many people envisioned a metropolitan community that was not a collection of separate, competing enclaves, but a unified whole. In 1957, the plan for New Flint was launched. It was a proposal to merge Flint and twenty-five small inner-ring suburbs into a single municipality. The hope was to reduce redundancies in infrastructure, create economies of scale that would improve public services for all, and minimize shortsighted intraregional competition. New Flint was framed as a win-win strategy. The nascent suburbs would get the revenue, infrastructure, and cultural heft they needed to develop. Flint would get the land and resources it needed to keep humming along as an economic engine.40 GM was a champion of New Flint; it would have been happy to see new city limits drawn to include the suburban plants." "Most African Americans also opposed New Flint. Their community groups had not been included in the proposal's development, and they were concerned that, just as their voting power in the city was increasing, regionalization would dilute it. No matter: there never was a vote on New Flint. Even though there were enough petition signatures to put it on the ballot, Genesee County's Board of Supervisors rejected it. Supporters challenged this, but the Michigan Supreme Court upheld the decision. In killing the proposal, not only did the suburban communities fortify their individual boundaries, they also showcased what a powerful force they could be, even when going up against the big city and its most commanding institutions.43 Less than a decade after New Flint failed, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission confirmed that "rigid segregation" was endemic in Flint."

expert research

"Curt Guyette, who saw that the rising media interest hadn't done much to change the state's response, had access to grant money at the ACLU that could be used to pay for expert research. He broached an idea to Marc Edwards at Virginia Tech. What about doing an independent test of the water in Flint? Like the analysis done at LeeAnne Walters's house, but this time spanning the whole city? Edwards liked the idea. It would work, though, only if there were enough volunteers to conduct this massive experiment in a short time."

environmental justice

"Environmental justice hinges on two simple democratic concepts: people are entitled to have a meaningful voice in decisions that affect the health of where they live; and, while majorities may rule, minority groups have the same inalienable rights, which cannot be taken away by others." "When it comes to the environment and public health, accountability is a slippery thing to pin down. That's especially true if the contaminants are invisible and their ill effects take years to reveal themselves. Identifying the forces responsible for causing harm becomes even harder when the violation is viewed through the prism of environmental justice, which looks at the links between place, pollution, and power." "One of the ideals of environmental justice—that people should have a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect them—isn't intended just as a respectful courtesy; it also leads to better decisions."

administrative consent order

"Flint had hit the maximum debt allowed by law. So the state arranged a work-around: Flint's share of the money for the construction of the KWA was given a special pass so that it did not count against the debt limit. The work-around was through something called an administrative consent order, or ACO. This is a tool that the state uses to force local governments to fix an urgent environmental problem, even if they must issue bonds that exceed their debt limit to do so."

Fair Housing Act

"Flint was first in the nation to support fair housing by popular vote." "For Flint, though, the fair housing victory was bittersweet. The city's population had already begun to slip. Along with school desegregation, the new housing laws accelerated the exodus as mostly white people left the city. Two years after the adoption of the ordinance, the Census marked Flint's first ever drop in population." "White people who stayed in Flint were essentially punished. The worth of their homes tumbled. Even those who may have morally resisted what was happening in their city would have a hard time staying when their children's inheritance seemed threatened.85 The other side of the coin was that when a black family purchased a home, its worth dropped the moment they signed their papers. Black families therefore could not build financial stability that secured their retirements and legacies for their children in the same way that white families generally could. And, in this self-fulfilling spiral, their houses generated less money in property taxes, which meant fewer resources to invest in schools and infrastructure. African American neighborhoods were "objectively" worth less, setting up the cold, contextless accounting that led state and city officials to select St. John as the community to demolish when it built freeways in the 1960s, and Floral Park to displace with a highway interchange.86 It was just economics."

Flint Arab-American Heritage Council

"Flint's Arab American Heritage Council translated information about water and lead for the city's small Arab American community."

Clean Air Act (1970)

"Thanks to the Clean Air Act in 1970, the new EPA became responsible for regulating lead.59 It first focused on cars. Over the next decade, as part of a complete phaseout, the first low-lead and unleaded gasoline became available in the United States."

American Society for Civil Engineers

"The American Society for Civil Engineers had given the state's overall infrastructure a D in its report from 2013 (compared to the nationwide average of D+)."

"plumbism"

a term for lead poisoning dubbed by a researcher, who published a clinical description of lead poisoning in plumbers and white lead manufacturers

Mona Hanna-Attisha

"Hanna-Attisha and her research assistant worked late in the evenings to sort through Hurley's 1,746 test results for Flint children and 1,640 records for children elsewhere in Genesee County." "Since the water switch in April 2014, there was not only more lead coming out of Flint's taps, but also much more lead in the blood of Flint's children. In just eighteen months, the percentage of children under age five with high blood-lead levels had jumped from 2.1 percent to 4 percent—it had almost doubled. When she looked at two zip codes that had registered especially high lead in their water, she saw that there was even greater harm, with the proportion of children with high blood-lead levels rising to 6.3 percent. Both were mostly poor areas with large African American populations, 67 percent and 46 percent, respectively. Altogether, as many as twenty-seven thousand children were vulnerable to persistent lead exposure. "This research is concerning. These results are concerning," Hanna-Attisha said. "And when our national guiding institutions tell us primary prevention is the most important thing, and that lead poisoning is potentially irreversible, then we have to say something.""

