opinion

Avoiding tap water has become a way of life in Flint

Outside a taco shop on Flint's Fifth Street, Estella Walker balances a gallon jug of water on top of the stroller that holds her 3-month-old son, DeWayne. She's mixing bottles of formula for DeWayne and his 19-month-old sister Vanessa.

Nadene Strickland sits outside her home on the city's north side, watching her grandsons play basketball. She still drinks the water. She can't afford bottled.

Shopping at the local farmers market with five of her seven children, Tena Fransioli says she hasn't used tap water in a long time.

Across town, it's bath night for LeeAnne Walters' kids. She heats bottled water in the microwave and carries it to the bathroom, slowly filling the tub. In Melissa Mays' bathroom, there's a reminder taped to the wall: To brush your teeth, use the bottled water on the bathroom counter.

This is life in Flint, where you really should not drink the water.

And no one, not in this country in the year 2015, should have to live this way.

For more than a year, Flint residents have been screaming that their water wasn't OK, that it smelled bad, tasted bad, looked bad, and was making them sick.

Few listened. The state told them, again and again, that the water was safe — that contamination had been handled, and that the water was within acceptable levels.

It wasn't until last week that Gov. Rick Snyder finally acknowledged the profound problems with Flint's water. Lead, from aging water service pipes, is leaching into the water the city pumps from the Flint River, exacerbated by a local treatment plant's failure to add appropriate chemicals.

But he still won't call it an emergency.

For decades, the City of Flint bought its water from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, water that arrived "finished" — in other words, treated to make it safe for human consumption. In 2013, the city opted to join the Karegnondi Water Authority, along with Lapeer, Genesee and Sanilac counties, and in 2014, to pump water from the Flint River while the new system is under construction. Joining the KWA didn't mandate the end of Flint's relationship with DWSD — Genesee County, for example, has continued to purchase its water from Detroit, albeit at a premium, said county drain commissioner Jeff Wright.

In Flint, both decisions were made during the appointments of four different emergency managers, turnaround guys brought in by Snyder to fix Flint's budget woes, and with the approval of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which monitors water quality and treatment.

For most of the last year, the state has told residents that Flint's water was fine, that it met the standards of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The state, for the most part, still says that's true.

But now the governor's team acknowledges that their data are incomplete, and that high lead levels found in Flint's water — and an increasing number of Flint kids with elevated blood-lead levels — merit action. Snyder is dedicating $1 million to purchase lead filters for Flint residents, has ordered further testing and is improving corrosion control at the Flint water treatment plant, which should help keep lead out of the water.

Water, water everywhere

The river was never meant to be a long-term answer to Flint's water needs; it was a short-term fix for a broke city scrambling to save money. When Flint joined the Karegnondi Water Authority, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department terminated its 35-year contract with the city. To continue to purchase Detroit water, Flint would have to renegotiate a short-term contract, at a higher cost. Switching to river water saved Flint between $5 million and $7 million a year, a hefty chunk of cash in a city with few resources, and fewer services left to pare.

That region had long wanted its own water system, Genesee drain commissioner Wright says. Because of its elevation, and its distance from Detroit, Flint paid a higher rate for Detroit water than most far-flung communities. Only one pipeline stretches that far north, and that means Flint — and the other KWA communities — are vulnerable. In 2000, Wright says, the pipeline went down, leaving 250,000 people without water for four days. It had happened before, and it has happened since. The area needed a second pipeline, but Detroit wouldn't build it without a 30-year commitment from the communities the pipeline would serve. And at the rates DWSD is obliged to charge, the communities were reluctant to make that commitment, Wright said.

When the KWA is complete next year, Flint will be back on Lake Huron water, same as Detroit. But unless its treatment plant is capable of properly treating the water, its problems will not end.

