{"id":92,"date":"2016-05-20T00:16:03","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T04:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/?p=92"},"modified":"2016-05-20T00:16:40","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T04:16:40","slug":"a-corrosive-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/flint-lead-and-drinking-water-by-justin-sardo\/a-corrosive-past\/","title":{"rendered":"A Corrosive Past"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo by Sarah Rice for Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

Flint, Michigan is a city with a tumultuous history. Once proudly named \u201cVehicle City,\u201d Flint \u2013 home of General Motors \u2013 stood\u00a0as the second largest auto-manufacturing town in America. The series of financial crises that rocked the nation during the twentieth century eventually led GM to close its plants, devastating Flint. The road to recovery has been slow and painful. And it looks like it will be slower still. The world is looking to Flint again, this time in the wake of another disaster. The Flint Water Crisis is the product of systemic sociopolitical and racial disparities that have ailed the city since its founding. Still unfolding, the incident exposes a combination of unjust governing policies, gross negligence, and a refusal to acknowledge the plight\u00a0of a historically vulnerable population. In most cases of environmental pollution, harm is not spread equally; Flint is no different. The social, economic, and political marginalization of impoverished, minority, redlined communities in Flint set them up for decades of disinvestment and neglect.\u00a0These\u00a0neighborhoods have felt\u00a0the\u00a0disparate impact\u00a0of the crisis, given that their dilapidation made them more prone to contamination. To understand the roots of the current crisis, it is necessary to dig down into the history books, back to Flint’s\u00a0“glory days.”<\/p>\n

First, an overview of the Water Crisis: In April 2014, two Emergency Managers did away with a long-standing water contract with Detroit, in anticipation of a pipeline from Lake Huron that would bring water directly to Flint. Their switch to Flint River water would save the city $12 million annually until pipeline completion.[1]\u00a0Michigan\u2019s Constitution provides that, in the case of a financial emergency, the governor can appoint Emergency Managers (EMs) to assume control of the city in order to remedy the crisis.[2]\u00a0Since 2011, unelected EMs have held office in Flint. Beholden to neither local nor municipal officials, they decided that it was in Flint\u2019s best interest to give up a safe, reliable source of water for one in which cars, trash, and dead bodies have been found.\u00a0The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) approved the switch, foreseeing no change in water quality. The heavily polluted and poorly treated Flint River water began to corrode the city\u2019s lead pipes. Just a month after making the switch, residents began making complaints of the new water\u2019s strange appearance and odor. The DEQ reassured Flint that \u201cturbidity, residual chlorine and bacteria levels meet all standards set by the state.\u201d[3]\u00a0In the months following the switch, residents started coming down with rashes, headaches, hair loss. Officials paved over concerns. They added more chlorine to the water, resulting in a violation under the Safe Drinking Water Act for trihalomethanes (TTHM) \u2013 a disinfectant byproduct.[4]\u00a0In August of 2014 city officials found E. coli in the water; they mandated nothing more than a boil order.[5]\u00a0GM stopped using the water when they discovered it rusted car parts. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, the EMs, the DEQ, and various other government officials refused to switch Flint\u2019s water source back to Detroit and subverted residents\u2019 claims of environmental pollution. It would not be until January 2016 that Snyder would declare, and President Obama would approve, a state of emergency for the city.<\/p>\n

\"Flint

Flint River Water \/\/ Photo by Sarah Rice for Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

