Tag: Flint lead crisis

The Safe Drinking Water Act turns 50

Published on December 17th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

The law that protects the quality of America’s more than 170,000 public drinking water supplies is 50 years old as of Monday, December 16. While the Safe Drinking Water Act’s results have been mixed, its purpose and impact have become ever more relevant over the past five decades.

The potential impact of unsafe drinking water was demonstrated in Milwaukee when, in 1993, inadequate treatment led to a disease outbreak resulting from cryptosporidium, which affected 403,000 people and resulted in at least 69 deaths. The lead contamination of Flint’s water supply, beginning in 2014, exposed about 99,000 people to high levels of the neurotoxin. Flint officials failed to properly treat lead when the city switched to a new water supply, leading to concerns about high lead levels in children. The water switch also contributed to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease—a potentially life-threatening form of pneumonia—that killed at least 12 residents.

The backbone of the law is the setting of enforceable national standards for primary contaminants ranging from microorganisms to human-made chemicals like PCBs.

For each regulated contaminant, EPA sets a health goal based on risk (including risks to the most sensitive people, e.g., infants, children, pregnant women, the elderly, and the immuno-compromised). EPA then sets a legal limit for the contaminant in drinking water or a required treatment technique.

Earlier this year, EPA set standards for six PFAS compounds, the first time any of this family of chemicals has been thus regulated.

The Safe Drinking Water Act covers 1,400 community water supplies and 10,000 noncommunity water supplies in Michigan. (A noncommunity system provides water for drinking or potable purposes to 25 or more persons at least 60 days per year or has 15 or more service connections.)

Michigan community water supplies had 35 chemical standards violations in 2023: four for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) at one supply, four for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) at two supplies, 23 for arsenic at seven supplies, and four for Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate at two supplies. There were 21 new or continuing chemical MCL violations reported in 2023 at noncommunity water systems. There were nine supplies that incurred arsenic MCL violations, seven had nitrate MCL violations, and five were issued PFAS MCL violations.

The standards do not cover private water wells serving fewer than 25 people. Michigan has over 1.1 million such wells.

Amendments to the law in 1986 and 1996 expanded the law’s scope to include prevention of drinking water contamination and education. Each customer of a public water supply is supposed to receive an annual report, called a consumer confidence report, on the quality of that supply and any exceedances of the drinking water standards in the previous year.

The law also provides low-interest loans to communities to upgrade their safe drinking water infrastructure. Michigan’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund is the source of the state loans. The funding available, however, falls far short of Michigan’s drinking water infrastructure needs. A 2021 analysis of the state’s infrastructure needs found that Michigan has an annual unmet need of $860 million to $1.1 billion for drinking water treatment systems and upgrades.

“Many of Michigan’s water systems are older than the Safe Drinking Water Act itself,” Phil Roos, the director of Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Environment noted this fall. “Many systems are over 50 years old, with some approaching a century of service. Decades of underinvestment have left many communities struggling to maintain critical infrastructure.”

Delivering Water In Flint: An Outsider Documents a Community in Crisis and Recovery

Published on May 23rd, 2022 by - Blog Posts

David Hardin, author of Standpipe, Delivering Water In Flint

In his 2021 book Standpipe, Delivering Water In Flint, author David Hardin paints a portrait of a community reeling from the lead poisoning of its public water supply. Volunteering to deliver clean water to Flint households, Hardin finds both profound hardship and the will of the Flint community. The Library of Michigan named Standpipe one of 20 Michigan Notable Books for 2022. FLOW interviewed him about what the plight of Flint revealed to him.

FLOW: How would you characterize the state of the community while you were volunteering there? Did you see resilience as well as tragedy?

The folks who invited me into their homes never failed to challenge my narrow assumptions about what kind of people live in Flint. I arrived armed with a story of the city acquired over time from local news, hearsay, and Michael Moore. It wasn’t completely inaccurate, but it was unbalanced and biased, absent the perspective of first-hand experience. Resiliency and hope exist alongside despair, complacency, and anger. I would say that the citizens of Flint, by and large, are not defined by crisis, be it lead-poisoned water, racial injustice, economic inequality, or post-industrial decline.

The human spirit is vast. It encompasses both good and bad and in between, something I was reminded of every day in Flint.

FLOW: Some of the most affecting passages in the book are where you describe individuals.

Trying to preserve memories of the people I met was the genesis of the project. I didn’t set out to write a book, but only to capture brief sketches of interesting people going about their lives in the midst of an existential, urban crisis. My heart went out to the children I met. Growing up in Flint is challenging, but many of the struggles are born of abstraction: institutional racism, lack of political agency, poverty, deindustrialization. Access to fresh water is concrete, inarguable, the reason humans settled along the banks of the Flint River in the first place. The book is full of portraits of citizens and fellow Red Cross volunteers. I like to think of them as small jewel-like paintings.