racial overtones of emergency management in Michigan

"However, emergency management in Michigan, and the disenfranchisement that followed, had unmistakable racial overtones. The communities affected were nearly always majority black, including Flint. By 2017, 52 percent of Michigan's black residents and 16 percent of Latinos had lived in cities governed by unelected authorities. Only 2 percent of white people had the same experience, although there were many other impoverished communities in Michigan that were majority white.17 To put it another way, if you lived in Michigan, there was a 10 percent chance that you lived under emergency management at some point between 2009 and 2016. If you were black, that possibility jumped to 50 percent.18 The statistics reflected the urban decay resulting from institutionalized segregation, just as the Kerner Commission had foretold half a century earlier."

State Integrity Report Card (Center for Public Integrity)

"In 2015, Michigan was ranked dead last in the State Integrity Report Card from the Center for Public Integrity, with particularly low marks for public access to information."

Watts riot (1965)

"In August 1965, the predominantly black Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts exploded into a six-day riot. Triggered by a clash between an African American motorist and a white police officer, it involved arson, beatings, mass arrests, the militarization of city streets, more than a thousand injuries, and thirty-four deaths. Bayard Rustin, the civil rights activist, wrote in Commentary magazine that Watts "brought out in the open, as no other aspect of the Negro protest has done, the despair and hatred that continue to brew in the Northern ghettoes despite the civil-rights legislation of recent years and the advent of 'the war on poverty.'" Watts, Rustin wrote, served as a kind of "manifesto."" "If "Watts" came to represent the twentieth-century urban crisis, then "Flint" represents that of the twenty-first. Systemic inequality and disenfranchisement are at the heart of both tragedies. But what happened in Flint reveals a new hydra of dangers in civic life: environmental injustice, the limits of austerity, and urban disinvestment. Neglect, it turns out, is not a passive force in American cities, but an aggressive one."

Public Act 4; Public Act 436

"In the spring of 2011, Michigan broadened its emergency management system. Public Act 4, signed by Governor Rick Snyder, became one of the most expansive laws of its kind. It gave the governor's office the ability to appoint an emergency manager who, for the first time, could reject, modify, or terminate contracts and union agreements—steps that are typically possible only if a city is in Chapter 9 bankruptcy.13 It also lowered the threshold for what would warrant state intervention in the first place. And local governments were expected to pay the salaries of their state-appointed managers." "Activists were determined to repeal Public Act 4."

Lead Industries Association (LIA)

"In this pre-Clean Water Act era, even many professionals who were staunch foes of using lead in the built environment did not advocate for legislative involvement in its abatement. Meanwhile, the Lead Industries Association conducted a massive, multipronged campaign to promote the use of lead pipes. For decades, the LIA lobbied with "plumbers' organizations, local water authorities, architects and federal officials," according to researcher Richard Rabin, and it published "numerous articles and books that extolled the advantages of lead over other materials."" ""The major source of trouble is the flaking of lead paint in the ancient slum dwelling of our older cities, [and] the problem of lead poisoning in children will be with us for as long as there are slums," the LIA director declared at an annual meeting"

ethyl

"Kettering wanted to avoid using the word "lead" in the commercial market, so the fuel was sold under the brand name Ethyl"

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

"Lead accumulates in the teeth, bones, and soft tissues—the same places that collect calcium—which means that small, sustained exposures can build up to a severe amount of lead in the body.11 This can cause brain swelling, fatigue, anemia, vomiting, abdominal pain, irritability, aggressive and antisocial behavior, slowed growth, hearing problems, learning disabilities, diminished IQ, reduced attention spans, kidney failure, seizures, coma, and, in extreme cases, death. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an independent research center at the University of Washington, estimates that about 494,550 deaths worldwide in 2015 can be attributed to lead exposure, mostly in low- and middle-income countries. It also estimated a loss of more than 9 million life years due to the long-term impact of lead. Adults are at risk from exposure, too. Lead can cause anemia, hypertension, joint and muscle pain, memory difficulties, headaches, mood disorders, kidney damage, low sperm counts, abnormal sperm, miscarriages, and stillbirths. During pregnancy, lead that has accumulated in a woman's bones is released, just like calcium. The calcium helps form the bones of the fetus, but lead can limit its development and cause premature birth."

Michigan National Guard

"Still, the declaration allowed the state to act: soldiers and airmen from the Michigan National Guard arrived in Flint, tramping in their laced-up boots and camouflage uniforms. Instead of cradling rifles, as in decades past, when the cities were afire, they carried cases of bottled water." However, this scared off illegal immigrant families

Office for Environmental Justice (1992)

"The EPA created its Office for Environmental Justice in 1992, one year after the passage of the Lead and Copper Rule. Its goal is to ensure that all people are equally protected by environmental laws, and that no groups of people "bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences"—pollution and toxic hazards—caused by government, industry, or business."

