Rerun: The Switch (Flint Water Crisis)
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This episode is about the Flint water crisis, which happened more than eight years ago, believe it or not. There have been some recent developments since this episode came out almost three years ago. Spoiler alert: not much has changed. The residents of Flint still rely heavily on bottled water. The lead levels in Flint's tap water have been below the federal action level for six years now, but the people don't care. Their neighbors are still getting sick. Children are getting cancer. They do not trust the government.

because no one has been held accountable and it doesn't look like it's ever going to happen. In October 2022, a Michigan judge dropped felony charges against seven government officials, including two former state health officials who had been charged with involuntary manslaughter. The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that a one-person grand jury has no authority to issue indictments, which is what happened in these cases.

Two months later, in December 2022, two misdemeanor charges against former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder were dropped for the same reason. The Michigan Attorney General has vowed to continue fighting for Flint, but many in Flint are skeptical. Not only because of the statute of limitations, but it's also been eight years since the peak of the crisis. People don't care anymore. The media forgot about Flint a long time ago. Let me catch you up. Again, not much has changed.

Anyway, enjoy the episode. Season 7 is right around the corner. I talk about it a little in the latest episode of Valuable News for Valued Listeners, which also includes more updates on Flint, Nicholas Aliverdian, Megan Hess, the body broker. It's one of the best parts of being a valued listener, which you can become at valuedlistener.com. Go check that out. See ya.

This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. I mean, is there any precedent for this? There is a precedent, not to this degree though, Congressman. I mean, there are instances... So this is the worst case that's ever happened in the country in terms of the level and length of exposure to lead through the drinking water. Is that a fair statement?

Staff is informing me that at Superfund sites, there are lead contamination problems. Hazardous material sites, well, yeah. In March 2003, a group of homeowners in Washington, D.C. discovered that they were all facing a similar issue. Leaky water pipes. And these leaking pipes were more than just your typical pitfall of homeownership.

Many of these pipes exhibited multiple pinhole sized leaks, showering basements with water like a lawn sprinkler in spring. Even more confounding, a large percentage of the copper pipes were essentially brand new. Some of the pipes had begun leaking just 18 months after installation. Copper pipes are supposed to last 50 years. Something was definitely wrong.

So the group of DC homeowners contacted one of the world's leading experts in water corrosion and home plumbing, a man named Dr. Mark Edwards. Dr. Edwards was a professor at Virginia Tech and had spent the better part of a decade researching the increasing incidences of pinhole leaks in copper water pipes. He was the perfect man for the job.

and he was actually already working with WASA, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, on that exact issue, when he received a call from those residents asking him to investigate their misfortunes, suspecting a change in the water chemistry as the cause of the leaks. Dr. Edwards paid a visit to one home where he used a field meter to test the water for lead. The meter maxed out. That's got to be some kind of mistake, he thought.

Dr. Edwards diluted the sample to 10% of its original strength and retested. Again, the meter pegged. It was at that moment that Mark Edwards discovered that the water in some Washington, D.C. homes contained at least 1,250 parts per billion of lead. It was at that moment that Mark Edwards realized that the water in some Washington, D.C. homes contained enough lead to be considered toxic waste.

and the residents of those Washington, D.C. homes had been drinking it for years. Exposure to lead is not safe at any level. In children, it can lead to brain damage, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, stunted growth, and more. In adults, hypertension, anemia, and an increased risk of miscarriages, and the effects are irreversible.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency's Lead and Copper Rule, the national standard for lead in water is 15 parts per billion. Again, any exposure to lead is dangerous, but according to federal guidelines, any level exceeding that 15 ppb threshold requires aggressive action by the municipalities and utility companies responsible for the water system.

Needless to say, Mark Edwards' test results showing 1,250 ppb of lead in water was a prime candidate for aggressive action. Those tests were not the first signs of trouble in DC either. In 2001, more than half of the water samples taken from 53 homes in the DC area had exceeded the national standard.

A year later, the Washington City paper published an article about a D.C. resident whose water tested 18 times higher than the action level. Yet the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority had not taken any action, nor had it informed the public, the city council, or the mayor about a potential widespread problem. But the Edwards test in 2003 could not be ignored. Or maybe they could.

When Seema Bhat, a water quality manager at the DC Water and Sewer Authority, encouraged her supervisors to take action based on the results of Mark Edwards' test, she was fired improperly. A wider survey of the water quality in DC did eventually occur in the fall of 2003, when the tap water was tested at 6,000 homes in the area. Two-thirds of the samples were found to contain lead levels higher than the acceptable amount.

Customers were not notified until months later. There was a new warning on their water bills. They read, quote, That said, no mention of drinking water or significant health issues as required by regulations. Wausau had also advised its customers to let the faucet run for at least 30 seconds before using the water.

Additional sampling by Professor Edwards would reveal that lead levels were actually at their highest between 30 seconds and 1 minute. He told Prism Magazine, Thanks to one homeowner whose water had failed the lead test, the press was finally tipped off in January 2004. Water in D.C. exceeds EPA lead limit. Front page news.

The citizens of DC panicked, the politicians panicked, and by November, Wausau's board of directors had signed off on a $300 million plan to replace all 23,000 of the city's lead pipes by 2010. All it took was 200 articles by the Washington Post and six congressional hearings. At one of those hearings in March 2004, Professor Mark Edwards revealed the cause of the lead contamination.