FLOW: What has the experience of volunteering in Flint taught you about the value of water?

I grew up taking clean water from the tap for granted. I’m fortunate to have been born at a time, in a place, where clean water was seen as essential to a functioning democracy, a fundamental communal right, not a privilege for the few. Community activists and public health officials worked long and hard to pass laws to insure everyone has access to safe, clean water. I no longer take it for granted. The work continues. Communities around Michigan are struggling with water problems, from Ann Arbor to Muskegon. The wells of people living near former or active military installations are threatened by the class of chemicals known as PFAS. Lead service lines and antiquated municipal systems affect millions.   

The folks who invited me into their homes never failed to challenge my narrow assumptions about what kind of people live in Flint. The citizens of Flint, by and large, are not defined by crisis, be it lead-poisoned water, racial injustice, economic inequality, or post-industrial decline.

FLOW: Your narrative intersperses the story of the people of Flint with episodes of your own story. What inspired this idea, and what do you see as the connection?

Weaving together my experience in Flint with the arc of the fractured relationship I had with my mother seems obvious, in hindsight. It took quite a while before I was able to recognize my own feelings of loss, grief, rage, and helplessness mirrored in many of the people I met in Flint. These emotions are nothing new to the citizens of Flint; my troubles pale in comparison to the woes of a city long in decline. But finding empathy for them enabled me to be with my own feelings in a more skillful way and move toward equanimity, a practice that never ends.

FLOW: As you make the rounds promoting your Michigan notable book, what kind of responses do you get?

Those who haven’t read the book assume it’s a journalistic account of the Flint Water Crisis. Some very good books have been written about the origins of the water crisis and threats to the health of Flint’s citizens. I hope Standpipe complements these fine books and gives readers a different perspective on an issue that continues to resonate here in Michigan.  

I grew up taking clean water from the tap for granted. I’m fortunate to have been born at a time, in a place, where clean water was seen as essential to a functioning democracy, a fundamental communal right, not a privilege for the few.

FLOW: How did you emerge from the experience psychologically? 

I volunteered in Flint only for a short time, as compared to many others. On a typical day, my emotions ran the gamut from determination to gratitude to wariness to joy to boredom to anger–repeat. Going to Flint in the first place was a direct response to personal grief over my own loss. I left with mixed feelings: guarded hope for a better future for the citizens of Flint, anger toward those in power responsible for the crisis, and a sense of gratitude for having made a difference, however small–putting a check mark in the good column.

Access to fresh water is concrete, inarguable, the reason humans settled along the banks of the Flint River in the first place.

FLOW: Are you hopeful or pessimistic that our government can treat communities like Flint with respect?

I would like to think otherwise, but I’m afraid our native sense of working for the common good has been eroded by economic inequality, corporate greed, fear, misplaced anger, and the machinations of those who would fuel populist rage for political advantage. Divisions over masks, vaccination, and the settled science of climate change–our ongoing culture war, sometimes leave me feeling pessimistic. However, the human spirit is vast. It encompasses both good and bad and in between, something I was reminded of every day in Flint. At the end of the day, my grandsons give me hope for the future.

For information on this year’s Michigan Notable Books and related author appearances, visit the Library of Michigan website.

From PBB to PFAS to Lead: Will Government Ever Learn?

Published on February 9th, 2022 by - Blog Posts, News

When a coalition of citizen groups, including FLOW, last fall urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect the nearly 10,000 residents of Benton Harbor from lead in their drinking water, it was a reminder that government officials have failed to heed the lessons of a half-century of Michigan environmental health disasters.

Once again, Michigan’s state government had failed to act with urgency to protect the public from toxic contaminants.

Once again, Michigan’s state government had failed to act with urgency to protect the public from toxic contaminants.

This week, seeking to protect Benton Harbor residents from lead as well as hoping to head off further criticism, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services promised to continue providing bottled water to the community until all lead pipes are replaced.

Last fall’s petition, coordinated by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Benton Harbor Community Water Council, and the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, called on the EPA to prevent continuing lead exposure to the drinking water utility customers in the city. The petition came only after officials in Michigan’s Departments of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) and Health and Human Services moved sluggishly to address the problem of lead in Benton Harbor’s drinking water pipelines and tap water.

Coming just eight years after the infamous lead poisoning of the people of Flint, the Benton Harbor crisis once again demonstrated the inability or unwillingness of government agencies to mobilize quickly to protect public health—and their refusal, in some cases, to communicate openly with citizens about risk.

The road to Benton Harbor can be said to begin in St. Louis, Michigan, in the spring of 1973.