United Nations

"The United Nations recommends that water and sewer bills be not more than 3 percent of a household's income. In Flint, the bills were well beyond that."

Undocumented Immigrants

"The appearance of military uniforms at the door felt threatening to the city's estimated one thousand undocumented immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America, even if the visit brought free water. Increasing immigration raids over the past year had intimidated many of them from accepting the offer of an urgently needed resource. Some had been turned away from the distribution sites because they had no photo identification (undocumented immigrants in Michigan are banned from obtaining a driver's license). And very little information about the water crisis appeared in translation."

National Lead Company

"The figure of the Dutch Boy painter carrying a pail of white lead was designed to appeal to children. "Lead helps guard your health," went the tagline in an ad in National Geographic from the National Lead Company."

chlorides

"There are various reasons why water might be corrosive, but in the river's case unusually high chloride levels were part of it.10 Chlorides exist in most drinking water without causing any trouble.11 But in large amounts they break down the metals in water mains, service lines, water heaters, household appliances, and plumbing fixtures.12 Rivers and streams in northern climates such as in Michigan are particularly vulnerable to high chloride levels because they absorb runoff from the road salt (sodium chloride) that has been widely used as a deicer since the 1970s.13 And the water is shallower in rivers and streams, which makes them more concentrated. High chloride levels also come from agricultural runoff and wastewater. Flint's treatment plant added still more to the mix by using ferric chloride as a coagulant for the water." chlorides also caused rust on GM's machinery

Flint Water Study group

"To staff his side of the team, Edwards recruited a raft of undergraduates, grad students, and postdoc research assistants for a meeting, using free pizza as bait. Many of them had taken the engineering ethics class taught by Yanna Lambrinidou and himself, and the students could see the link between what had happened in Washington, D.C., and what was happening in Flint. About thirty students formed what became the Flint Water Study group. By August, their test was well under way. The students at Virginia Tech distributed three hundred sampling kits to the organizers in Flint, conducted tests at businesses and homes while visiting the city, and planned tests in Detroit to compare the different water systems." "there was very little chlorine in Flint's water, even though it had been added as a disinfectant at the treatment plant. Just as the Virginia Tech experiment had shown, the iron that turned the water brown also consumed the chlorine.45 This is how the Coalition for Clean Water and the Flint Water Study group showed that the series of problems with Flint's water were connected." "The Flint Water Study group set up a crowdfunding campaign to get lead-certified filters to residents."

Voting Rights Act

"Under the Voting Rights Act, communities of color that have historically been disenfranchised are supposed to be protected from "a broad array of dilution schemes" that could minimize the power of their votes.19 Among those schemes, the law explicitly includes the tactic of turning elected posts into appointed ones. But Michigan circumvented that by instituting an appointed post that superseded the elected position.20 The upshot: white and black voters had different experiences of democracy."

industrial dispersion

"With all their cheap open space, industry, too, was tempted by the suburbs. Communities competed with one another to offer companies such as GM the sweetest deal for their own particular patch of land, where they would then build plants and enjoy an influx of new jobs and tax revenue. The Truman administration encouraged this with its Cold War-era policy of industrial dispersion, which urged manufacturers to move out of cities so that they would be less vulnerable to enemy attack.31 Between 1947 and 1960, GM built eight new manufacturing plants in Genesee County, all of them outside Flint, while also shutting down several plants within the city borders. It did this even though the city bolstered the company—then number one on the Fortune 500 list of the largest concerns in America—by charging it a deeply discounted rate for water use.32 Residential rates were about one and a half times what the company paid, even though residents consumed less water overall.33 By midcentury, when the automaker absorbed more than half of the water pumped by the city, it provided only about a third of Flint's total water revenue."

Clair Patterson

"a pioneering scientist named Clair Patterson would target Kehoe's research and show that a so-called normal amount of lead in the body wasn't natural, or harmless. It was simply common.44 It would take a long time for that idea to gain widespread acceptance, not least because its implications were inconvenient. American society had been built around the idea that lead could be alchemized for everyday use." "Patterson published a paper that showed how the amount of lead in the atmosphere of the Northern Hemisphere had risen 400 percent from the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1750 to 1930. It had grown an additional 350 percent between 1930 and 1965, with the use of leaded gasoline."

Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act

"dramatically expanded earlier legislation to limit the toxic waste that was unloaded into America's rivers, streams, and lakes.50 Passed by Congress over President Richard Nixon's veto, it set the norm so that no industry had an automatic right to pollute the water. At about the same time, the Clean Air Act was greatly strengthened, which made for not only clearer skies but also clearer waters, since airborne pollution eventually settles on the waterways. The new Clean Air Act also affirmed the principle that the environment should be treated as a public trust, and, accordingly, it empowered people to file citizen suits to protect it."

environmental crimes

"in environmental crimes—a school built on top of hazardous chemicals, a water system turned toxic—it is unlikely that anyone purposefully tried to poison children or deliberately contaminated the drinking water. The people weren't targeted one way or another. And no single decision can be blamed for the harm. Much like the structural forces over several decades that left Flint half-empty, evil intent is not necessary for evil consequences."