Four years earlier, the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority had switched its treatment of the water from chlorine to monochloramine. Edwards testified that the monochloramine, which is used as a disinfectant, was leaching lead from the old pipes as well as the brass and copper fixtures in people's homes. That lead was being washed down the pipes, out of the faucets, into drinking glasses, right into the bloodstreams of thousands of thirsty Washington, D.C. residents.

Professor Mark Edwards had confirmed the treatment switch as the cause in research that was funded out of his own pocket. In early January, Wausau had threatened to cut his funding and access to samples if he continued working with the homeowners. In other words, Edwards told Prism magazine, I was either with them or against them. Days later, the EPA would discontinue its own subcontract with Mark Edwards.

Realizing the severity of the issue, Professor Edwards couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. He lost 35 pounds in three weeks. Mark Edwards could not understand why governmental agencies like the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority and the Environmental Protection Agency, whose primary objectives are to protect the health and well-being of its citizens, dragged its feet for years on a major public health crisis.

and even after the crisis was exposed, other agencies continued to downplay its effects. On March 30th, 2004, the United States Center for Disease Control released a report about the contamination, concluding that the elevated lead levels in DC drinking water, quote, might have contributed to a small increase in blood levels. In other words, the CDC concluded that despite the unprecedented exposure to lead,

Nobody was seriously hurt. Six years later, thanks to emails obtained by Mark Edwards through a Freedom of Information Act request, that Center for Disease Control report was proven to be falsified. The group of people tested, whom the report refers to as the worst case in the D.C. area, had actually not been affected at all. They had not been drinking the water, and the CDC had that knowledge when they were writing the paper.

The day after the report was released, Mary Jean Brown, the head of lead poisoning prevention in the U.S., in response to an email from another official at the CDC asking her how the report was being received, replied, quote,

Today has been the first day in over a month that there wasn't a story on lead in water in the Washington Post, and also the first that I haven't been interviewed by at least one news outlet. I guess that means it worked. I mean, think about that. No matter where you are, it's not just lead in water. If they're not trustworthy on lead in water, which is the most black and white issue you can imagine...

Lead is the one chemical for which there's no dispute about the health effects at all. And if they blow it on that, if they lie and cover up lead in water problems, their most basic fundamental responsibility to the public

Before the CDC report was proven false, cities all across the world would point to it as proof that there was no reason to be concerned about lead in drinking water. What is now known is that thousands of children in the D.C. area had blood lead levels above the CDC threshold, all living with the long-term effects, and it is estimated that as many as 2,000 children were miscarried because of it.

Yet there have been no apologies, no accountability, by anyone. Not a single government official was fired or demoted or punished other than the ones that tried to blow the whistle. In fact, the EPA gave their own DC-led response team a gold medal for quote, "...distinguished service of major significant environmental improvement and to public service."

This is Professor Mark Edwards. That a couple years went by and the agencies start to give themselves awards. Okay, you cannot make this shit up, people. If you do not learn from your mistakes, you are doomed to repeat them. And I was preparing for the day that somewhere, somehow, another city in the United States was going to get hammered by these environmental criminals. That day would come about a decade later in Flint, Michigan.

A failure of government at all levels leads to a man-made water crisis in one of America's most vulnerable cities on this episode of Swindled.

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This is a historic step for us. It's the day where we actually...

turn off the Detroit system and turn on the treated Flint River water going into our drinking water supply. April 25th, 2014 was a day for celebration in Flint, Michigan. The city was taking control of its own tap water and ending its dependence on the city of Detroit who had been pumping water to Flint for the past 50 years. It was a small glimmer of hope that Flint was finally on the path to recovery.

Truthfully, there had not been a lot to celebrate about Flint, Michigan since General Motors downsized in the 1980s. What followed was vast disinvestment and abandonment and an increased crime rate. The once thriving vehicle city became one of the poorest places in America. 40,000 of its 100,000 residents live in poverty. The population of Flint used to be about 200,000 people, but half of them left town, mostly the white half.

and when a city's population disappears, so does its tax revenue. In 2011, an auditor projected a $25 million deficit in the city of Flint's operating budget. In response, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder declared that Flint was in a state of financial emergency and appointed an emergency manager to take over all of the city's decision-making. One of the main culprits of that $25 million deficit was the city's water supply fund.

Turns out pumping millions of gallons of water from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is expensive. It was costing Flint about $1 million every month. So city officials in Flint explored ways to switch away from its current provider to something else, something cheaper. Why not cut out the middleman? Detroit was getting its water from Lake Huron. Flint could build its own pipeline, join the Karagnondi Water Authority, and pull its own water from the same source.

and in doing so the city of flint could begin its ascension out of its financial hole by saving 200 million dollars over 25 years seemed like a no-brainer on april 16 2013 emergency manager ed kurtz the second person to hold the position in less than a year informed the state treasurer of flint's decision to join the kwa the next day according to city of flint officials

Detroit terminated the water contract and alerted them that service would end a year later. The only problem was that it would take two years to build Flint's new KWA pipeline, but city officials had planned for this. Until the pipeline was operational, the city of Flint would pump water from the local Flint River, which had served as the city's main water source until 1965, a temporary solution for a temporary problem. What's the worst that could happen?

To squash any lingering doubts, the city of Flint sent out a press release quoting Michael Prisby of the MDEQ, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. He verified that the Flint River water was safe and that it adhered to the state's drinking water standards. Prisby said, "...even with a proven track record of providing perfectly good water for Flint, there still remains a lingering uncertainty about the quality of the water."