St. Louis, Michigan, photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The road to Benton Harbor can be said to begin in St. Louis, Michigan, in the spring of 1973. The Michigan Chemical Company produced both a toxic flame retardant, PBB, sold under the trade name FireMaster, and a cattle feed supplement sold under the trade name NutriMaster. A shortage of preprinted paper bag containers led to bags of PBB accidentally being sent to Michigan Farm Bureau Services in place of NutriMaster. This accident was not recognized until the spring of 1974.

PBB had entered the food chain through milk and other dairy products, beef products, and contaminated swine, sheep, chickens, and eggs. As a result of this incident, more than 500 contaminated Michigan farms were quarantined, and approximately 30,000 cattle, 4,500 swine, 1,500 sheep, and 1.5 million chickens were destroyed, along with more than 800 tons of animal feed, 18,000 pounds of cheese, 2,500 pounds of butter, 5 million eggs, and 34,000 pounds of dried milk products.

Even worse, millions of Michigan citizens ingested PBB, with unknown health impacts. To the most affected farm families, however, health effects have been palpable.

To compound the disaster, state government health officials dismissed public concerns about the impact of PBB until their complacency was exposed by test results from contaminated farm animals. Even then, they expressed skepticism about human health impacts. The resulting loss of public confidence in the state’s response and in the administration of Governor William Milliken left scars for years.

Flint bottled water photo courtesy of White Pine Press, NMC’s student-run newspaper

The 2014 Flint disaster demonstrated historical amnesia.

The 2014 Flint disaster demonstrated historical amnesia. After a state-appointed emergency manager authorized a shift in the source of the city’s drinking water from the safe metropolitan Detroit supply to the Flint River, whose chemistry corroded the interior of water pipes and released lead, citizens complained about the look and taste of their drinking water. At first, state officials said the water was safe and mocked a lead study undertaken by Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards. Ultimately, two state department heads lost their jobs as it became clear that the 99,000 residents of Flint had absorbed lead at levels of concern, and then-Governor Rick Snyder was forced to apologize for his administration’s inadequate response. Snyder still faces criminal charges related to the disaster.

The Snyder administration also blundered in dealing with a class of toxic compounds known as PFAS, the so-called “forever chemicals” because they do not readily break down in the environment.

The Snyder administration also blundered in dealing with a class of toxic compounds known as PFAS, the so-called “forever chemicals” because they do not readily break down in the environment. When scientist Robert Delaney of what was then the Department of Environmental Quality warned of widespread PFAS contamination in Michigan, his concerns were largely brushed aside. It turned out that the scientist was correct–PFAS have been identified at approximately 200 sites in Michigan and are suspected at hundreds more locations. Citizens have been exposed to chemicals shown to cause serious health effects in laboratory animals, and it will cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to clean up the PFAS messes.

To her credit, Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s first executive directive after she took office in 2019 encouraged state employees to come forward to her office if they had reason to believe in a significant threat to the public health and welfare and were concerned the state was not acting swiftly enough. The Governor also promised transparency in addressing environmental health concerns.

It was surprising, then, that EGLE officials delayed for more than eight months telling residents of 18 homes in East Bay Township near Traverse City that the state was investigating the possible presence of PFAS in their private drinking water wells.

It was surprising, then, that EGLE officials delayed for more than eight months telling residents of 18 homes in East Bay Township near Traverse City that the state was investigating the possible presence of PFAS in their private drinking water wells. Saying they did not want to alarm citizens unnecessarily, they provoked outrage when the well testing showed PFAS. The homeowners were understandably angry. Some might have taken precautions to avoid even the chance of exposure to the pollutants. Eventually, their homes were connected to a safe municipal drinking water supply, but it is not known how long the residents were exposed.

That brings us back to Benton Harbor. Elevated lead levels were detected in city tap water for three years–at levels as much as 60 times higher than health standards–without effective state or local government action, until the coalition of community and environmental groups filed the September 2021 petition. This galvanized an emergency order from EPA and promises from Governor Whitmer to move expeditiously to replace the city’s lead drinking water pipes.

But as the Reverend Edward Pinkney, President of the Benton Harbor Community Water Council (BHCWC) wrote, “This news has been tough to swallow especially after seeing the devastation of Flint, because we know that it’s the kids whose health will be hit hardest by this crisis. Too many parents of Benton Harbor are feeling overwhelmed thinking that they have failed their children through no fault of their own.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer visits the first lead service line replacement construction site in Benton Harbor on Nov. 9, 2021.

Government exists to serve the people. In the face of a confirmed or suspected environmental health threat, the first response of officials ought to be concern and action, not denial and delay.

Government exists to serve the people. In the face of a confirmed or suspected environmental health threat, the first response of officials ought to be concern and action, not denial and delay. We can only hope that 50 years from now, a new generation of Michiganders does not have to learn the same hard lesson at a significant cost to human health.