Flint water crisis

The Flint water crisis was a public health crisis from 2014 to 2019 which involved the drinking water for the city of Flint, Michigan, being contaminated with lead and possibly Legionella bacteria.
In April 2014, during a financial crisis, state-appointed emergency manager Darnell Earley changed Flint's water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (sourced from Lake Huron and the Detroit River) to the Flint River. Residents complained about the taste, smell, and appearance of the water. Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels. A pair of scientific studies confirmed that lead contamination was present in the water supply. The city switched back to the Detroit water system on October 16, 2015. It later signed a 30-year contract with the new Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) on November 22, 2017.
On January 5, 2016, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in Genesee County, of which Flint is the major population center. Shortly thereafter, President Barack Obama declared a federal state of emergency, authorizing additional help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.
Between 6,000 and 14,000 children were exposed to drinking water with high levels of lead. Children are particularly at risk from the long-term effects of lead poisoning, which can include a reduction in intellectual functioning and IQ, increased issues with mental and physical health, and an increased chance of Alzheimer's disease. The water supply change was considered a possible cause of an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in the county that killed 12 people and affected another 87, but the original source of the bacteria was never found.
Four government officials—one from the city of Flint, two from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), and one from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—resigned over the mishandling of the crisis, and one additional MDEQ staff member was fired. In January 2021, former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and eight other officials were charged with 34 felony counts and seven misdemeanors—41 counts in all—for their role in the crisis. Two officials were charged with involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen criminal cases have been filed against local and state officials, but only one minor conviction has been obtained, and all other charges have been dismissed or dropped. On August 20, 2020, the victims of the water crisis were awarded a combined settlement of $600 million, with 80% going to the families of children affected by the crisis. By November, the settlement grew to $641 million.
An extensive lead service pipe replacement effort has been underway since 2016. In early 2017, some officials asserted that the water quality had returned to acceptable levels, but in January 2019, residents and officials expressed doubt about the cleanliness of the water. There were an estimated 2,500 lead service pipes still in place as of April 2019. As of December 8, 2020, fewer than 500 service lines still needed to be inspected. As of July 16, 2021, 27,133 water service lines had been excavated and inspected, resulting in the replacement of 10,059 lead pipes. After $400 million in state and federal spending, Flint has secured a clean water source, distributed filters to all who want them, and laid modern, safe, copper pipes to nearly every home in the city. Politico declared that its water is "just as good as any city's in Michigan." However, a legacy of distrust remains, so residents often refuse to drink the tap water.
The following is a sequence of events related to the Flint water crisis.
Some water service lines in Flint were installed between 1901 and 1920. As with many other municipalities at the time, all of the service lines from the cast iron water mains to end users' homes were constructed of lead, because it was relatively inexpensive and easy to work. Lead from the pipes can leach into the water, especially if certain contaminants are present. However, the water from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, where Flint had obtained its water since 1967, had been treated well enough that the leaching from the lead pipes was at levels considered acceptable by state and federal environmental protection agencies. There are an estimated 43,000 service lines in the city; when the crisis began, these included 3,500 lead lines, 9,000 known galvanized steel lines, and 9,000 unknown service lines.
Lead exposure across the U.S. has fallen dramatically since the 1980s, but no blood-lead level is considered completely safe. Children under age five, and especially infants and unborn children, bear the greatest risk of deleterious and irreversible health outcomes. From 2012 to 2016, the CDC set a "reference level" of 5 micrograms per deciliter (μg/dL), in order to target for case management the 2.5% of young American children with the highest blood-lead levels. At 45 μg/dL, chelation therapy is considered. Among the many ways lead can enter a modern American's bloodstream is through lead plumbing. Acidic water makes it easier for the lead found in pipes, leaded solder, and brass faucets to dissolve and to enter a home's drinking water. Therefore, public water treatment systems are legally required to use control measures to make water less acidic. Plumbing that contains lead is often found in buildings constructed in the 1980s and earlier.
From 2011 to 2015, Governor Snyder appointed four emergency managers to control Flint's finances. After 2015, the city continued to receive financial guidance under the lesser oversight of a Receivership Transition Advisory Board.
In 2011, Genesee County initiated the switch to the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA); the KWA would supply water to both Genesee County and Flint. On March 25, 2013, the purchase of 16 million US gallons (61,000 m) per day from the KWA was approved by the Flint City Council. The KWA informed the council that they could dig to Lake Huron (the new water supply) in 30 months using a bored tunnel. Ed Kurtz, Flint's emergency manager, along with Mayor Dayne Walling and Flint City Council, approved the action and awaited the State Treasurer's approval. Following this decision, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) negotiated with Flint officials by offering to restructure water payments. Flint declined, preferring to use KWA.
On April 1, 2013, DWSD demanded that the state deny Flint's request, as it would start a water war, which would hurt DWSD. Drain Commissioner Wright of Genesee County accused the DWSD of media negotiation and then replied, "It would be unprecedented for the state to force one community to enter into an agreement with another, simply to artificially help one community at the other's expense ... this is exactly what the [Detroit Water and Sewerage Department] is arguing".