As stated earlier, Flint’s vulnerability to the devastating effects of the water crisis stems from a\u00a0history of marginalization. Flint River water leached lead more from certain pipes, because those pipes sat in dilapidated houses in poor, minority communities that had been kept that way through a history of racist housing policies.\u00a0Marginalization in Flint was an import of big business. Flint fought hard at the turn of the twentieth century to raise the capital needed to keep the newly relocated Buick Motor Company in town. Their gamble paid off. Two years later, Buick\u2019s Chief Tyler Durant founded GM and quickly established Flint as a hub of auto manufacturing. Through 1930, Flint had a population that was 80% white, and only 3.6% black.[6]\u00a0Even then, Flint’s small black community was kept segregated to a select few areas, one of them being the polluted, run down neighborhood of St. John St. In 1919 GM founded the Modern Housing Corporation to provide housing for its workers in just over a decade built almost three thousand houses in Flint. The housing policies that GM set in place, Andrew Highsmith outlines, allowed Jim Crow to take root in Flint. GM had covenants, one of which dictated that homes, \u201c\u2018could not be leased to or occupied by any person or persons not wholly of the white or Caucasian race.\u2019\u201d[7]\u00a0Racist housing policies alone made Flint the \u201cthird most segregated city in the nation.\u201d[8]\u00a0Jim Crow delineated spaces reserved for blacks’ not only in neighborhoods, but also\u00a0in the workforce. As far as GM was concerned, the assembly line was the place of the whites. Black workers were forced to take positions as “janitors or foundry workers.[9] Segregated schools and discriminatory store practices only made life more inhospitable for Flint\u2019s black population. The Great Depression\u2019s nearly 75 percent cut to auto manufacturing sent Flint\u2019s unemployment rates skyrocketing to almost 50 percent.[10]\u00a0The banks all but ceased lending, resulting in rampant housing shortages.<\/p>\n

The federal government responded by creating the Home Owners\u2019 Loan Corporation (HOLC) to buy and refinance mortgage loans for those defaulting on payments. However, the system of valuation reproduced racist policies, as only white homes received the highest value grades.[10]\u00a0This process became known as\u00a0redlining<\/em>, and established which communities held worth, and which were too risky to invest in.[11]\u00a0The HOLC was followed by the 1934 establishment of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which insured bank loans and mortgages in order to assuage banks\u2019 doubts about lending to prospective homeowners. The FHA, too, carried out assessments of which home mortgages should be insured that relied on racial demographics as a metric for judging risk of investment.[12]\u00a0FHA policies all but halted the construction of homes for blacks. The post-World War II boom and labor shortage in Flint, Highsmith says, “trigger[ed] a mass migration of\u00a0black workers to Flint.”[13] The city’s black population doubled in seven years.\u00a0However,\u00a0this far from solved the housing crisis.The FHA-induced real-estate revival resulted in mass evictions of black renters as white landlords looked to cash in on mortgages. And, in this period of tremendous growth, developers built only 25 new homes for blacks – all in the redlined St. John St. neighborhood.[14]\u00a0The influx of African Americans to Flint sparked a parallel exodus of white residents, many of whom left the city, leaving Flint’s marginalized communities\u00a0to suffer the burden.<\/p>\n

Economic growth in the following decades did not translate to urban renewal for neighborhoods like St. John St. They remained the most polluted in the city – lacking any sort of investment. In 1971, GM, Flint’s economic foundation, followed the trend in disinvestment beginning a series of sweeping cuts to its workforce. The “strong trade unions, high wages, obsolete infrastructure, and increasingly anti-corporate political climate” that developed in the years preceding, like white flight, turned GM away from the city.[15] The company began to invest elsewhere. OPEC\u2019s 1973 oil embargo on the U.S. and the 1979 drop in oil production hit Flint hard.\u00a0In 1975, unemployment stayed in the range of 15 and 20 percent, 50 percent for African Americans.[16]\u00a0Again, Flint\u00a0residents\u00a0took flight: within eight years\u00a0the population fell 20 percent. Property abandonment and neglect for remaining communities – many, poor minority neighborhoods\u00a0– were rampant. In response to huge financial losses, GM worked to increase efficiency by \u201cspatially [integrating] manufacturing and assembly\u201d by centralizing production in a $475 million facility called Buick City.[17]\u00a0In November 1999, following a decade of plant closures, GM shut down the facility. Flint was left to suffer a 30.8 percent poverty rate \u2013 36.4 percent for blacks.[18]<\/p>\n

