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O U R STO R I E S › G U I D E

Flint Water Crisis: Everything You Need to Know After officials repeatedly dismissed claims that Flint’s water was making people sick, residents took action. Here’s how the lead contamination crisis unfolded—and what we can learn from it.

November 08, 2018

Melissa Denchak

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Flint Water Crisis Summary

Flint Water Crisis Update

Why Is Lead-Contaminated Water Bad?

Flint Water Crisis Timeline

Beyond Flint

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A story of environmental injustice and bad decision making, the water crisis in Flint,

Michigan, began in 2014, when the city switched its drinking water supply from

Detroit’s system to the Flint River in a cost-saving move. Inadequate treatment and

testing of the water resulted in a series of major water quality and health issues for

Flint residents—issues that were chronically ignored, overlooked, and discounted by

government officials even as complaints mounted that the foul-smelling, discolored,

and off-tasting water piped into Flint homes for 18 months was causing skin rashes,

hair loss, and itchy skin. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission, a state-established

body, concluded that the poor governmental response to the Flint crisis was a “result of

systemic racism.”

Later studies would reveal that the contaminated water was also contributing to a

doubling—and in some cases, tripling—of the incidence of elevated blood lead levels

in the city’s children, imperiling the health of its youngest generation. It was ultimately

the determined, relentless efforts of the Flint community—with the support of doctors,

scientists, journalists, and citizen activists—that shined a light on the city’s severe

mismanagement of its drinking water and forced a reckoning over how such a scandal

could have been allowed to happen.

Fearful of using the tap water to wash their food, Flint residents Melissa and Adam Mays

prepare meals with bottled water.

Brittany Greeson

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Flint Water Crisis Summary

Long before the recent crisis garnered national headlines, the city of Flint was

eminently familiar with water woes. For more than a century, the Flint River, which

flows through the heart of town, has served as an unofficial waste disposal site for

treated and untreated refuse from the many local industries that have sprouted along

its shores, from carriage and car factories to meatpacking plants and lumber and paper

mills. The waterway has also received raw sewage from the city’s waste treatment

plant, agricultural and urban runoff, and toxics from leaching landfills. Not surprisingly,

the Flint River is rumored to have caught fire—twice.

As the industries along the river’s shores evolved, so too did the city’s economy. In the

mid-20th century, Flint—the birthplace of General Motors—was the flourishing home to

nearly 200,000 people, many employed by the booming automobile industry. But the

1980s put the brakes on that period of prosperity, as rising oil prices and auto imports

resulted in shuttered auto plants and laid-off workers, many of whom eventually

relocated. The city found itself in a precipitous decline: Flint’s population has since

plummeted to just 100,000 people, a majority of whom are African-American, and

about 45 percent of its residents live below the poverty line. Nearly one in six of the

city’s homes has been abandoned.

This was the lay of the land in 2011, when Flint, cash-strapped and shouldering a $25

million deficit, fell under state control. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appointed an

emergency manager (basically an unelected official chosen to set local policy) to

oversee and cut city costs. This precipitated the tragic decision in 2013 to end the

city’s five-decade practice of piping treated water for its residents from Detroit in favor

of a cheaper alternative: temporarily pumping water from the Flint River until a new

water pipeline from Lake Huron was built. Although the river water was highly

corrosive, Flint officials failed to treat it, and lead leached out from aging pipes into

thousands of homes.

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Lead levels in Flint water

Soon after the city began supplying residents with Flint River water in April 2014,

residents started complaining that the water from their taps looked, smelled, and tasted

foul. Despite protests by residents lugging jugs of discolored water, officials maintained

that the water was safe. A study conducted the following year by researchers at

Virginia Tech revealed the problem: Water samples collected from 252 homes through

a resident-organized effort indicated citywide lead levels had spiked, with nearly 17

percent of samples registering above the federal “action level” of 15 parts per billion

(ppb), the level at which corrective action must be taken. More than 40 percent

measured above 5 ppb of lead, which the researchers considered an indication of a

“very serious” problem.

Even more alarming were findings reported in September 2015 by Flint pediatrician

Mona Hanna-Attisha: The incidence of elevated blood-lead levels in children citywide

had nearly doubled since 2014—and nearly tripled in certain neighborhoods. As

Hanna-Attisha noted, “Lead is one of the most damning things you can do to a child in

their entire life-course trajectory.” In Flint, nearly 9,000 children were supplied lead-

contaminated water for 18 months.