Levittown, NY

"postwar suburbs such as Levittown, New York, pristine communities that were built en masse with federal loans that had been issued on the condition that the homes not be sold or resold to black people." ** the perfect example of an idyllic, post-war, white, middle-class community

the Superfund program

"the Carter administration developed what became known as the Superfund program to pay for the careful and comprehensive cleanup of toxic waste. It required the EPA to find the parties responsible for hazardous waste and force them to clean up their mess. Failing that, the agency could use Superfund money to clean up a site and then refer polluters to the U.S. Department of Justice to recover costs (and then some). Significantly, polluters were liable even if their dumping had been legal at the time."

epidemiological research

"the kind that studies patterns of disease in groups of people" **this type of research was unfortunately still at it's infancy when they were trying to prove that leaded gas was harmful "It is one thing to observe that people who live near a toxic chemical dump are twice as likely to get cancer, for example. It is quite another to prove that one specific person's cancer was caused by those specific chemicals, as opposed to any other variable or sheer chance. And with lead poisoning in particular, which develops slowly with cumulative exposure, it is difficult to present conclusive proof that lead itself, even in small amounts, is the problem."

law-and-order politics

"the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. instigated no small amount of civil disorder in about a hundred cities. A few months later, Robert Kennedy was killed after winning the California Democratic primary. The Vietnam War churned on with sickening brutality, and in Chicago police officers attacked demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention. Against this turmoil, the Kerner Report faded into the noise. And when Richard Nixon won the presidency in November, it cued a new era of law-and-order politics. As political historian Julian E. Zelizer wrote, urban policy was replaced by "the war on crime and the war on drugs.""

neurotoxin

A poison that attacks the nervous system, causing blindness, paralysis, or suffocation lead is the "world's best-known neurotoxin"

redlining

A process by which banks draw lines on a map and refuse to lend money to purchase or improve property within the boundaries redlined neighborhoods included those who were primarily minorities, and the few white neighborhoods that were underdeveloped PARALELLS: "Flint's neighborhoods were no longer graded one by one by federal assessors, with African American communities (and those who lived too close to them) redlined. Now that black people made up the majority of Flint, and close to half the population was impoverished, the city as a whole was effectively redlined. The test numbers showed excessive lead in every zip code-—some more than others, certainly, but all experiencing the disturbing consequences of being a shrinking city. Flint wasn't being demolished for a new highway as St. John and Floral Park had been. It was being demolished by neglect."

General Motors (GM)

Car company that essentially built flint built thousands of homes for workers but also discriminated against AAs After the KWA switch, GM purchased their own water because it was so bad that it was corroding their machinery Head of research (and also VP for a time) was Charles Kettering, who developed leaded gasoline

Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA)

Chair of this was Mayor Dayne Walling A plan for Flint to build self-efficiency & save money KWA would pump raw water from Lake Huron, treat it in Flint, and distribute to Flint Residents while the switch to this from DWSD was happening, Flint used the Flint River as a source

Water Pollution Control Act

Congress's first major law passed addressing water quality "The law's intentions were good—to reduce pollution in interstate waters—but as policy it was weak, too stripped down in its final form to improve the condition of water that, like the carcass-strewn Chicago River, bore the indignities of industry, agriculture, and human sewage." the biggest advance for water quality wouldn't come until the 1970's, with the Clean Water/Air Acts

Fifth Ward

Councilman = Wantwaz Davis "[Davis led] a series of summer demonstrations that protested the unaffordability of the water, even now, when it was under local control.33 About a hundred people congregated outside city hall on Saginaw Street, joined by pastors, who offered a predemonstration prayer, and young people, including a teenager who carried a bright green poster: "No More High Water Bills." When Davis had the soapbox, he read from 1 Corinthians off his smartphone and urged protesters to drum up the kind of national attention to social inequities in Flint that Detroit was getting. The big city to the south was swamped with reporters and documentarians when it declared bankruptcy that summer, the largest of its kind in U.S. history. "People cannot afford their water bills," Davis said. "It's surpassed their capacity. The bills are unreasonable, and should be brought down to a level low-income people can afford. You can go without food, but not water.""

EPAs District 5 office (Chicago)

EPA division that oversees environmental issues in Michigan Repeatedly denied that there was a water crisis going on in Flint "The EPA's repeated defense was that Del Toral's report was the product of his own research; it hadn't been reviewed or approved by the EPA. By releasing it outside the agency, he essentially acted outside his authority. The EPA did urge the MDEQ to tell Flint to get going with a corrosion control program (the state agency still disputed its necessity), but it had a generous timeline to implement it. So long, in fact, that Flint probably wouldn't complete the program before it switched to lake water from the KWA." "emails exchanged at the EPA in Chicago discussed using money from its Drinking Water State Revolving Fund to purchase home filters for Flint residents." "One EPA official said, "I don't know if Flint is the kind of community we want to go out on a limb for." "the EPA in Chicago released its final report about lead-saturated water in Flint, more than four months after Miguel Del Toral submitted his draft version." "The EPA, perhaps in an effort to repair its beleaguered reputation, urged state governors, environmental agencies, public health commissioners, and tribal councils to reckon seriously with the Lead and Copper Rule, to warn people about the risks of lead pipes, and to seek ways to go beyond minimum requirements to make water safe." ** They did their best to exonerate themselves of all responsibility