On April 15, 2013, State Treasurer Andy Dillon approved the water purchase contract with the KWA. Emergency Manager Kurtz signed the KWA water purchase agreement the following day. On April 17, the DWSD delivered its one-year termination notice after Flint rejected their last offer. The DWSD expected that Flint would reimburse the investments for the water system that benefited regional customers. Flint and Genesee County rejected such responsibility but indicated their willingness to purchase pipelines.
In April 2014, to save about $5 million in two years, Flint started treating water from the Flint River instead of purchasing Lake Huron water from Detroit. Previously, the Flint River was the backup water source. In June 2014, Flint's Emergency Manager Darnell Earley finalized the sale of a nine-mile (14 km) section of water pipeline to Genesee County for $3.9 million. This pipeline fed DWSD water into the county, and after the KWA pipeline was active, would service the eastern part of the county as well. By December 2014, the city had invested $4 million into its water plant. On July 1, 2014, Earley gave operational authority to Mayor Dayne Walling over two city departments, including Public Works. It was later reported that by not adding a corrosion inhibitor, Flint was going to save about $140 per day.
After the permanent switch to the Flint River, city residents began complaining about the color, taste, and odor of their water. In August and September 2014, city officials detected levels of coliform bacteria, so residents were advised to boil their water. MDEQ determined that cold weather, aging pipes, and a population decline were the cause of these bacteria. According to Stephen Busch, an MDEQ district supervisor, the city took appropriate measures to limit a recurrence. General Motors (GM) made the first complaint about the corrosivity of the water. GM stopped using Flint water in October 2014, after reporting that the water was corroding car parts. General Motors requested to switch back to the DWSD water source, which was later approved by city officials.
Prior to August 2014, additional chlorine had been added to eliminate bacteria from the Flint River. This is likely the cause of a spike in trihalomethanes, unsafe chlorine byproducts, in one of eight water locations. Long-term exposure to these chemicals has been linked to cancer and other diseases. Following this test, the MDEQ placed Flint on violation notice but did not reveal the information to residents until January 2015. The employees of the Flint Public Library declared the water undrinkable after noticing that it was discolored, despite the city's claim that the water was safe. Since 2014, the library has provided safe water for the public alongside the state's most prominent bottled water provider. January and February 2015 tests showed that the city water met all health and safety standards. Nevertheless, the DWSD offered to reconnect Flint, waiving a $4 million connection fee, but was declined by Emergency Manager Jerry Ambrose. MDEQ officials indicated that there is no "imminent threat to public health", as the nature of the issue was "communicated poorly".
In March 2015, Flint voted to switch back to the DWSD. This vote was motivated by residential complaints and recommendations from Veolia North America to prevent the city from further violating the Safe Drinking Water Act. Ambrose disagreed with the reintroduction of the Detroit water source. Ambrose argued, "Flint water today is safe by all Environmental Protection Agency and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality standards, and the city is working daily to improve its quality." In August 2015, it was found that local organizations observed that high concentrations of chloride caused the water to be orange and that the water contained high levels of lead. The lead levels were caused by the omission of orthophosphate treatments, which led to excessive pipe corrosion. Consequently, the three organizations "delivered more than 26,000 online petition signatures to Mayor Dayne Walling, demanding the city end its use of the Flint River and reconnect to the Detroit water system." Flint's water supply was switched back to DWSD in October 2015. Subsequently, Flint started adding additional orthophosphate to the water to rebuild the pipe lining.
On October 8, 2015, Snyder requested that Michigan legislators contribute $6 million of the $12 million for Flint to return to Lake Huron water. The city of Flint would pay $2 million, and the Flint-based Charles Stewart Mott Foundation would pay $4 million. Jim Ananich, the State Senator representing Flint, demanded that the state refund the $2 million to the city. Ananich also requested further emergency funding from the state and long-term funding to address the effects of the lead contamination. On March 2, 2016, Michigan declared that returning to the Detroit water system must be approved by the state. When approved, the city was granted an emergency loan of $7 million. On September 27, 2016, Flint officials announced that the city will continue to use Detroit water until a new stretch of pipeline is constructed and the Flint River is tested and treated by the KWA.
From August 2015 to November 2016, median water lead levels began to go down again depending on the type of water service pipes each home had. In homes with copper pipes, the median water lead level dropped from 3.0 micrograms per liter (μg/L) to <1 μg/L; galvanized steel service lines dropped from a median water lead level of 7.2 μg/L to 1.9 μg/L, and lead service lines dropped from a median water lead level of 9.9 μg/L to 2.3 μg/L. 1 μg/L is equivalent to 1 part per billion. On December 9, 2016, the MDEQ reported that more than 96 percent of water samples in Flint residencies were below the EPA lead threshold of 15 ppb. On March 15, 2017, the Genesee County Water and Waste Services Advisory Board voted to construct a new pipeline; it would be a 7-mile (11 km), 42-inch (110 cm) connector to the KWA pipeline. The pipeline would allow the treatment of raw Lake Huron water, so the city of Flint could continue to buy pre-treated water from the Great Lakes Water Authority. The $12 million project will allow Flint to remain a customer of the GLWA until at least 2019.