Because much of our infrastructure is composed of copper pipes with lead welds, systems like Detroit's add anticorrosive agents to prevent lead from leaching into the water. River water is more difficult to treat than lake water, Wright says; its chemistry can change daily. Because the Flint River is shallow, compared with Lake Huron, its temperature is higher. All of this impacts the composition of the water, and what chemicals are required to make it potable and safe to pass through old pipes.

When Flint started pumping river water, the local plant either never employed corrosion control, or didn't employ sufficient control. Remarks made Friday by Michigan Department of Environmental Quality chief Dan Wyant didn't make that entirely clear, and Snyder's spokesperson didn't respond to an e-mail seeking clarification by the Free Press' Friday deadline.

It didn't take long for residents to notice a difference. By June 2014, according to the city, residents began to complain about the water.

And here's the thing that seems to really gall some Flint residents: As the water quality has suffered, their bills have gone up, thanks to rate increases imposed first by Mayor Dayne Walling, and then built into the budget by Snyder's emergency managers. A Genesee Circuit Court judge issued an injunction in August rolling back a 35% rate increase imposed by Walling in 2011.

It's a hard thing, I was told again and again, to pay more for water you can't use, and to have to buy bottled water on top of that.

Undeniable evidence; inevitable consequences

A Virginia Tech University researcher tested water from hundreds of Flint homes, finding elevated lead levels. State data showed the highest rates of lead in Flint's water in 20 years. And a blood test analysis released last week by a local pediatric researcher, and confirmed Friday by the state Department of Health and Human Services, found that the percentage of Flint kids with elevated blood-lead levels has spiked, doubling in certain ZIP codes, since the switch.

In kids, exposure to lead can cause behavior or attention problems, hearing problems, kidney damage, reduced IQ and slowed body growth, among other effects. The damage is irreversible.

For children like Gavin, one of LeeAnne Walters' 4-year-old twins, it's more serious. Because Gavin's immune system is compromised — a condition unrelated to the water — he's more susceptible to the effects of lead. The whole family developed rashes, likely because of a disinfectant added to the water because of coliform bacteria. Gavin stopped gaining weight, lagging his twin; now he's 37 pounds, compared with his twin's 52 pounds. Doctors weren't sure what was happening.

Then she asked the city to test her water. It showed astronomically high rates of lead, prompting an urgent e-mail exchange between the city, the state Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through the Freedom of Information Act — and Walters said she received an urgent call from city hall advising her to stop using it.

Lead screening showed that Gavin's blood-lead levels had soared, up to 6.5 micrograms per deciliter of blood from 2, before the switch.

"I was hysterical," Walters said. "I cried when they gave me my first lead report."

Before that, she'd pushed her kids to drink water instead of juice or soda.

"I'm trying to do my job, as a mom," she said. Now, she says, "my kids will never drink tap water again."

One of the worst things about lead is that it's hard to know exactly how it will manifest.

"What's the difference going to be between Gavin and his brother in school? Is he going to have more issues as this progresses?" Walters said.

That's what haunts Flint mom Melissa Mays, who says her family has experienced a range of health problems she links to the water. Mays and Walters have become relentless advocates for safe water, leading protests, interacting with Virginia Tech researchers and challenging city and state assurances that the water was OK. These days, even her cat drinks bottled water.

"I pushed them to drink water — 'Put down that juice, go get some water,'" she said of her teenage sons. "Lead is in our blood."

Mays told me that she'll always wonder, as her children grow — is this problem because of lead? Would it have happened, regardless?

"I'll never know," she said.

The night I got back from Flint, I ran a bath for my 5-year-old son. I thought about how Mays filled her tub to show me the greenish color of the water. The water running from my bathtub faucet was clear. You might even — not to get too melodramatic — call it sparkling. I don't think I'd properly appreciated that before.

My son splashed around with his toys, plunging his face in to show me how he can hold his nose underwater. He likes to sneak sips of bath water, although I tell him not to, because I'm not sure he should drink water that has soap in it, or whether or not he's peed since he got into the tub. But I don't get too nuts about it.

Because whatever's in there probably won't hurt him.