In an effort to dispel myths and promote the truth about the Flint River and its viability as a residential water resource, there have been numerous studies and tests conducted on its water by several independent organizations. In that same press release, Flint Mayor Dane Walling offered his own words of comfort, quote, "...it's regular, good, pure drinking water, and it's right in our backyard."

This is the first step in the right direction for Flint, and we take this monumental step forward in controlling the future of our community's most precious resource. On Friday, April 25th, 2014, after consultations with outside engineering firms, numerous studies and tests, construction delays, and multiple turnovers at the emergency manager position, the Flint River was ready for consumption.

About a dozen elected officials, city employees, and representatives from the MDEQ gathered in a small outbuilding at the Flint Water Treatment Plant to watch Mayor Walling perform the ceremonial closing of the valve. This is our moment, so I think we need a countdown from three. Three, two, one. Here's to Flint. Here it is.

After the countdown, Mayor Walling pressed a small black button. A green light turned red. The pumps powered down and water stopped flowing in from the 36-inch pipe connected to Detroit. The switch was complete. The crowd erupted in applause. Darnell Early, the latest emergency manager, called it the best choice for the city of Flint going forward.

Flint Councilman Joshua Freeman took a sip from a clear plastic cup and remarked, "...it tastes like water." Not realizing that it would take another two days for the residual Detroit water to clear the system. Not that he would have been able to notice anyway. It was the city of Flint's hope that the contrast between the two waters would be negligible. But less than a week after the switch, it was obvious to everyone that something was different about the water from the Flint River.

The new water smelled weird, and the color was off. It was like brownish orange, full of debris, and oily like used cooking grease. Rust circles formed around bathtub drains. Houseplants died. Pets were sick. Adults and children in Flint discovered mysterious rashes on their bodies, in addition to other unexplained illnesses.

Sometimes the effects were gradual, like hair falling out over time, and sometimes they were instant. Like when Corridan Maynard, a 20-year-old man who lived on Flint's east side, drank two glasses of water from the tap before going to bed one night. Maynard told the Detroit Free Press that he spent the rest of the night hugging his toilet. Quote, The city of Flint responded by assuring residents that the water was fine.

just some buildup that needs to flush out. Although according to the MDEQ, the city would increase the water's chlorine levels to help improve the quality. But over time, the quality seemed to get worse. In August 2014, Flint's water tested positive for total coliform bacteria, which, while not harmful by themselves, are an indication of the possible presence of other disease-causing bacteria, such as E. coli.

This discovery led to multiple boil water advisories for the citizens of Flint, as well as another increase in chlorine and other disinfectants in the water system. Residents were told they could safely resume drinking the water just four days later. On October 13th, General Motors announced that it had stopped using the Flint River water at its factory. The added chloride in the water was corroding its machines.

GM said it would purchase water from a nearby suburb instead, until the pipeline was finished. Another side effect of the additional chlorine in the water was the increased level of trihalomethanes, or TTHM, a byproduct of disinfection. When chlorine reacts with microorganisms in water, TTHMs are left behind, and when consumed by humans, TTHMs can be carcinogenic.

According to the EPA, years of exposure may cause liver, kidney, or central nervous problems and an increased risk of cancer. On January 2, 2015, the TTHM levels in Flint's water far exceeded the acceptable amounts established in the Safe Drinking Water Act.

It would later be revealed that it was at this time that the state government office in downtown Flint began purchasing bottled water for its employees and would continue doing so even after TTHM levels normalized. Yet, four days later, Mayor Dane Walling was telling reporters that the water in Flint was safe to drink. By now, the city of Detroit had heard about Flint's rough transition and offered to reconnect its water until everything was straightened out.

Detroit even offered to waive the $4 million fee to restore service. But Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Early rejected the proposal. He said the city of Flint planned to hire water treatment consultants to work out the kinks. A few days later, Darnell Early resigned from his emergency manager position and was reappointed by Governor Snyder as the emergency manager of Detroit Public Schools, a promotion and a raise.

Darnell Early was the third state-appointed emergency manager in as many years to quit on the city of Flint. It must be nice to be able to wash your hands clean. Support for Swindled comes from Rocket Money.

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Outburst. We cannot use, we can't drink it, we can't bathe in it, and if we do, we're taking a chance to get sick. After outburst. You're killing us, sir.

I'm not killing anybody. Flint neighbors fed up with the quality of their water. We're having a carpet pulled over our eyes. I don't believe anything they're saying right now. City officials tried to answer questions. Excuse me, excuse me, let me finish my... But neighbors say the answers about the city's water quality aren't good enough. Michigan is in the middle of the Great Lakes. They have some of the best water in the country.

In early 2015, Flint residents began demanding answers. They had been living with the dirty water for more than six months.

Town hall meetings with local officials erupted in shouting matches after the citizens were continually assured, sometimes patronizingly, by city and state officials that everything was okay. Some residents like Tony Palladino, who had been escorted out of one of those meetings, was tired of the excuses.

Other residents, like Leanne Walters, had stopped using the Flint water months ago. Not since she, her husband, and their four children found themselves covered in rashes. But what concerned Leanne Walters the most was the physical and mental development of her son Gavin, or lack thereof.