In January 2015, a public meeting was held, where citizens complained about the "bad water". Residents complained about the taste, smell, and appearance of the water for 18 months before a Flint physician found elevated blood lead levels in the children of Flint. During that time period, MDEQ had insisted the water was safe to drink. A study by Virginia Tech researchers (see section below) determined that the river water, which, due to higher chloride concentration, is more corrosive than the lake water, was leaching lead from aging pipes. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist based in Ann Arbor, said this level of lead exposure is comparable with what the Iraqi people have experienced since the U.S. occupation in 2003.
While the local outcry about Flint water quality was growing in early 2015, Flint water officials filed papers with state regulators purporting to show that "tests at Flint's water treatment plant had detected no lead and testing in homes had registered lead at acceptable levels." The documents falsely claim that the city had tested tap water from homes with lead service lines, and therefore the highest lead-poisoning risks; however, the city did not know the locations of lead service lines, which city officials acknowledged in November 2015 after the Flint Journal/MLive published an article revealing the practice, using documents obtained under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act. The Journal/MLive reported that the city had "disregarded federal rules requiring it to seek out homes with lead plumbing for testing, potentially leading the city and state to underestimate for months the extent of toxic lead leaching into Flint's tap water."
In a report released on March 1, 2016, 37 of the 423 recently tested sentinel sites had results above the 15 ppb limit. Eight of the samples exceeded 100 ppb. A 2017 study showed that significantly more samples exceeded the 15 ppb limit in the voluntary or homeowner-driven sampling program whereby concerned citizens decided to acquire a testing kit and conduct sampling on their own (non-sentinel sites).
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), lead poisoning has long-lasting and often fatal effects, and there is no safe level of lead exposure in water that people can consume. Lead is dangerous given that it can harm almost all of the body's organs, even at doses as low as just five parts per billion. Children are especially at risk, as exposure can end up in anemia, declined growth, hyperactivity, behavioral and learning issues, and even more.
On September 24, 2015, Hurley Medical Center in Flint released a study led by Mona Hanna-Attisha, the program director for pediatric residency at Hurley Children's Hospital, confirming that the proportion of infants and children with elevated levels of lead in their blood had nearly doubled since the city switched from the Detroit water system to using the Flint River as its water source. Using hospital records, Hanna-Attisha found that a steep rise in blood-lead levels corresponded to the city's switch in water sources. The study was initially dismissed by MDEQ spokesman Brad Wurfel, who repeated a familiar refrain: "Repeated testing indicated the water tested within acceptable levels." Later, Wurfel apologized to Hanna-Attisha. The team's study appears in the February 2016 issue of American Journal of Public Health.
Hanna-Attisha's research found that the average proportion of Flint children with elevated blood-lead levels (above five micrograms per deciliter, or 5×10 grams per 100 milliliters of blood) rose from 2.4% (2013, before the change in water source) to 4.9% (2015, after the change in water source). In areas where water lead levels were considered high at ≥ 15 ppb, which is the maximum amount of lead allowed in water per the Safe Drinking Water Act Lead and Copper Rule, the average proportion of Flint children with elevated blood-lead levels rose from 4% to 10.6%. Michigan Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program data agree an increase occurred, suggesting an increase from 2.2% of children (May 2013 – April 2014) to 3.0% (May 2014 – April 2015). Hanna-Attisha's data were taken from hospital laboratory records for children less than five years old.
Hanna-Attisha's sample numbers were large, both for the pre-switch and post-switch time periods and for Flint children (1,473) and for children not exposed to Flint water (2,202). Demographics were meaningfully different among the two groups. In terms of race, 24.4% of the children outside of Flint were African American, while 76.8% of the children in areas of high water lead levels (≥ 15 ppb) were African American, and 67.0% of the children in areas of lower water lead levels (< 15 ppb) were African American. Children outside of Flint had a younger average age (1.86 years) compared to areas inside Flint (2.04–2.09 years). Socioeconomic status also represented a meaningful difference with children inside of Flint being more disadvantaged than those children who lived outside of Flint. In conclusion, the study demonstrated that elevated lead levels in children's blood was correlated with elevated lead levels in Flint water. Because lead screening is not completed for all children, such data may be skewed toward higher-risk children and thus overestimate lead exposure, especially in non–high-risk areas.
Hanna-Attisha and Flint resident LeeAnne Walters were awarded PEN America's Freedom of Expression Courage Award on May 16, 2016.