Karen Weaver

Flint's new mayor, replacing Dayne Walling "The city chose Karen Weaver as its new mayor, a psychologist by training who was backed by Flint's influential church leaders.26 She was also the first woman elected to run the city." "Both Mayor Karen Weaver and Governor Snyder wanted a federal disaster declaration for Flint, to go along with the emergency support—that would open the door to aid money for infrastructure." "[Hillary}Clinton also worked with Mayor Weaver to develop a summer jobs program that employed a hundred local teenagers."

Detroit Water and Sewer Department (DWSD)

Flint's original municipal water source; the switch out of using this water was a part of the EMs' plans to dig Flint out of financial ruin Jerry Ambrose, and EM, falsely claimed, after all the issues, that the DWSD had forced Flint to change water sources

Coalition for Clean Water

Group formed by the people of Flint to investigate water lead levels, distribute water, share information via social media "Guyette contacted the Coalition for Clean Water. Could its people collect a hundred water samples from all across Flint—and quickly? No problem. As Guyette remembers it, an energized Rev. Harris said that he and his fellow pastors could do it themselves." "The samples and the distribution system were also tested for chlorine. Sure enough, there was very little chlorine in Flint's water, even though it had been added as a disinfectant at the treatment plant. Just as the Virginia Tech experiment had shown, the iron that turned the water brown also consumed the chlorine.45 This is how the Coalition for Clean Water and the Flint Water Study group showed that the series of problems with Flint's water were connected. Since the switch from Detroit, rapidly corroding iron negated the chlorine treatment. Without the disinfectant, the water was vulnerable to bacteria growth. The first of the E. coli bacteria violations had come a few months after the switch. To combat it, more chlorine was added to the water. But this likely contributed to the spike in TTHMs, the disinfectant by-product that forms in reaction to organic matter. (Organic matter is also more plentiful in the river water, especially when it's not properly filtered.) As the corrosion worsened, lead leached into the water right along with the iron.46 The excess iron also turned out to be a perfect nutrient for the growth of other types of bacteria—deadly and, for the time being, undetected."

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

In charge of enforcing the new Safe Drinking Water, Clean Air/Water Acts, and Water Pollution Control Acts Also responsible for lead, under the Clean Air Act "The EPA had been told that Flint's water was treated with corrosion control" Del Toral urged the EPA to intervene with he MDEQ's crooked practice of Pre-flushing

"the miner's disease"

a term for lead poisoning "name for an illness that was widespread among workers who inhaled metallic vapors—mercury and lead."

Dr. Eden Wells

Michigan's chief medical executive "began communicating with Hanna-Attisha. Her staff compared the two studies, and the agency's epidemiologists revisited their research. At 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, October 1, exactly one week after the Hurley press conference, Wells found a yellow Post-it note stuck on her office keyboard. It was an alert: her staff had come to agree with the pediatrician." "was accused of misconduct, obstruction of justice, providing false testimony, and threatening to withhold funding from a Flint group investigating the Legionnaires' outbreak.32 Later, she too faced an involuntary manslaughter charge."

"the house of Butterflies"

Name given to GM's Dayton plant by workers, because they ""became seriously ill with frightening symptoms of mania."32 Four men had died at a DuPont plant in New Jersey, and more than three hundred others were poisoned." "Workers called the plant "the house of the Butterflies" because so many of them were hallucinating. They batted at the ghostly butterflies that fluttered before them but caught only fistfuls of air."

The Kerner Commission report (1968)

Otto Kerner = leader of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders "The Kerner Commission investigated what turned Watts and Detroit into searing emblems for American cities. After seven months of field studies, hearings, surveys, and research, they released their report on February 29, 1968—and it was a riveting account of how the poisonous belief in separatism was built into American cities.60 If left to fester, it would ruin them." "Cities weren't roiling with unprecedented trauma, the report said; they were following a familiar script. Since slavery days and beyond, murderous violence had plagued settlements where African Americans tried to participate in civil society."