She told NPR, quote, I kept talking to the doctors, trying to figure out why he wasn't growing. He was 27 pounds at four years old. His hair was thinning, breaking out in rashes. Leanne said her son even had to relearn the alphabet. Gavin's underdevelopment was made more obvious because Gavin has a twin brother. While both boys appear to be suffering from similar learning and behavioral issues, Gavin was 30 pounds lighter and two inches shorter than his twin.

So Leanne Walters contacted the Environmental Protection Agency. She told them about the dark sediment present in the family's tap water and how her kids were sick and how she was confident that the two were related. On February 6th, EPA manager Miguel del Toro traveled to the Walters residence to test their water for lead. The results? 104 parts per billion. Seven times greater than the EPA limit of 15 parts per billion.

Leanne was told to make sure nobody in her family consumed the water. It required further testing and monitoring, and she was given the phone number of someone who could help with that. Professor Mark Edwards arrived in Flint, Michigan with deja vu. He and his team of researchers from Virginia Tech were there to test Holmes for a potential widespread lead in water issue, just like he had done a decade before in Washington, D.C.,

Professor Edwards gave Leanne hundreds of test kits so that Flint residents could collect samples from their homes and send them back to the university lab. On March 18, 2015, the second test of the Walters tap water indicated lead levels of 397 parts per billion, almost quadruple the last results. Five days later, the Flint City Council voted 7-1 in favor of doing everything possible to reconnect to the Detroit water system.

But that vote was meaningless. Since the city of Flint was in a financial emergency, the city council was essentially powerless. The state-appointed emergency manager had the final say. So what did that state-appointed emergency manager say? I'm glad you asked. Quote,

That quote comes from Jerry Ambrose, the fourth and final emergency manager of Flint. And so does this one.

But Jerry Ambrose did not stick around to see the fruits of his labor. On April 29, 2015, the financial emergency in Flint, Michigan was declared over and Jerry Ambrose vacated his position.

Major financial and policy decisions would now be overseen by a quote, receivership transition advisory board. But for the most part, the mayor and the city council could resume their pre-emergency roles. A few weeks earlier, Leanne Walters had received news that no parent wants to hear. At that time, I got a frantic phone call, April 2nd, telling me my son had lead poisoning and anemia from the lead poisoning.

Another test of the tap water at the Walters residence in the spring of 2015 found lead levels of an astounding 13,200 parts per billion. This is Professor Mark Edwards. We found the worst lead in water contamination that I have seen in 25 years. And believe me, I've seen a lot. Hazardous wastes.

levels of lead coming out of her tap water. And the cause of the lead contamination in Flint was similar to what Professor Edwards had seen in other places. The whole problem arose because this corrosive water source was put into this distribution system. So the corrosion's eating up the pipes, it's eating up the iron pipes, it's causing main bricks, it's causing dispelled water. In about 20% of the homes, there's just too much lead.

Researchers from Virginia Tech had discovered that the water from the Flint River was more corrosive than the Detroit water from Lake Huron, and that corrosive water was leaching lead from the pipes and service lines that delivered water to thousands of homes throughout the city. And thanks to months of sleuthing through technical documents, LeAnn Walters discovered that the entire crisis could have been avoided. LeAnn Walters discovered that the city of Flint had not implemented a corrosion control plan.

Most cities, like Detroit for example, avoid corroding pipes by treating their water with corrosion-inhibiting chemicals such as orthophosphate. These chemicals basically form a protective mineral crust on the insides of the pipes so that water never actually makes contact with the metal. When these chemicals are not present, the corrosivity of the water and the chlorine and disinfectants begins eating away at that mineral crust and eventually at the lead beneath it.

Next thing you know, that mineral crust and lead is filling up your glass. Professor Edwards told NPR that Flint was the only city in America that he was aware of that did not have a corrosion control plant. And nobody would know why that was the case until months later. In an email to a Detroit newspaper, Dan Wyant, director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, said it was a simple mistake.

The staff at MDEQ had never worked on a source switch as large as Flint's. He said that at the time, they thought they had used proper protocol, but it turns out they had not. But hey, they tried their best. A for effort, Dan. On June 24th, 2015, Miguel del Toro at the EPA learned about the lack of corrosion control plan and the alarmingly high levels of lead in Leanne Walter's home.

He immediately sent out an internal memo to his superiors at the agency, expressing his concerns. The EPA, whose regional administrator in the area was Susan Hedman, never made a move. A few weeks later, that internal memo leaked into the hands of the local chapter of the ACLU, who published a video on its website detailing its contents. That very same day, when most of the city was learning about the possibility of a widespread lead contamination,

the mayor of flint dane walling was on the local tv news taking a swig okay so we are here on the set and they are back in the set are you ready to drink it yeah okay my family and i drink the water every day so

It's your standard tap water. You know, you taste a little bit of the chlorine. All of our tests ever since this year have been comparable with what we used to get out of Detroit. Now, last year was different. The chlorine level was elevated. There were the TTHMs, which is actually colorless, but it's a concern. But those issues have been put behind us. And now I think it's more a matter of the perception. When Michigan Public Radio reached out to the MDEQ for comment about the leaked memo,

Spokesman Brad Werfel put it bluntly, quote, Werfel added that while he hadn't actually read the memo, the MDEQ's own tests proved it wrong. He said the city of Flint was within federally mandated levels and that the Leanne Walters case was simply an anomaly.

