2,334 Days and Counting: The Unrelenting Flint Water Crisis

Flint, Michigan STILL does not have clean water.

In the age of smartphones, high-speed internet, and the 24-hour news cycle, information enters and exits the public eye quicker than ever.  In 2020 alone, the constant media coverage of the Australian wildfires quickly became an afterthought when the COVID-19 pandemic halted the world as we know it.  Even though the cameras and journalists disappeared, The Australian wildfires continued to burn.

In April of 2014, the former automobile manufacturing mecca of Flint, Michigan made worldwide headlines.  Through a combination of negligence, government mismanagement, and controversial politics, the 100,000+ residents of Flint were exposed to dangerously high levels of lead in drinking water.  What transpired next was a slew of lawsuits, blame shifting among government entities, and a tragic amount of suffering within the community.  You can find a whole timeline of the Flint Water Crisis here.

But the story of the Flint Water Crisis does not end there.  While the constant media coverage dissipated over time, the city continued to struggle with the aftermath of a massive public health crisis.  At the time of this article’s publication, 2,334 days have passed since Flint switched from Detroit water to the Flint River, and the city STILL does not have safe, clean, drinking water for its residents.

Environmental disasters typically outlast the media attention that they receive initially, and unlike the rest of the world, the residents of communities affected by environmental degradation cannot ignore what has happened.  University of Michigan Senior and longtime Flint resident, Nicole Smith, shared her experience growing up in Flint during the water crisis.

Q: Can you provide some examples about how the Flint Water Crisis affected you and those you know?

Nicole:  The crisis started when I was a freshman in high school and it is crazy to think that I am now a senior in college and the water crisis is still not fully solved.  Many of my friends in Flint needed to have filters installed on all their sinks. For the most part, all my friends still have filters on their sinks today, because they do not necessarily believe the problems that caused the water crisis are fixed.  I also remember giant semi-trucks coming to my high school every day to collect water donations for those in need.  Even today on the University of Michigan-Flint campus, there are filters on every single faucet and fountain, yet students are still hesitant to ever drink or use the water.

Q: So from what you have described, there still seems to be an extreme amount of hesitancy to drink the water, even if it is deemed safe?

Nicole: Yes, I think people still do not feel comfortable.  I do not remember when exactly Governor Snyder stopped sending water to Flint and told our community that the water was “safe”, but because he was part of the problem, people were never going to believe or trust him.  

Q: How do you think the city of Flint reacts when the last pipes are completed and the water crisis will be officially over?  (Aside: The final construction of new water pipes in Flint will commence in November 2020)

Nicole: I do not think you will ever be able to restore Flint residents’ confidence in their leaders.  Residents were going to city hall with samples of dirty faucet water and complaining of mysterious health symptoms, yet they were dismissed by the government.  So how do you put trust in the city again?  Even if that problem has been fixed, what stops this from happening again in the future?  The aftermath of the crisis is still mentally and physically affecting Flint residents today, especially those who lost friends or loved ones.  

Q: In your opinion were there any other factors that worsened the crisis?

Nicole: Yes, when people think of Flint, they picture guns, violence, and a poor city.  I think if this crisis happened years ago before the auto industry deserted the city, it would not have been as bad.  Since Flint has financially struggled for decades, many residents do not have cars, and they had to routinely walk for miles to get water from donation centers.  

Additionally, Flint‘s population is not very educated when compared to other Michigan cities. It was hard to have an uprising against the government to force them to take action on the water crisis when Flint residents did not have the right education or resources.  In other cities like Ann Arbor or Grand Rapids (with a higher percentage of educated people) this would have been a whole different story.  

Q: If  you had a final takeaway or message to decimate the public about the crisis as a local resident, what would it be?

Nicole: Listen and be aware of what is going on around you.  Countless Flint residents were seeing brown water come out of their pipes and it still took a long time to rally the community together and bring this up to the government.  There were all these billboard signs around Flint even before the water crisis which noted the toxicity of the water.  Then, when the crisis finally received media attention, people paid attention for about a month and then the city just felt ignored again. 6 years later, I still drive around Flint and see signs and billboards that say “Flint still does not have clean water”.

Conclusion

Flint, Michigan is a glaring example of an environmental disaster where the media attention dissipates well before the problem is solved.  It is so easy for the general public to close out Twitter or change the news channel that we forget the humanity of environmental disasters.  The anecdotes shared by Nicole are just a small sample of the thousands of hardship tales that the residents of Flint have endured for over six years while the world forgot about them.  When environmental disasters strike it is important that we continue to support those in need, long after the initial media attention has died down, because no environmental problems, especially climate change, are not solved overnight.

A special thank you to Nicole Smith for sharing her invaluable first-hand knowledge and experience of the Flint Water Crisis for this article.

Bibliography

“Flint Water Crisis Fast Facts.” CNN, Cable News Network, 23 Aug. 2020, www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/us/flint-water-crisis-fast-facts/index.html. 

Image Credit Nicole Smith