Department of Public Works

Ran by Howard Croft Croft said that "the contamination was caused by a broken valve on an "ancient water system" and that it would take a long time to replace it." "The first efforts toward accountability came on the heels of the switchback, and they were modest: Howard Croft, Flint's public works director and a lifelong resident, quit his job, saying that his resignation was necessary for the department to regain public trust." "Howard Croft, the former public works director, was accused of aiding and abetting Earley and Ambrose, and working to require the use of water treated at a plant that was unfit for service. Later, an involuntary manslaughter charge was added to his case, too." **in general, public works also did not take responsibility at all and distributed misinformation

Charles Kettering

The head of research at GM (and VP for a time), helped found Kettering University helped develop lead gasoline "Kehoe, Kettering, and others insisted not only that laborers who got sick were at fault, but that if a child was poisoned it was probably because its parents were neglectful." **fought tooth and nail to keep leaded gas on the market and prove that it wasn't harmful to health and the environment

National Priorities List

This list came out after the Carter administration passed the Superfund program "By 1983, the first National Priorities List named 406 hazardous waste sites around the country"

Federal Disaster Act

a United States federal law designed to bring an orderly and systemic means of federal natural disaster assistance for state and local governments in carrying out their responsibilities to aid citizens. "the Kerner Report had addressed in the urban crisis of the sixties, recommending an amendment to the Federal Disaster Act to permit federal "assistance to cities during major civil disorders, and provide long-term economic assistance afterwards.""

Chelation

a chemical process that extracts lead; an antidote for lead poisoning

Love Canal (1978)

a city built on a toxic waste dump "Twenty-some years later, vigorous reporting by a Niagara Gazette reporter shed light on what was already obvious to Love Canal residents. Miscarriages, birth defects, epilepsy, asthma, migraines, and cancer were alarmingly common in the neighborhood. So were dying backyard plants, bad odors, and even, after steady rain, the sight of old drums of toxic waste poking through the earth." "President Jimmy Carter declared a federal disaster in Love Canal. It was the first time that a man-made emergency had been designated as such. In 1980, as a result of the community's frontline activism, the Love Canal evacuation zone was expanded to include up to nine hundred more homes." "The Love Canal movement pushed the nation to reflect on how it should reconcile its industrial past with public health and environmental wisdom."

Marc Edwards

a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech he helped expose the lead water crisis in WA DC "in 2014 Edwards published a study that showed a correlation between the lead-contaminated water and a spike in fetal deaths and reduced birth rates." When all of his work in DC didn't lead to the amount of meaningful change that it should have, Edwards became upset and threw himself into the Flint crisis LeeAnn Walters go Edwards involved, and he told her to sample her water "As Edwards relayed to both LeeAnne Walters and Miguel Del Toral, it was the worst lead-in-water contamination that he had seen in more than twenty-five years." Conducted an independent study of Flint water "cost. Marc Edwards said that his team estimated the amount of lead in the water of about five thousand Flint homes exceeded standards set by the World Health Organization."

Flint River Watershed Coalition

a community-based advocate for clean water resources "The problem is not the river. That was the message of the watershed coalition. The drinking water wasn't dangerous because the river itself was poisonous, as so many assumed, remembering the long shadow of the polluting past. The waterway was in fact becoming healthier all the time, with the advent of environmental laws, the decline of industry, and the day-to-day work of river recovery groups." "The coalition had supported the temporary switch to the river "as an opportunity for education about a fabulous resource,"" "With the crisis, the watershed coalition feared that its support would plummet and the community's estrangement from the river would only deepen. So it was shocking when the opposite happened. Attendance at the coalition's 2016 annual meeting broke the all-time record."

Tetraethyl lead (TEL)

a compound added to leaded gas which "stopped the obnoxious engine knock that caused trouble for automobiles", allowed them to run "better and at higher speeds", and made it so the fuel "burned more efficiently, which conserved petroleum". However, this released lead into the air, and "lead particulates settled into soil, onto waterways, and into lungs". This posed considerable health concerns and death to the employees in many industrial plants who had to work with it. Under the creator, Charles Kettering, an enormous amount of baised research was conducted, notably by using Robert Kehoe, in order to convince the Surgeon General that this product was safe for the environment and for people.

Legionnaire's disease

a deadly form of pneumonia caused by waterborne bacteria that can be contracted by inhaling tiny droplets killed 12 people in flint; "What followed was an extraordinary tale of buck passing and turf guarding by an alphabet of agencies" first case was at a bicentennial legionaries' convention at the Bellevue-Stratford hotel in Philadelphia. The bacterium bloomed in the hotel's cooling towers and was distributed through the air-conditioning system there was an outbreak of this disease in Flint after the water switch "Someone at the MDHHS recommended that Henry's agency map the cases of Legionnaires' disease to see if they matched with the city's water service area, but the state health department didn't get actively involved in trying to find the source of the outbreak." "the EPA also began corresponding with the MDEQ about the uptick in Legionnaires' disease, but it didn't take the thread very far." "Jim Henry's fears were confirmed: the outbreak indeed returned. But people in Flint still received no notice about it. There was no alert for those who were especially vulnerable to Legionnaires' disease, such as elderly people, or those who had compromised immune systems. Even medical providers were in the dark."

National Lead and Copper Rule (LCR)

a federal standard that "sets the federal action level at 15 parts of lead per billion parts of water (15 ppb)". The levels of lead found in the water of Flint Citizens' homes was far above this threshold.