In June 2018 the Journal of Pediatrics published a much expanded study of blood lead levels measured at Hurley Medical Center. The original 2015 study of Hurley records involved a total of 1,473 children "younger than 5 years" whose address could be mapped to a site inside Flint in two pre/post 8.5 month periods. The 2018 study, led by Hernán F. Gómez, involved 15,817 children "aged ≤ 5 years" over the 11-year period 2006–2016. Data for 2012–2016 were available from center's Epic EMR system; records for earlier years were scrounged from legacy systems. The results show an increase in the fraction of children with elevated lead blood levels immediately pre/post the water switch (from 2.2% to 3.7%); invoking a Bonferroni correction, Gómez argues the change is not statistically significant. These results are consistent with a CDC report which found that the fraction of "all children under age 6" with elevated lead blood level "was nearly 50 percent higher after the switch to Flint River water". The striking result of Gómez et al. however is that during the 11-year period, the "crisis years" are actually the third and fourth lowest years for lead blood levels. That is, the upward blip during the water switch sits on a rapid declining curve (presumably because of the many lead mitigation projects that have been initiated nationally) so that blood lead levels during the crisis are actually lower than those two years earlier.
In September 2015 a team from Virginia Tech arrived in Flint. Led by Marc Edwards, an expert on municipal water quality, the team came to perform lead level testing on the Flint water supply, working under a National Science Foundation grant. Edwards had been contacted by Flint resident LeeAnne Walters, whose family had extreme health problems almost immediately following the switch to the Flint River water. Walters had attempted to act locally, but she was repeatedly ignored by city, state, and EPA officials. The study found that Flint water was "very corrosive" and "causing lead contamination in homes". It concluded in its report that "Flint River water leaches more lead from plumbing than does Detroit water. This is creating a public health threat in some Flint homes that have lead pipe or lead solder."
Edwards was shocked by the extent of the contamination, but even more so by the inaction of the proper authorities after being made well aware of the contamination. Edwards and his team found that at least a quarter of Flint households had levels of lead above the federal level of 15 ppb and that in some homes, lead levels were at 13,200 ppb. Edwards said, "It was the injustice of it all and that the very agencies that are paid to protect these residents from lead in water, knew or should've known after June at the very very latest of this year, that federal law was not being followed in Flint, and that these children and residents were not being protected. And the extent to which they went to cover this up exposes a new level of arrogance and uncaring that I have never encountered." Edwards' team created a website called Flint Water Study, with the main purposes of informing, and creating support for, Flint residents during the crisis. The site also summarized study results and became a comprehensive public database for all information related to the study.
On January 11, 2016, the Virginia Tech research team led by Edwards announced that it had completed its work. Edwards said, "We now feel that Flint's kids are finally on their way to being protected and decisive actions are under way to ameliorate the harm that was done." Edwards credited the Michigan ACLU and the group Water You Fighting For with doing the "critical work of collecting and coordinating" many water samples analyzed by the Virginia Tech team. Although the labor of the team (composed of scientists, investigators, graduate students, and undergraduates) was free, the investigation still spent more than $180,000 for such expenses as water testing and payment of Michigan Freedom of Information Act costs. A GoFundMe campaign has raised over $116,000 of the $150,000 needed for the team to recover its costs. On January 27, the city of Flint retained Edwards to monitor the city's water testing efforts.
On March 1, 2016, the Virginia Tech team was given $80,000 from an EPA grant to re-test the lead levels in 271 Flint homes. On August 11, 2016, Kelsey Pieper, a member of Edwards' research team, said 45 percent of residents that collected samples in July for the lead testing program had no detectable level of particulate lead in their water supply. She added the study yielded a lead reading of 13.9 ppb, just below the federal action level of 15 ppb. However, Pieper acknowledged the sampling, which was conducted by volunteer residents, does not fulfill the testing requirements of the federal Lead and Copper Rule. State testing of the most-recent six month monitoring period, which began January 1 and complied with Lead and Copper Rule regulations, showed a 90th percentile lead reading of 20 ppb, which exceeds the federal action level. Roughly 93 percent of samples from the third round of expanded state sentinel site testing showed results below the lead action level. Edwards called the results the "beginning of the end" of the public health disaster associated with the water crisis. On December 2, 2016, Edwards said lead was not detected in 57 percent of 154 Flint homes tested in November 2016 – up from 44 percent in July 2016. He also advised people to continue using filters.
On January 24, 2017, the MDEQ told Mayor Weaver that the lead content of Flint water had fallen below the federal limit. The 90th percentile of lead concentrations in Flint was 12 ppb from July 2016 through December 2016—below the "action level" of 15 ppb. It was 20 ppb in the prior six-month period. On the next day, Flint spokeswoman Kristin Moore said that anywhere from 18,000 to 28,000 homes in the city still needed service lines replaced, and that the city was planning to complete 6,000 homes per year through 2019.
On March 7, 2017, MDEQ reported that Flint water sampled in February registered below the federal threshold for lead with 90 percent of samples at or below 8 ppb. February's water tests marked the seventh straight month in which city water was below the action level. February's testing also showed 95.8 percent of samples taken at homes at risk of high lead levels were at or below 15 ppb. On June 9, 2017, the MDEQ reported their May 2017 testing showed 90 percent of Tier I samples at or below 6 ppb of lead with 93.1 percent of the samples at or below 15 ppb.