What we now know is that the city of Flint was within federally mandated levels because the state had omitted two samples from its report, two of the highest samples, which was enough to drop the average below the action level. Meanwhile, the EPA was conducting damage control of its own. The agency's regional administrator, Susan Hedman, called Mayor Walling to personally apologize. She said the memo had not been reviewed and should have never been released.

and she referred to Miguel del Toro, the author of the memo, as a rogue employee who did not speak for the entire agency. There would be no action taken by the EPA in regards to the lead in Leanne Walters' home, nor anyone else's, not until there was proof that lead was a widespread issue. Interprofessor Mark Edwards and his batch of freshly tested water samples

By September 2015, Flint residents had returned 90% of the 300 testing kits he had passed out. And according to those testing kits, 40% of Flint homes had elevated lead levels. Professor Edwards also set up visual tests to demonstrate just how much more corrosive Flint's water was than Detroit's. His final recommendation was for the state to declare the water unsafe for drinking or cooking.

The results of the test were sent to the MDEQ, who dismissed them almost immediately. In an email to an MLive journalist, MDEQ spokesman Brad Werfel wrote, It's scientifically probable a research team that specializes in looking for lead in water could have found it in Flint when the city was on its old water supply. We won't know that because they've only just arrived in town and quickly proven the theory they set out to prove. And while the state appreciates academic participation in this discussion...

Offering broad, dire public health advice based on some quick testing could be seen as fanning political flames irresponsibly. "Flint's drinking water is meeting applicable state standards and we should be encouraged by that." But Professor Mark Edwards refused to go away. He challenged the state to repeat his test and see for themselves, but they declined. So instead, Professor Edwards traveled to Flint and visited a fourth grade classroom where the students were able to replicate his results in just five days.

It was a humiliating defeat for the MDEQ. But it wasn't about wins and losses. It was about the health and safety of an entire population. A population who had been dealing with the questionable water for over a year at this point, with very little knowledge about how or if it was affecting them. Some of those questions would be answered on September 24th, 2015.

when a pediatrician named Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha released the results of a study she had been conducting at Hurley Medical Center. The entire city of Flint had an almost doubling of the percentage of children with elevated lead levels. It went from 2.1% of children to 4% of children with elevated levels. Based on blood samples from more than 1,700 children living in Flint, Dr. Hanna-Attisha found that 4% of children under the age of 5 had elevated blood lead levels.

Before the switch, that number was 2.1%, so the percentage of infants and children with above-average lead levels had nearly doubled in a year. In high-risk areas, that percentage had tripled. And just like Professor Edwards, Dr. Hannah Atisha recommended that the city end its use of the Flint River as its drinking water source as soon as possible.

While the state acknowledged the increase in the children's blood lead levels, it hesitated to conclude that the Flint River water was at fault. This is Nick Lyon, the director of Michigan's Health and Human Services Department. There has been an increase in elevated childhood blood levels in specific areas. We cannot conclusively say that water source is the only cause of this. Another spokeswoman for HHS attributed the results to a predictable seasonal spike, just a heavier-than-usual lead season.

Nothing to worry about. The city of Flint, however, took action and issued lead advisory warnings to residents but didn't want to accept too much of the blame. While the city is in full compliance with the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act,

This information is being shared as part of a public awareness campaign to ensure that everyone takes note that no level of lead is considered safe. Flint residents being told not to drink tap water. A new study is showing an increased level of lead in young children. This is the latest in a series of problems since Flint pulled out of the Detroit water system more than a year ago now. I feel like I'm living in a third world country.

In early October, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder finally broke his silence. He admitted that, quote, things were not fully understood before making the switch to the Flint River and that everything had been planned rather poorly. But he wasn't there to point fingers.

Governor Rick Snyder was there to take action. Again, this isn't about blaming anyone. Right now I want to stay focused in on the solutions and taking action to solve the problems. Governor Snyder's action plan included distributing thousands of free water filters and water testing to Flint residents.

and he agreed to sign off on switching back to the Detroit water system because the Detroit water, as he mentioned in the press briefing, quote, will be easier to manage. It comes from a more stable source than the river. It is fully optimized for corrosion control, and it is clear that residents of Flint have more confidence in this water source. Here is Mayor Dane Walling delivering the good news. Today we're reversing the decisions of four emergency managers.

We stood up to Lansing and we fought back to get us on Detroit water. We're announcing today that our hard work has paid off. We're connecting back to Detroit water. But not everything could be reversed. There was no magic button to press that could reroute the distrust that Flint residents now felt for their state and local governments. There was no way to undo the suffering experienced by thousands of people who had been drinking, bathing, and cooking with the contaminated water.

No matter what happened next, there was no switching back for Leanne Walters or her son Gavin, who would be dealing with the effects of lead poisoning for the rest of his life. Their time on Earth had been permanently altered by no fault of their own, and there was no way to turn off the bad memories that they had collected in their home, a home that would forever be remembered as ground zero of the Flint water crisis.

Generally, I have not been doing stunts here, but you know. And this used a filter. You know, the water around this table was Flint water that was filtered. And it just confirms what we know scientifically, which is that if you're using a filter, if you're installing it, then Flint water at this point is drinkable.

By 2016, the Flint water crisis had become national news. President Barack Obama visited the city to see firsthand what it was dealing with and to offer some reassurance, as long as there was a filter in place. Speaking of hope and change, Flint had elected a new mayor the prior November, and a lot of notable events had transpired since then.

Unsatisfied with incumbent Dane Walling's response to the crisis, the citizens of Flint turned to Karen Weaver, a lifelong resident who promised to solve the water issue.