Five-month-old Dakota Erler of Flint gets blood drawn from her heel in order to have her lead

levels tested at Carriage Town Ministries in 2016.

Brittany Greeson

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More problems with Flint water

Flint’s water supply was plagued by more than lead. The city’s switch from Detroit

water to the Flint River coincided with an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease (a severe

form of pneumonia) that killed 12 and sickened at least 87 people between June 2014

and October 2015. The third-largest outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease recorded in

U.S. history—as well as the discovery in 2014 of fecal coliform bacteria in city water—

was likely a result of the city’s failure to maintain sufficient chlorine in its water mains to

disinfect the water. Ironically, the city’s corrective measure—adding more chlorine

without addressing other underlying issues—created a new problem: elevated levels of

total trihalomethanes (TTHM), cancer-causing chemicals that are by-products of the

chlorination of water.

Flint residents go to court

One of the few bright spots of the Flint water crisis was the response of everyday

citizens who, faced with the failure of city, state, and federal agencies to protect them,

united to force the government to do its job. On the heels of the release of test results

in the fall of 2015 showing elevated lead levels in Flint’s water—and its children—local

residents joined with NRDC and other groups to petition the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA) to launch an immediate emergency federal response to the

disaster. The EPA failed to act, which only spurred residents on.

Flint Water Crisis

L E A R N M O R E

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In early 2016, a coalition of citizens and groups—including Flint resident Melissa Mays,

the local group Concerned Pastors for Social Action, NRDC, and the ACLU of

Michigan—sued the city and state officials in order to secure safe drinking water for

Flint residents. Among the demands of the suit: the proper testing and treatment of

water for lead and the replacement of all the city’s lead pipes. In March 2016, the

coalition took additional action to address an urgent need, filing a motion to ensure that

all residents—including children, the elderly, and others unable to reach the city’s free

water distribution centers—would have access to safe drinking water through a bottled

water delivery service or a robust filter installation and maintenance program.

Those efforts paid off. In November 2016, a federal judge sided with Flint residents and

ordered the implementation of door-to-door delivery of bottled water to every home

without a properly installed and maintained faucet filter. A more momentous win came

the following March with a major settlement requiring the city to replace the city’s

thousands of lead pipes with funding from the state, and guaranteeing further funding

for comprehensive tap water testing, a faucet filter installation and education program,

free bottled water through the following summer, and continued health programs to

help residents deal with the residual effects of Flint’s tainted water.

But the work of Flint residents and their advocates isn’t finished yet. Ensuring that the

provisions of the 2017 settlement are met is an ongoing task. Indeed, members of the

lawsuit have already returned to court to see that the city properly manages its lead

service line replacement program and provides filters for faucets.

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Flint Water Crisis Update

Does Flint have safe water yet?

Governor Snyder seemed to signal the all-clear in April 2018 when he announced that

the city would stop providing bottled water to residents. Indeed, there is some evidence

that the situation in Flint is improving, with lead levels remaining below the federal

action level for the past four six-month monitoring periods, from July 2016 to June

2018.

However, it is important to note that thousands of Flint residents are still getting their

water from lead pipes. The federal action level for lead is not a health-based number; it

merely is an administrative trigger for remediation by the water utility. The EPA and

other health authorities agree that there is no safe level of lead in water, so the

continuing use of lead pipes by thousands of Flint residents remains a concern,

particularly in light of their cumulative lead exposure over many years.

The FAST Start program implemented by the city in March 2016 is working to replace

the thousands of lead and galvanized steel service lines that connect Flint water mains

Melissa Mays and other Flint residents address the media after the House Oversight and

Government Reform Committee hearing to examine the Flint water situation in 2016.

Molly Riley/Associated Press

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to city homes by 2020. But as of October 2018, only a little more than 7,500 pipes had

been upgraded. The slow pace of progress drew the group of residents working with

NRDC back to court to demand that Flint comply with its obligations to identify and

replace lead pipes and supply filters to residents after each pipe replacement.

Flint water crisis charges

In early 2016, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced an independent

review to “determine what, if any, Michigan laws were violated” during Flint’s drinking

water disaster. Over the course of his investigation, 15 people have been charged as

criminally responsible for causing or contributing to the crisis.

To date, the most senior official to be charged is Nick Lyon, director of Michigan’s

Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), who is standing trial for

involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of two men linked to the Legionnaires’ disease

outbreak. While awaiting trial, Lyon remains the state’s health director.