On April 23, 2019, Status Coup released the documentary Flushing Flint which claimed that the water testing conducted by MDEQ was falsified by MDEQ staff taking water samples after flushing running water from taps for several minutes before taking the samples, contrary to normal procedures for water testing, and by MDEQ staff telling residents that they should take water samples after flushing running water from their taps for several minutes. This would clearly contravene the EPA guidance that samples taken must be "first-draw samples at taps in homes/buildings". These claims cast doubt on the MDEQ reports of improvements in water quality over previous years.
On January 13, 2016, Snyder said that 87 cases of Legionnaires' disease, a waterborne disease, were reported in Genesee County from June 2014 – November 2015, resulting in 12 deaths (two more people later died from the disease). Although the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) said that there is no evidence of a clear link between the spike in cases and the water system change, Edwards stated the contaminated Flint water could be linked to the spike. In a second report released January 21, state researchers had still not pin-pointed the source of the outbreak. The next day, an official at McLaren Regional Medical Center in Flint confirmed that there was a spike in Legionella cases in Flint and elsewhere in Genesee County, but noted that there was "no definitive data to support that McLaren Flint is the source of exposure for any patient testing positive for the Legionella antigen." The family of one of the people who died of Legionnaires filed a $100 million lawsuit against McLaren.
The Flint Journal obtained documents via the Michigan Freedom of Information Act on the Legionnaires' outbreak and published an article on them on January 16, 2016. The documents indicated that on October 17, 2014, employees of the Genesee County Health Department and the Flint water treatment plant met to discuss the county's "concerns regarding the increase in Legionella cases and possible association with the municipal water system." By early October 2014, officials at MDEQ were aware of a possible link between the water in Flint and the Legionnaires' outbreak, but the public was never informed, and the agency gave assurances about water safety in public statements and at public forums. An internal email on January 27, 2015, from a supervisor at the health department said that the Flint water treatment plant had not responded in months to "multiple written and verbal requests" for information.
In January 2015, following a breakdown in communication between the city and the county on the Legionnaires' investigation, the county filed a FOIA request with the city, seeking "specific water testing locations and laboratory results ... for coliform, E-coli, heterotrophic bacteria and trihalomethanes" and other information. In April 2015, the county health department contacted the CDC, and in April 2015 a CDC employee wrote in an email that the Legionnaires' outbreak was "very large, one of the largest we know of in the past decade and community-wide, and in our opinion and experience it needs a comprehensive investigation." However, MDHHS told the county health department at the time that federal assistance was not necessary.
Emails obtained by Progress Michigan in February 2016 indicate Snyder's office knew about the outbreak since March 2015, despite Snyder's claim he was only informed in January 2016. On March 11, 2016, Governor Snyder ordered an investigation of the MDHHS regarding the outbreak. On February 16, 2017, the CDC discovered the first genetic links between city water and patients diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease in Genesee County. "The presence of Legionella in Flint was widespread," said Janet Stout, a research associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a national expert on the disease. "The (laboratory) results show that strains (of the bacteria) were throughout the water system." Virginia Tech researcher Amy Pruden published a study that found Legionella levels up to 1,000 times higher than normal tap water in Flint, and said finding a patient whose clinical isolates—or bacteria—matched the McLaren water sample without having been hospitalized there "suggests that same strain may have been elsewhere."
On March 10, 2017, affidavits filed by experts in court supported the conclusion that Flint water was connected to the Legionnaires' disease outbreak. Janet Stout wrote in an affidavit: "(It) is my opinion to a reasonable degree of probability that the source water change and the subsequent management of the municipal water system caused conditions to develop within the municipal water distribution system that promoted Legionella growth and dispersion, amplification, and the significant increases in cases of Legionnaires' disease in Genesee County in 2014 and 2015." J. David Krause, director of Forensic Analytical Consulting Services, and Hung K. Cheung, a doctor specializing in environmental and occupational medicine agreed with her claims.
On February 5, 2018, a study published in the journals Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and mBio concluded that the 2014–2015 outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in Flint was caused by low levels of chlorine which, at higher levels, would have made it difficult for bacteria to replicate. Because chlorine reacts with heavy metals like lead and iron, high levels of both in Flint's water may have been responsible for the decreased amount of chlorine available. On December 4, 2019, research institute KWR from the Netherlands published the results of their re-investigation of the outbreak in Environmental Health Perspectives. They found evidence for three sources: strong evidence for exposure to a Flint hospital in 2014 and 2015 for 42 of 86 confirmed cases, and weaker evidence for exposure to city water at home or living in the proximity of a specific cluster of cooling towers, both only in 2014. Each source could be associated with only a proportion of cases. They concluded that focus on a single source may have delayed recognition and remediation of other significant sources of L. pneumophila and provided recommendations to improve Legionella prevention.
One focus of inquiry is when Snyder became aware of the issue, and how much he knew about it. In a July 2015 email, Dennis Muchmore (Snyder's chief of staff) wrote to a Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) official, "I'm frustrated by the water issue in Flint. I really don't think people are getting the benefit of the doubt. These folks are scared and worried about the health impacts and they are basically getting blown off by us (as a state we're just not sympathizing with their plight)." In a separate email sent on July 22, 2015, MDHHS local health services director Mark Miller wrote to colleagues that it "Sounds like the issue is old lead service lines." These emails were obtained under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act by Virginia Tech researchers studying the crisis and were released to the public in the first week of January 2016.