In the wake of GM\u2019s Buick City closure and parallel closures in Detroit, Michigan has struggled to regain economic footing. Since 1990 local governments have had the power pursuant to Public Act 72 to appoint Emergency Managers in order to ensure that citizens receive \u201cbasic services\u201d during a financial emergency. The state first exercised that authority in 2009.[19]\u00a0EMs are instituted in order to mitigate fiscal effects on communities, but they assume control of aspects of city regulation ranging from education to public health. Emergency Managers are not locally elected officials. Their appointment completely undermines citizens\u2019 ability to select their own leaders, threatening principles fundamental to American democracy. Many have called the system racist. As a\u00a0Root\u00a0<\/em>article explains, \u201cEmergency financial managers have been primarily assigned to majority-African-American cities across Michigan. In the past decade, over half of African Americans in Michigan\u2014compared with only 2 percent of whites\u2014have lived under emergency management.\u201d[20]\u00a0Emergency Managers, residents argue, represent a conservative, white leadership. Labor unions have found their agreements with city officials essentially null and void.[21]\u00a0The fact that EMs are fiscal specialists but are delegated with public health has meant that many health concerns go under-noticed and under-treated \u2013 a criticism with particular salience in the wake of the Water Crisis.[22]\u00a0The six EMs who have controlled Flint since 2011 have undertaken their fiscal responsibilities by, in some cases, cutting pay or jobs for city employees, and raising water costs or taking from the water budget.[23]\u00a0Their appointment left Flint\u2019s government without authority to \u201cindependently check water quality after concerns were raised.\u201d[24]\u00a0Emergency Law set Flint up to have poor decisions made, without accountability, on behalf of residents and left the city without the political resources to respond to an incident. In short, emergency management set Flint up for disaster.<\/p>\n

The disaster, once it hit, did not have equitable effects. Flint\u2019s history of racist housing policies established under the HOLC and FHA and upheld by social, economic, and political forces in the decades following ensured that the impact be felt disproportionately. It helps to note that the current water crisis is not Flint\u2019s first incident of lead pollution. The 1992 construction of the $80 million Genesee Power Station and incinerator in the predominantly black North End (a region including St. John St.) showed how labeling\u00a0a community as “undesirable” makes it the target of undesirable activities (like waste disposal). The North End was widely recognized to be the most polluted area in Flint. This of course was because developers and city officials had, over the decades, ensured that it be such. As a result, they had few qualms about poisoning the North End\u2019s air, burning wood coated in lead-based paint.[25]\u00a0Then, as now, the DEQ neglected residents\u2019 concerns about the dangers of the project, suggesting that it was making the fiscally savvy decision for the good of Flint.[26]\u00a0Residents’ joint\u00a0suit\u00a0with the NAACP and activist group United for Action was ultimately filed in vain. Similar dynamics were at play in regards to the water crisis.\u00a0It was in September of 2016, more than two-and-a-half years after Flint changed its water source, that the first tests were conducted \u2013 not by the government \u2013 on residents\u2019 blood lead levels. Pediatrician Mona Hanna-Atisha\u2019s findings were startling. The number of children with lead poisoning rose from 2.4% to 4.9% after the switch to the Flint River.[27]\u00a0More significantly, numbers in the \u201csocioeconomically disadvantaged,\u201d predominantly black Fifth Ward rose from 4.9% to 15.7% revealing marginalization to be a key factor in crisis evaluation.[28]\u00a0A\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0<\/em>article ascribes the data gap to limited access to \u201cbottled water and filters\u201d and \u201cpoor nutrition\u201d (and thus greater vulnerability to lead poisoning) for the \u201c40% of the population liv[ing] below the poverty line.\u201d[29]\u00a0Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards who has been leading the charge to test Flint\u2019s water additionally points out that, as previously mentioned, \u201cwater tends to sit in pipes longer in neighborhoods with vacant houses,\u201d \u2013 that is, disadvantaged minority communities \u2013 and thus has a greater corrosive effect.[30]<\/p>\n

State officials initially denied Hanna-Atisha\u2019s findings, along with a host of other independently conducted studies. What becomes clear is that the Water Crisis is larger than water; it is the story of a city that allowed certain communities to corrode and was deaf to their plight. Only now, with the nation\u2019s eyes on Flint, have officials have let up in their suppression campaigns and begun to open a window on the conditions that governments, developers, and residents\u00a0have chosen to ignore and perpetuate.<\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0Mitch Smith, \u201cA Water Dilemma in Michigan: Butty or Costly?\u201d\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, March 24, 2015, accessed March 16, 2016, http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/03\/25\/us\/a-water-dilemma-in-michigan-cheaper-or-clearer.html?_r=1.<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0\u201cEmergency Manager Law,\u201d\u00a0State of Michigan<\/em>, accessed March 16, 2016, https:\/\/www.michigan.gov\/documents\/snyder\/EMF_Fact_Sheet2_347889_7.pdf.<\/p>\n