It's a two-fold kind of situation. We have an infrastructure crisis, but we have a public health crisis in the city of Flint right now. And even though we have gone back to Lake Huron water through Detroit, we're still in trouble because we still can't drink our water. When did you first notice, you're a resident, when did you first notice something was wrong with the water? Shortly after the switch. And that's when a lot of people noticed, shortly after the switch to the Flint River water. Did you stop drinking it? I didn't start drinking it.

One month after taking office, Mayor Weaver declared a state of emergency in Flint. I, Mayor Karen W. Weaver, declare a state of emergency in the city of Flint. Another move that was downplayed by the state. This is HHS Director Nick Lyon. This is certainly a situation that deserves attention. I do not think that it rises to the level of a statewide emergency. Why not? There's just...

We are here with the resources necessary to address the situation without that declaration, so I don't think it's necessary from that perspective. The same month that the emergency declaration was made, the State Department that Nick Lyon oversaw produced an online poster informing residents that it was safe to bathe in the contaminated water. The poster featured two smiling babies, one white, one black. With text bubbles that read, quote, Hey Flint, it is safe to wash.

Yuck. Even though the information on the poster was true, human skin does not absorb lead in water, it was just another example of how tone-deaf and bumbling the state of Michigan's response to the crisis had been. But changes were coming.

On December 28, 2015, the Flint Water Advisory Task Force, created by Governor Rick Schneider, released its preliminary report on the crisis and placed the blame directly at the state of Michigan's feet. In a letter to the governor, the independent investigators concluded, "...we believe the primary responsibility for what happened in Flint rests with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality."

Although many individuals and entities at state and local levels contributed to creating and prolonging the problem, MDEQ is the government agency that has responsibility to ensure safe drinking water in Michigan. It failed in that responsibility and must be held accountable. The report also accused MDEQ of responding to residents, doctors, and engineers with quote, "...aggressive dismissal, belittlement, and attempts to discredit."

MDEQ Director Dan Wyant and his weaselly little spokesperson Brad Werfel resigned from their positions the day after the report was released. A week later, Governor Rick Snyder declared his own state of emergency and requested $55 million in assistance from the federal government so that Flint could install lead-free pipes throughout the city. The move was quite a departure from the state's recent responses.

It was almost like Governor Snyder knew something that the citizens of Flint did not. One week after his emergency declaration, Snyder again found himself behind the podium. This is to continue the fact that we want to make sure we're making good communications with respect to Flint. The information was just recently presented to me, and I thought it was important to share. Over the course of 2014 and 2015, we saw a spike in Legionnaires' disease.

within Genesee County. If you go back to the prior years, I believe the numbers for the preceding years before 2014, we had six cases, 11 cases, 13 cases, and eight cases. In 2014, we had 45 cases. And then in 2015, there were 42 cases. Legionnaires disease, a pneumonia-type illness, is caused by breathing in Legionella bacteria found in untreated fresh water.

Although the elderly and those with compromised immune systems are most affected, Legionella is so dangerous that it has been experimented with in biological weapons, which is an apt comparison to what happened in Flint. Since the switch to the Flint River in 2014, cases of Legionnaire's disease in the area had more than quadrupled the rates of prior years, an outbreak that would ultimately account for more than 80 diagnoses and 12 deaths.

Although PBS Frontline would later discover that the true number could be much higher due to patients being misdiagnosed for pneumonia, which dozens more had succumbed to during the same time period. One week after Snyder's Legionnaires announcement, in response to the governor's urging, President Obama declared a federal emergency. I am very proud of what I've done as president, but the only job that's more important to me is the job of father.

And I know that if I was a parent up there, I would be beside myself, that my kids' health could be at risk. That's why over the weekend I declared a federal emergency in Flint to send more resources on top of the assistance that we've already put on the ground. Flint, Michigan would receive an initial round of $5 million in federal aid to help cover the cost of providing water, water filters, and other items. FEMA workers would hit the ground and the EPA would finally take action.

At the same time, the Michigan Attorney General was also taking action. It was announced that a state investigation would begin to determine what, if any, laws were violated in the process that resulted in the contamination crisis. This is Governor Snyder. To you, the people of Flint, I say tonight, as I have before, I am sorry and I will fix it. For those whose mistakes contributed to this disaster,

We are fully cooperating with investigations and will hold those individuals accountable. And let me be perfectly clear to all of state government, in situations like this, they must come to my desk immediately, no delays, no excuses, period. Susan Hedman, the regional head of the EPA who oversees the MDEQ, resigned the next day. This is special counsel Todd Flood, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation.

This is an investigation I can assure you. We're going to open up every door. We're going to ask the tough questions. Those proverbial questions of, what did you know and when did you know it? What did you know and when did you know it? That was a question that Governor Snyder would be asked repeatedly in the upcoming months because Governor Snyder made the Legionnaire's announcement in January 2016.

Emails obtained soon after would prove that he was made aware of the issue at least one month prior, and there was reason to believe that Governor Snyder, or at least the members of his staff, were informed of the outbreak almost a year earlier.

An email dated March 10th from the Flint-Genesee County Health Department said, quote, the increase of the illnesses closely corresponds with the time frame of the switch to the Flint River water. This situation has been explicitly explained to MDEQ and many of the city's officials. Another email three days later, I want to make sure in writing that there are no misunderstandings regarding this significant and urgent public health issue.