In October 2015, it was reported that the city government's data on lead water lines in the city was stored on 45,000 index cards (some dating back a century) located in filing cabinets in Flint's public utility building. The Department of Public Works said that it was trying to transition the data into an electronic spreadsheet program, but as of October 1, 2015, only about 25% of the index card information had been digitized. On October 21, 2015, Snyder announced the creation of a five-member Flint Water Advisory Task Force, consisting of Ken Sikkema of Public Sector Consultants and Chris Kolb of the Michigan Environmental Council (co-chairs) and Matthew Davis of the University of Michigan Health System, Eric Rothstein of the Galardi Rothstein Group and Lawrence Reynolds of Mott Children's Health Center in Flint. On December 29, 2015, the Task Force released its preliminary report, saying that MDEQ bore ultimate blame for the Flint water crisis.
The task force wrote that the MDEQ's Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance adopted a "minimalist technical compliance approach" to water safety, which was "unacceptable and simply insufficient to the task of public protection". The task force also found that "Throughout 2015, as the public raised concerns and as independent studies and testing were conducted and brought to the attention of MDEQ, the agency's response was often one of aggressive dismissal, belittlement, and attempts to discredit these efforts and the individuals involved. We find both the tone and substance of many MDEQ public statements to be completely unacceptable." The task force also found that MDEQ has failed to follow the federal Lead and Copper Rule. That rule requires "optimized corrosion control treatment", but MDEQ staff instructed city of Flint water treatment staff that corrosion control treatment (CCT) would not be necessary for a year. The task force found that "the decision not to require CCT, made at the direction of the MDEQ, led directly to the contamination of the Flint water system". The Flint Water Advisory Task Force's final report, released March 21, 2016, found the MDEQ, MDHHS, Governor's office, and the state-appointed emergency managers "fundamentally accountable" for the crisis, saying the people of Flint were "needlessly and tragically" exposed to toxic levels of lead and other hazards. The task force's findings prompted the resignation of MDEQ director Dan Wyant and communications director Brad Wurfel. Flint Department of Public Works director Howard Croft also resigned.
On January 8, 2016, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan said that it was investigating. A month later, they said they were working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the EPA's Office of Inspector General, the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division, and the Postal Inspection Service on the investigation. The EPA "battled Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality behind the scenes for at least six months over whether Flint needed to use chemical treatments to keep lead lines and plumbing connections from leaching into drinking water" and "did not publicize its concern that Flint residents' health was jeopardized by the state's insistence that such controls were not required by law". In 2015, EPA water expert Miguel A. Del Toral "identified potential problems with Flint's drinking water in February, confirmed the suspicions in April and summarized the looming problem" in an internal memo circulated on June 24, 2015. Despite these "dire warnings" from Del Toral, the memo was not publicly released until November 2015, after a revision and vetting process. In the interim, the EPA and MDEQ engaged in a dispute on how to interpret the Lead and Copper Rule. According to EPA administrator Susan Hedman, the EPA pushed to immediately implement corrosion controls in the interests of public health, while MDEQ sought to delay a decision on corrosion control until two six-month periods of sampling had been completed. Meanwhile, Wurfel called Del Toral a "rogue employee" for his whistle-blowing efforts. Marc Edwards, who investigated the lead contamination, wrote that Del Toral had made a "heroic effort" that was stymied by the EPA and MDEQ spending months "wrangling over jurisdiction, technicalities and legalities".
In an interview with the Detroit News published on January 12, 2016, Hedman said that "the recommendation to DEQ (regarding the need for corrosion controls) occurred at higher and higher levels during this time period. And the answer kept coming back from DEQ that 'no, we are not going to make a decision until after we see more testing results'". Hedman said the EPA did not go public with its concerns earlier because (1) state and local governments have primary responsibility for drinking water quality and safety; (2) there was insufficient evidence at that point of the extent of the danger; and (3) the EPA's legal authority to compel the state to take action was unclear, and the EPA discussed the issue with its legal counsel, who only rendered an opinion in November. Hedman said the EPA discussed the issue with its legal counsel and urged the state to have MDHHS warn residents about the danger. On January 21, Hedman's resignation (effective February 1) was accepted.
Assessments of the EPA's action varied. Edwards said that the assessment in Del Toral's original June memo was "100 percent accurate" and criticized the EPA for failing to take more immediate action. State Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, Democrat of Flint, said, "There's been a failure at all levels to accurately assess the scale of the public health crisis in Flint, and that problem is ongoing. However, the EPA's Miguel Del Toral did excellent work in trying to expose this disaster. Anyone who read his memo and failed to act should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law." Del Toral later told The Flint Journal, "I was stunned when I found out they did not have corrosion control in place. In my head, I didn't believe that. I thought: That can't be true ... that's so basic." He also confirmed that unfiltered Flint water is still unsafe to drink, and did not know when that would change.