Among other officials charged are the state’s chief medical executive, Dr. Eden Wells,

who allegedly threatened to withhold funds for a project after researchers began

looking into the Legionnaires’ outbreak, and four state officials charged with tampering

with lead test results and instructing residents to flush their taps ahead of testing

(which can produce artificially low lead-level results). Two former Flint emergency

managers, three Flint city officials, and a handful of Michigan Department of

Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and MDHHS employees have also been charged.

Meanwhile, Governor Snyder has not been charged with any crime.

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Why Is Lead-contaminated Water Bad?

Easy to melt and malleable, lead is a heavy metal that has been used by people for

millennia. The Romans added it to makeup, cookware, and paint and even consumed

it as a sweet seasoning and preservative in wine. They used lead in the pipes for their

famous baths as well as their aqueducts. Not surprisingly, the word plumbing is a

derivative of plumbum, the Latin word for lead.

Yet then as now, lead exposure was linked to serious health impacts—even madness

and death. Modern science shows that even low levels of lead can impair the brain

development of fetuses, infants, and young children. The damage can reverberate for

a lifetime, reducing IQ and physical growth and contributing to anemia, hearing

impairment, cardiovascular disease, and behavioral problems. Large doses of lead

exposure in adults has been linked to high blood pressure, heart and kidney disease,

and reduced fertility.

Pure lead pipes, solder, and fittings were banned from U.S. water systems in 1986 (it

was only in 2014 that allowable lead levels in plumbing and fixtures dropped to 0.25

Resident Lorenzo Lee Avery Jr. stands outside of Flint City Hall during a Flint Lives Matter

event in 2016. The city’s ongoing water crisis has left residents dependent on bottled water.

Brittany Greeson

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percent), and national regulations for lead testing and treatment of public water

supplies were established in 1991 with the Lead and Copper Rule. While action by the

water utility is required once the level of lead in public water supplies reaches 15 ppb

(as measured at the 90th percentile of samples collected), the EPA acknowledges that

“there is no safe level of exposure to lead.” Independent tests conducted in fall 2015

revealed that nearly 17 percent of samples from hundreds of Flint homes measured

above the 15 ppb federal lead action level, with several samples registering above 100

ppb.

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Beyond Flint

Far more than pipes were corroded during the Flint water crisis. City, state, and federal

missteps also destroyed residents’ trust in government agencies. Even if studies

indicate Flint’s water is safe, it’s tough to expect its families to drink a glass of tap

water without fear.

Fortunately, a majority of Americans have access to safe water, a luxury most of us

probably enjoy with little thought. But Flint serves as a reminder that safe water isn’t a

guarantee. A recent NRDC analysis found thousands of community water systems

have violated federal drinking water laws, including the Lead and Copper Rule, which

provides safeguards against lead. Meanwhile, there are many contaminants that aren’t

even monitored or regulated, such as perchlorate (a component of rocket fuel) and

PFOA/PFOS/PFAS (chemical cousins of Teflon).

To protect our water supplies, it is crucial that we upgrade our nationwide water

infrastructure, prioritizing the replacement of an estimated 6.1 million lead service

pipes. Strengthening existing government protections, including the Lead and Copper

Rule, is also critical. Michigan is now leading the way, strengthening the state Lead

and Copper Rule to require that all lead service lines be replaced within 20 years,

among other provisions. Though not without flaws, the rule now gives the state the

strongest lead drinking water protections in the country.

If you are concerned about your own drinking water, take a look at your water utility’s

annual water quality report (also called a consumer confidence report), which is usually

posted online and is required to disclose if contaminants have been found in your

water. If contaminants have reached dangerous levels, the water supplier is required to

send customers public notification. The EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Information System

also maintains information about public water systems and their violations. You can go

one step farther by having your water tested, either by your water supplier (which may

provide this service for free) or by a certified lab.

If you discover your water is contaminated, one option is to use NSF-certified water

filters that are designed to eliminate specific contaminants. It is most important,

though, that you notify your water utility. If necessary, you can also contact your

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elected officials, your state’s drinking water program, or the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water

Hotline (800-426-4791).

As NRDC President Rhea Suh noted at the height of the crisis, “When it comes to

providing public services, few things are more fundamental than clean drinking water.

What happened to the people of Flint should never have happened. Let’s make sure it

doesn’t happen again.”

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