In February 2016, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform began their own investigation. After declining twice to testify in front of Congress, Governor Snyder finally made an appearance in March. Once representatives began their questioning, it became clear why Snyder had dragged his heels. This is Representative Cartwright from Pennsylvania's 8th District.

"Flausible deniability only works when it's plausible, and I'm not buying that you didn't know about any of this until October 2015. You were not in a medically induced coma for a year.

And I've had about enough of your false contrition and your phony apologies. Susan Hedman from the EPA bears not one-tenth of the responsibility of the state of Michigan and your administration, and she resigned, and there you are, dripping with guilt, withdrawing your paycheck, hiring lawyers at the expense of the people, and doing your dead-level best to spread accountability to others.

and not being accountable. It's not appropriate. Pretty soon, we will have men who strike their wives saying, I'm sorry, dear, but there were failures at all levels.

Representative Brendan Boyle echoed his colleague's sentiment that the governor of Michigan should resign.

My commitment is to fix the problem. This is a case where we should have demanded more answers. I said that in my opening statement. And don't you have a moral responsibility as the governor of an administration that failed and poisoned its own people? Don't you have the moral responsibility to resign? What I would say is, is when you have experts that you relied on, they failed. They worked for me. So you have a responsibility for that.

I kick myself every day wishing I would have demanded more answers and asked more questions. But to put it in context, when something bad happens, and this is a terrible tragedy, this has been the humbling experience of my life.

I believe for the citizens of Flint, it's been far worse than just a humbling experience. To walk away from it, I want a commitment to, I'm making a commitment to solve this problem because the Flint people deserve better. The people of Flint did deserve better. And Governor Snyder did admit that the Flint water crisis was a failure of government at all levels. But he had no intentions of resigning from office. In fact, Governor Snyder would go on to complete his second term in full office.

Professor Mark Edwards also testified at one of the congressional hearings. His fury was directed at someone who had already resigned, Susan Hedman at the EPA. After hearing the testimony of Susan Hedman this morning, I can't help but comment on the qualities that seem to be valued in administrators at the EPA. Willful blindness, in this case to the pain and suffering of Flint residents.

unremorseful for their role in causing this man-made disaster and completely unrepentant and unable to learn from their mistakes. Ms. Hedman said EPA had nothing to do with creating Flint. EPA had everything to do with creating Flint because the EPA has effectively condoned cheating on the lead and copper rule monitoring since 2006.

This is because EPA and other agencies caused a similar lead in water crisis in Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2004 that actually was 20 to 30 times worse in terms of the health harm to children in Washington, D.C. And they completely covered that up for six years and wrote falsified scientific reports

And it created a climate in which anything goes across the United States, anything at all, to cover up health harm from lead in drinking water. Yet EPA has allowed entire cities to be unnecessarily exposed to elevated lead in their drinking water. And they've covered up evidence of their unethical actions by authoring these falsified scientific reports. And they've never apologized.

for what they did in Washington, D.C. and incredibly to this day they have not apologized for what they did in Flint, Michigan. No apology from EPA. Completely unrepentant and unable to learn from their mistakes. By April 2016, additives had been introduced to the Flint River water that would quote "rescale" the corroded pipes.

However, that treated water was not making its way into the pipes because the Flint residents were not using it. Flint residents did not want to pay for water they did not fill with safe, despite the assurances from the government agencies that had been lying to them for two years. This is Leanne Walters. Nobody trusts the city or the state anymore. So the tests that are available, people don't trust.

According to Detroit Free Press, when Governor Snyder publicly encouraged Flint residents to start using the tap water with a filter so that the pipes could be repaired, he was told by a state official that Flint residents wanted him to start drinking the tap water first.

But Snyder's 30-day pledge of drinking filtered tap water did not impress the residents of Flint, including Mayor Weaver.

First of all, what I want to say about that is I hope it's filtered water. The other thing I need to say about that is I'm lucky for him that he can bring filtered water because we've been dealing with this for two years and we were drinking it when it wasn't filtered.

So what I'm here to say is that the governor really wanted to know what it's like to deal with the situation we're in. Then instead of saying he's going to drink filtered water for 30 days, he needs to come and stay here for 30 days and live with us and see what it's like to have to use bottled or filtered water when you want to cook and when you want to drink and when you want to brush your teeth.

The residents of Flint were still angry, still mistrustful, still bitter about the total lack of accountability.

Would the state of Michigan's response have been similar if it had happened in a majority white city like Ann Arbor, rather than Flint where more than half of the population is black and poor? Would the EPA outright deny action to the country clubs if the water from the sprinkler systems was corroding their golf clubs? Or was this just another well-documented and well-executed act of systemic racism? The residents of Flint think so, and when you've experienced it a thousand times before, you start to recognize it.

There was new hope, however, that some justice would be served. Today, we are announcing we filed criminal charges in the Flint water crisis against three individuals. They failed Michigan families. Indeed, they failed us all, and I don't care where you live. These charges are only the beginning, and there'll be more to come.

That I can guarantee you. On April 20th, 2016, Attorney General Bill Schuette announced charges against Stephen Bush and Michael Prisby, two state officials at the MDEQ, as well as Michael Glasgow, Flint's water quality supervisor. All three were faced with felony charges including misconduct, neglect of duty, and conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

It was alleged that Bush and Prisby instructed Glasgow to discard the two lead samples so the city would remain within the acceptable tolerance. That July, six more state officials were charged with similar crimes. Leanne Schechter-Smith, Adam Rosenthal, and Adam Cook from MDEQ, and Nancy Peeler, Corrine Miller, and Robert Scott from the Health and Human Services Department.