On January 15, 2016, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced that his office would open an investigation into the crisis, saying the situation in Flint "is a human tragedy in which families are struggling with even the most basic parts of daily life". To oversee his office's probe, Schuette appointed Todd Flood as special prosecutor and Andrew Arena as chief investigator, who led a team of nine full-time investigators. At a media roundtable in February 2016, Flood said that the investigation could result in involuntary manslaughter charges, if there was gross negligence leading to a death. Critics have questioned the objectivity of the investigation.
In his annual State of the State address on January 19, 2016, Snyder announced that he would release all of his emails from 2014 and 2015 regarding the crisis. The following day, the governor's office released 274 pages of emails. The New York Times summarized, "the documents provide a glimpse of state leaders who were at times dismissive of the concerns of residents, seemed eager to place responsibility with local government and, even as the scientific testing was hinting at a larger problem, were reluctant to acknowledge it." Later that month in a class action lawsuit related to the crisis, Snyder and the MDEQ were served subpoenas for the release of additional emails dating back to the beginning of 2011. Emails highlighted by Progress Michigan in January 2016 indicate that Michigan state officials were trucking in bottled water to some of their own employees stationed in Flint as early as January 2015 in regards to the unsafe levels of trihalomethanes.
On January 22, 2016, two MDEQ employees (Liane Shekter Smith, former chief of the department's Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance; and Steve Busch, former district supervisor in the division) were suspended, pending an investigation, as a result of questions regarding actions related to water testing in Flint. In response, Snyder said, "Michiganders need to be able to depend on state government to do what's best for them and in the case of the DEQ that means ensuring their drinking water is safe. Some DEQ actions lacked common sense and that resulted in this terrible tragedy in Flint. I look forward to the results of the investigation to ensure these mistakes don't happen again." Smith was fired on February 5, 2016.
On January 25, 2016, the Genesee County Commission approved a request from Genesee County Prosecuting Attorney David Leyton for $25,000 to conduct an investigation into the crisis. The money will be used to hire two special prosecutors. On February 12, 2016, Governor Snyder released additional emails between his office and the MDEQ which about the Legionnaires' outbreak. On February 26, Snyder's office released several thousand more emails regarding the crisis that date back to 2011. An additional batch of emails was released on March 10. On March 4, 2016, a report released by the Michigan Auditor General's office called the MDEQ's Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance "not sufficient" in its oversight of the state's Community Water Supply Program.
On July 13, 2016, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy sued MDEQ over the department's 121-day delay in responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests surrounding Flint, including a request for all emails from Shekter-Smith and Bush from 2013 through 2015 containing the word "Flint" and a list of "any employees transferred, reassigned, or suspended as a result of the Flint water issues". The case was settled in November 2017, with a joint statement saying in part, "The parties also note there are circumstances for which the FOIA currently lacks certainty when documents must be provided. This lack of clarity can foster litigation over what response times are reasonable."
On April 16, 2020, an article was published giving details of evidence of corruption and a coverup by Snyder and his "fixer" Rich Baird, and stating that the statute of limitations on some of the most serious felony misconduct-in-office charges would expire on April 25, 2020. Responses from Michigan state authorities denied that a deadline was approaching and said that criminal prosecutions would follow.
On January 14, 2016, U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence formally requested congressional hearings on the crisis, saying: "We trust our government to protect the health and safety of our communities, and this includes the promise of clean water to drink." The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform began their hearings on the crisis on February 3. U.S. Representative Dan Kildee from Flint gave an opening statement. The first witnesses were EPA acting deputy assistant administrator Joel Beauvais, Marc Edwards, new MDEQ Director Keith Creagh, and Flint resident LeeAnne Walters (who alerted EPA water expert Miguel A. Del Toral to the problem).
On March 15, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee examining the Flint water crisis revealed the EPA, state, and municipal officials attempted to fix the situation behind the scenes according to hearing witness and former EPA regional administrator, Susan Hedman, who cited legal and enforcement challenges as the causes for her actions. Ex-Emergency Financial Manager Darnell Earley, Former Fint Mayor Dayne Walling, and Professor Marc Edwards also testified on that date's hearing. Governor Snyder and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy testified before that committee on March 17.
On February 10, 2016, a separate committee, the U.S. House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, held a hearing on the crisis in which Hurley Medical Center pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha; Yanna Lambrinidou, president of Parents for Nontoxic Alternatives, an environmental health group; Flint schools Superintendent Bilal Kareem Tawwab; Eric Scorsone, an expert in local government finances from Michigan State University, and Mayor Karen Weaver testified. On April 13, 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy and Energy Subcommittee on Health held a joint hearing on the crisis in which Keith Creagh of MDEQ, Nick Lyon from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and Mona Hanna-Attisha of Hurley Medical Center testified.