Michigan Department of Environmental Equality (MDEQ)

a government environmental agency. This agency gave the KWA the initial go-ahead to start supplying customers with untreated water pulled directly from the Great Lakes when Flint switched away from Detroit's water supply. Not only did the KWA have to treat this water themselves, but they also did a poor job of it under the guidance of the MDEQ, who told Flint's Water Treatment Program that corrosion control was not necessary. However, Stephen Busch, a district supervisor from this agency, did advise against using the Flint river as a water supply. The MDEQ was also in charge of doing reports on the city's water quality. Ultimately, leadership in Flint continually deferred to the expertise of the MDEQ, which let the city down.

Trihalomethanes

a group of "colorless, odorless chemical compounds that are a by-product of the chlorine disinfection process". These compounds are carcinogenic, and Flint has violated the federal limit for TTHMs when treating their water with an excessive amount of chlorine for disinfection purposes. The city of Flint failed to inform the public of these violations at the time they were occuring, and instead chose to issue an annual report (legally required) 9-months after the initial violation.

Elin Betanzo

a hydraulic engineer who specialized in drinking water was high school friends with Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, and they worked together to do an evaluation of children's health records at the Hurley Medical Center to prove the lead levels in Flint children's blood

Natural Resources Defense Council

a non-profit international environmental advocacy group "Almost three years after the ill-fated water switch, a federal judge approved a historic settlement in the class action lawsuit filed by Melissa Mays, the Concerned Pastors for Social Action, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the ACLU of Michigan (where Curt Guyette was still at it). As part of the deal, the state agreed to pay $87 million for the city to locate eighteen thousand lead and galvanized steel water lines and replace them with copper by 2020, at no cost to homeowners. All households with an active water account were covered, including those with overdue bills, but not vacant homes. The state was also obliged to put an additional $10 million in reserve for potential cost overruns and emergencies, and to pay $895,000 to cover the plaintiffs' legal costs."

Miguel Del Toral

a regulations manager from the EPA District 5. This individual worked alongside citizen scientest LeeAnne Walters, to expose the amount of led in Flint citizens' water. Del Toral traveled himself to the Walters's home to test the pipes, after excuses from the MDEQ that the alarming lead levels in their water was caused by their own indoor plumbing. What he found there encouraged him in continuing to conduct water tests and issue a report titled "High Lead Levels in Flint, Michigan", which alerted readers about the harmful levels of the metal, and also the biased testing methods that the MDEQ was employing.

EMs (emergency managers)

employees working in the city of Flint, "appointed by the State of Michigan in 2011 to lead Flint out of serious financial distress". These managers had the power of not only the mayor's office, but also the city council "to do what needed to be done to stabilize the community", so they did not need to be elected into office, and the rendered the mayor and coucil essentially useless, giving them a disproportionate amount of power. Convincing these EMs to be on-board with the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA) transition was essential to the switch's supporters; however, it was advertised to the public that the powerless City Council supported the switch as well, in order to create the illusion of local community engagement.

Curt Guyette

journalist who signed on as an investigative reporter with the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union "Guyette's reporting about emergency management led him to Flint and, inevitably, to the water wars." "Guyette got together with Kate Levy, a local documentarian, to make a short film called Hard to Swallow: Toxic Water under a Toxic System in Flint." "The MDEQ never did get back to Guyette, not even to say "no comment." Despite the lack of cooperation, Guyette wrote a long story that ran on the ACLU's website on Thursday, July 9. It linked to a full copy of the report and included an interview with Del Toral, whom he described as a "whistleblower," although he wasn't that, since he hadn't reached out to a journalist himself or otherwise released his report to a public audience. And he had been purposefully transparent about his investigation all along, copying his EPA superiors at every step. Guyette's article was packaged with a short video titled Corrosive Impact: Leaded Water and One Flint Family's Leaded Nightmare." "Against all the backtracking and finger-pointing, praise rained down on Curt Guyette and Michigan Radio for their early coverage of Flint. Guyette was named Journalist of the Year by the Michigan Press Association"

United Auto Workers

labor union "United Auto Workers (which won the right to collectively bargain in Flint's sit-down strike in the 1930s)" "Flint might have suffered a democracy deficit, but its people found other ways of showing up for their community. The city's culture of organizing had been passed down through the generations. The United Auto Workers began their historic sit-down strike in Flint. Frustrated with stunted wages, dangerous conditions, and the company's efforts to intimidate them from forming a union, workers occupied two auto plants on December 30, 1936. Refusing to leave or work, they staged concerts and lectures, while supporters delivered food and picketed outside. The strike spread to a third plant in February. With workers staying inside, it was impossible for the company to hire replacements and get the lines moving again. GM tried turning off the heat to freeze the strikers out, but they remained, burning burlap to stay warm. It took forty-four days, but GM eventually announced a $25 million wage increase and recognition of the union's right to organize—a first for America's auto industry.27 It changed lives. Unpaid overtime was banned, wages were fairer, and dangerous environmental conditions were improved, including poor ventilation in the paint department. A few decades later, citizens banded together against segregation and racial discrimination in real estate with the sleep-in on the lawn of city hall, a rally that drew thousands, and a first-of-its-kind fair housing vote."

lead poisoning

no known cure "Children are most vulnerable to lead poisoning because their developing bodies absorb up to five times more lead than an adult from the same amount of exposure." "...develops slowly with cumulative exposure, it is difficult to present conclusive proof that lead itself, even in small amounts, is the problem." ""The major source of trouble is the flaking of lead paint in the ancient slum dwelling of our older cities, [and] the problem of lead poisoning in children will be with us for as long as there are slums,"" ""If the history of lead poisoning has taught us anything, it is that the worlds we as a society construct, or at least allow to be built in our name, to a large extent determine how we live and how we die.""

Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA)

restructured from the Detroit water utility "Flint decided to stick with the Detroit water department, forgoing the Karegnondi Water Authority entirely.7 The city was still responsible for the $7 million annual payment for the KWA bonds, but in exchange for signing a thirty-year contract, the Detroit utility—now restructured as the Great Lakes Water Authority, or GLWA—agreed to credit that sum to Flint's account. The Detroit system would receive the rights to nearly all of what would have been Flint's share of raw water from the KWA. The deal, approved by Flint's council, included funds for relieving high water bills and a promise by the governor to put a city representative on the GLWA board."

citizen-led study

set up by Guyette and the Coalition for Clean Water for citizens to conduct an independent city-wide test this was more cost effective and "would be harder for critics to dismiss the citizen-led study as biased."

water wars

the conflict caused by dispute over water sources in the 19th century - often when sources are shared e.g. Israel, Gaza and Egypt Term author used for the Flint conflict between various agencies -- sparked by Guyette's reporting about emergency management

Great Migration

the movement of millions of African Americans to the northern US states, in order to escape the abhorrent racial conditions they were experiencing in the south and to find better jobs. This event resulted in a population boom for Flint, as it did other cities. This event put pressure on the status quo of maintaining a separate-but-equal society. Yet, in Flint, Black workers were continually relegated to lower-wage and more dangerous jobs, disallowing them to move out of the poverty and the ghettos in which they lived.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

the nation's leading institute of public health "[In Wa DC,] while worried residents were demanding answers, the CDC had rushed the report to publication, knowingly using incomplete data to tamp down the public outcry." "the CDC and other agencies refused to provide him with information about the community's blood-lead levels during the years when there was especially high lead in the water. When Edwards sent requests under the Freedom of Information Act for the raw data of the CDC report, he got nothing back, for years. Then the agency sent him a single spreadsheet with a list of anonymized subjects who had been tested—but it didn't make much sense, because it included people who were tested after the study was published, and only thirteen people who were not drinking bottled or filtered water." "Once the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its now-infamous report—the one that claimed that no one was harmed by the water, even in homes that had more than 300 parts per billion of lead—Edwards became fixated on refuting it, especially as the report began to be used around the country to justify relaxed standards for drinking water.14 Officials at both the EPA and the CDC disputed his allegations by saying that he was only an engineer, not a public health expert." "The congressional report skewered the CDC for not notifying the public about how "most of the conclusions" of its study were totally negated, even by much of the agency's own research." "Ultimately, the CDC backpedaled, but it never admitted to conscious wrongdoing. It was all a miscommunication. "Looking backward six years," said the deputy director of the CDC's national center for environmental health, "it's clear that this report could have been written a little better.""

corrosion control treatment

treatment added to water in order to reduce the corrosion of the buildup on water pipes. This buildup on pipes protects lead from pipes from leaching into the water, but is often composed of toxic metals itself. When corrosion control is added, water is able to pass through the pipes unaffected. In the absence of this control treatment, this buildup can break down, releasing the toxic metals into the water, and providing unsafe resources to customers.

E. coli

type of coliform "Flint issued a notice that they had E. coli in the water supply, suggesting that it was "contaminated by human or animal feces, which can make people ill, especially older people, young children, and those with weak immune systems." "To combat it, more chlorine was added to the water. But this likely contributed to the spike in TTHMs, the disinfectant by-product that forms in reaction to organic matter. (Organic matter is also more plentiful in the river water, especially when it's not properly filtered.) As the corrosion worsened, lead leached into the water right along with the iron."

Flint River

was once an essential part of life for the Native Americans that lived near it, and for the early settlers of the town. The city of Flint's decision to use water from this river (originally the city's emergency water source) to supply citizens while the KWA transition was in the process of occuring, was what lead to the water crisis in the community (along with improper treatment practices thereof). This was done against Michigan's Environmental Agency's advice, being as the river was subject to so much pollution.

resident scientists

what the citizens of Flint turned themselves into "While there is moral cowardice in the story of Flint, there is also heroism. It's found most especially in the lionhearted residents who chose, again and again, to act rather than be acted upon. They turned themselves into top-notch community organizers and citizen scientists, and they built relationships with a diverse ensemble of professionals—including journalists in Detroit and Ann Arbor, a regulations manager at the Environmental Protection Agency in Chicago, an engineer who was working from her suburban home, a pediatrician at a local hospital, and a team of scientists and civil engineers all the way down in rural Virginia—to make themselves visible." The alliance of Miguel Del Toral, Marc Edwards, and Leanne Walters would make a citizen scientist out of Walters