[3]\u00a0Hannah Rappleye, Lisa Riordan Seville and Tacy Connor, \u201cDecisions, Broken Promises: A Timeline of the Flint Water Crisis,\u201d\u00a0NBC News<\/em>, accessed March 16, 2016, http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/bad-decisions-broken-promises-timeline-flint-water-crisis-n499641.<\/p>\n

[4]\u00a0Smith, \u201cA Water Dilemma in Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n

[5]\u00a0Smith, \u201cA Water Dilemma in Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n

[6]Andrew Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress: Flint, Michigan, and the fate of the American metropolis\u00a0<\/em>(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015):\u00a027.<\/p>\n

[7]\u00a0\u00a0Highsmith, Demolition means progress<\/em>, 32.<\/p>\n

[8]\u00a0Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress<\/em>, 34.<\/p>\n

[9] Highsmith, Demolition means progress<\/em>, 34.<\/p>\n

[10]\u00a0Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress<\/em>, 37.<\/p>\n

[11]\u00a0Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress<\/em>, 38.<\/p>\n

[12] Highsmith, Demolition means progress<\/em>, 39.<\/p>\n

[13]\u00a0Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress<\/em>, 50.<\/p>\n

[14] Highsmith, Demolition means progress<\/em>, 50.<\/p>\n

[15]\u00a0Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress<\/em>, 50.<\/p>\n

[16] Highsmith, Demolition means progress<\/em>, 243.<\/p>\n

[17]\u00a0Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress<\/em>, 246.<\/p>\n

[18]\u00a0Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress<\/em>, 255.<\/p>\n

[19]\u00a0Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress<\/em>, 254.<\/p>\n

[20]\u00a0Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress<\/em>, 254.<\/p>\n

[21]\u00a0\u201cEmergency Manager Law\u201d.<\/p>\n

[22]\u00a0Louise Seamster and Jessica Welburn, \u201cHow a Racist System Has Poisoned the Water in Flint, Mich.,\u201d\u00a0The Root<\/em>, January 9, 2016, accessed March 16, 2016, http:\/\/www.theroot.com\/articles\/politics\/2016\/01\/how_a_racist_system_has_poisoned_the_water_in_flint_mich.html.<\/p>\n

[23]\u00a0Steven Yaccino, \u201cMichigan Voters Repeal a Financial Law,\u201d\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, November 7, 2012, accessed March 16, 2016, http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/11\/08\/us\/michigan-voters-kill-emergency-managers-for-city-finances.html.<\/p>\n

[24]\u00a0Julie Bosman and Monica Davey, \u201cAnger in Michigan Over Appointing Emergency Managers,\u201d\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, January 22, 2016, accessed March 16, 2016, http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/01\/23\/us\/anger-in-michigan-over-appointing-emergency-managers.html?_r=0<\/p>\n

[25]\u00a0Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress<\/em>, 252.<\/p>\n

[26]\u00a0Highsmith,\u00a0Demolition means progress<\/em>, 27.<\/p>\n

[27]\u00a0Seamster and Welburn, \u201cHow a Racist System\u201d<\/p>\n

[28]\u00a0Seamster and Welburn, \u201cHow a Racist System\u201d<\/p>\n

[29]\u00a0Kris Maher, \u201cU.S. News: Flint’s Poorest at Center of Crisis \u2013 Research Finds the Highest Lead Exposure among City’s Children in Least Affluent Wards,\u201d\u00a0Wall Street<\/em>\u00a0Journal<\/em>, February 29 2016,\u00a0ProQuest<\/em>, accessed March 16 2016, http:\/\/search.proquest.com\/nationalnewspremier\/docview\/1768524821\/EF27AAEDA74245D4PQ\/21?accountid=15054.<\/p>\n

[30]\u00a0Maher, \u201cFlint\u2019s Poorest at Center of Crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

[31]\u00a0Maher, \u201cFlint\u2019s Poorest at Center of Crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

[32]\u00a0Maher, \u201cFlint\u2019s Poorest at Center of Crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Flint, Michigan is a city with a tumultuous history. Once proudly named \u201cVehicle City,\u201d Flint \u2013 home of General Motors \u2013 stood\u00a0as the second largest auto-manufacturing town in America. The series of financial crises that rocked the nation during the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1067,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flint-lead-and-drinking-water-by-justin-sardo"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1067"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/envi-322-s16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}