Attorney General Schutte said the crimes of the six individuals varied, but there was a common theme. Each of these individuals attempted to bury, or cover up, to downplay, or to hide information that contradicted their own narrative, their story. And their story was that there's nothing wrong with Flint water, and it was perfectly safe to use. In essence, these individuals concealed the truth. They were criminally wrong to do so, and the victims are real people.

They are families who have been lied to by government officials and treated as if they don't count. Well, they do count. The tragedy that we know as the Flint water crisis did not occur by accident. No. Flint was a casualty of arrogance, disdain, and a failure of management. An absence of accountability, shirking responsibility. All too prevalent.

and very evident during the course of this investigation has been a fixation on finances and balance sheets. This fixation has cost lives. This fixation came at the expense of protecting the health and safety of Flint. It's all about numbers over people, money over health. The investigation continued to make its way to the top

Four more officials were charged with felonies in December, including Jerry Ambrose and Darnell Early, the two former state-appointed emergency managers who orchestrated the switch. The allegations were that Ambrose and Early misused bond money that was supposed to go toward the cleanup of a lagoon of lime sludge and instead steered it toward the KWA pipeline.

the city of Flint would have been unable to obtain the pipeline funding on its own. So the emergency managers took advantage of a loophole that allowed even cities without a credit rating to borrow millions of dollars in cases of fires, floods, or other calamities. Jerry Ambrose was also accused of having known about the spike in Legionnaire's disease almost a year before the public was warned. He apparently told the Genesee County Health Department that he didn't want to tell anybody because it would quote, "...inflame the situation."

Two weeks later, Ambrose was declaring the Flint water safe to drink and overriding the city council's decision to switch back to Detroit water. Darnell Early and Jerry Ambrose were the highest ranking officials charged in the investigation so far. Howard Croft and Doherty Johnson, two City of Flint officials, were also charged with false pretenses for their roles in the switch.

but the most serious charges of the investigation came the following year. On June 14th, 2017, Attorney General Schutte announced involuntary manslaughter charges related to the Legionnaire's outbreak against Darnell Early, Howard Croft, Leanne Schechter-Smith, and Stephen Bush, all of whom had already been charged with other crimes. Also charged were Eden Wells, the State Health Department's Chief Medical Executive, and Nick Lyon, the Health Department's Director.

Among other highly questionable decisions, Nick Lyon had allegedly stopped Wayne State University from researching the Legionnaire's issue. When the doctor from the university expressed concern to Nick Lyon that his decision could lead to more deaths, Mr. Lyon responded that he couldn't save everyone and that people, quote, have to die of something.

That statement would come back to haunt Nick Lyon at his trial. "Members attend a bombshell game changer tonight in the Flint water crisis." "All charges have been dropped, but the investigation will continue." Just kidding. There was no trial. Not yet anyway. After three years, eight million dollars of expenses, and multiple guilty pleas, the new Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel decided to dismiss all the pending criminal cases.

Prosecutors alleged that the investigation had been botched and pledged to start over from scratch. They had uncovered over 20 million documents that had not been reviewed and were critical of how their predecessors offered plea deals to seven officials that resulted in no jail time. The new administration promised to move forward with a more "thorough, methodical, and ethical investigation."

While it is possible that similar charges will be refiled against the culprits, so far, many of them have already been dropped. As of February 2019, more than 75 lawsuits have been filed in regards to the crisis. Lawsuits against the city of Flint, the state of Michigan, Genesee County, Governor Snyder, the MDEQ, the EPA, the two engineering companies who were hired to consult the city on the switch, and so on.

In January 2020, the Supreme Court declined to hear two of the cases, allowing them to proceed in the lower courts and asserting the Flint residents' right to a remedy.

Flint has replaced more than 6,000 lead pipes, but nearly 10,000 are left. The state insists the water quality is restored. Reportedly, lead levels in Flint's water have been below federal limits since January 2017. Thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars in grants, aid, and other donations, thousands of service lines and lead pipes have been inspected or replaced.

According to Michigan Radio, Flint's drinking water system has become one of the most closely monitored and most rigorously tested in the country, for obvious reasons. In fact, at this point, Flint's lead levels are better than at least six other cities in Michigan alone.

But the long-term effects of the crisis are still not fully known. According to a new medical research study, fetal death rates increased by 58% in Flint after the city switched its water source back in April of 2014. The researchers say between 198 and 276 more children would have been born had Flint not enacted that switch in the water supply.

As for the citizens of Flint, they're still using water filters, still relying on bottled water donations, still not trusting the government. Many of the residents are not convinced that the water is safe, including the mayor, and after everything that has transpired. Can you blame them? There is a reason to be wary. Thanks to aging infrastructure and cuts to environmental regulations and funding, this could happen again. It's already happening. In the United States, in Canada, in Australia,

It's possible anywhere brass or copper pipes are installed. As Professor Mark Edwards said after the Washington, D.C. crisis, "If we do not learn from our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them." Flint has already proven him correct. The question is, have we learned from our mistakes? If not, it's only a matter of time before what happened in Flint, Michigan.

happens in your backyard. Dr. Mark Edwards exposed high levels of lead in Flint, Michigan, and now he is coming to Newark. These lead levels are quite high. I mean, 400 ppb, one glass of water could really be a very harmful exposure to a child. Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard.

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