On February 23, 2016, the Michigan State Legislature started a committee to investigate the crisis. On March 1, one of its members, Senator Jim Ananich of Flint, introduced a resolution that would grant state lawmakers probing the Flint water crisis subpoena power over the governor's office, which is immune to the state Freedom of Information Act. The committee's first hearing was on March 15, 2016. On March 29, 2016, the state's Joint Committee on the Flint Water Public Health Emergency held a hearing on the crisis in Flint during which residents and local experts testified.
On December 15, 2015, Mayor Weaver declared the water issue as a citywide public health state of emergency to prompt help from state and federal officials. Weaver's declaration said that additional funding will be needed for special education, mental health, juvenile justice, and social services because of the behavioral and cognitive impacts of high blood lead levels. It was subsequently declared a countywide emergency by the Genesee County Board of Commissioners.
Starting on January 7, 2016, Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell had work crews of offenders sentenced to community service begin delivering bottled water, water filters and replacement cartridges, primarily to residents living in homes built between 1901 and 1920, whose plumbing systems were most likely leaching lead into the water. The next week, he ordered his department to begin using reverse 911 to advise homebound residents on how to get help.
On January 10, Mayor Weaver stressed to residents that it was important to also pick up the testing kits, as the city would like to receive at least 500 water test samples per week. On January 12, officers from the Michigan State Police and Genesee County Sheriff's Department started delivering cases of water, water filters, lead testing kits and replacement cartridges to residents who needed them. The American Red Cross has also been deployed to Flint to deliver bottled water and filters to residents.
On January 14, it was announced that Mona Hanna-Attisha would lead a Flint Pediatric Public Health Initiative that includes experts from the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, Hurley Children's Hospital, the Genesee County Health Department, and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to help Flint children diagnosed with lead poisoning.
On January 5, 2016, Governor Snyder declared Genesee County to be in a state of emergency. On January 6, Snyder ordered the Michigan Emergency Operations Center, operated by the Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division, to open a Joint Information Center to coordinate public outreach and field questions from the residents about the problems caused by the crisis. The State Emergency Operations Center recommended that all Flint children under six years old get tested for lead levels as soon as possible, either by a primary care physician or the Genesee County Health Department. They also advised residents to call the United Way to receive additional help if needed.
On January 11, Snyder signed an executive order creating a new committee to "work on long-term solutions to the Flint water situation and ongoing public health concerns affecting residents". On January 13, Snyder activated the Michigan Army National Guard to assist the American Red Cross. On January 27, Snyder announced the establishment of the new 17-member Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee to "make recommendations regarding the health and welfare of people exposed to lead, study Flint's water infrastructure and determine potential upgrades, review Flint Water Task Force recommendations, and establish ways to improve communication between local and state government". On March 2, Snyder announced the state would partner with the employment agency Michigan Works! Association to hire 81 Flint residents to work at water distribution sites throughout the city. On March 21, Governor Snyder released a 75-point relief plan for addressing the crisis, which includes programs in the fields of health and human services, education, water supply and infrastructure replacements, and jobs and economic development. On April 6, the state began offering up to $100,000 in grant money from the Disaster and Emergency Contingency Fund to local governments affected by the water crisis.
On March 16, 2017, Governor Snyder created the Child Lead Exposure Elimination Commission and appointed Mona Hanna-Attisha of Flint's Hurley Medical Center, Rebecca Meuninck of Ann Arbor, deputy director of the Ecology Center; Paul Haan of Grand Rapids, executive director of the Healthy Homes Coalition of West Michigan, Inc.; and Lyke Thompson of Ann Arbor, director of the Center for Urban Studies at Wayne State University as its members. "Eliminating the risk of child lead exposure will require the coordination and expertise of people across all sectors", Snyder said in the announcement. "Creating this permanent commission will help advance the strategies recommended to better protect Michigan children from lead exposure." On the same day, Governor Snyder said he will lower Michigan's "action level" from 15 ppb to 10 ppb. Snyder sent $28 million to Flint for supplies, medical care, and infrastructure upgrades and later budgeted an additional $30 million to Flint to provide water bill credits of 65% for residents and 20% for businesses. Another $165 million for lead pipe replacements and water bill reimbursements was approved by Snyder on June 29, 2016. On January 6, 2017, Snyder signed a bill that accelerated the public notice requirement for lead in drinking water to three business days, from the previous time of 30 days.
On January 9, 2016, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sent two liaison officers to the Michigan Emergency Operations Center to work with the state to monitor the situation. On January 15, Snyder asked President Obama to grant a federal emergency/major disaster designation for Genesee County, seeking federal financial aid for emergency assistance and infrastructure repair in order to "protect the health, safety and welfare of Flint residents". The following day, Obama signed an emergency declaration giving Flint up to $5 million in federal aid to handle the crisis. FEMA released a statement that said:
After Snyder's request for a "Major Disaster Declaration" status was turned down, FEMA Administrator W. Craig Fugate wrote a letter to Snyder saying that the water contamination "does not meet the legal definition of a 'major disaster'" under federal law because "[t]he incident was not the result of a natural catastrophe, nor was it created by a fire, flood or explosion." In response, Snyder asked Obama for emergency funding under FEMA's Individuals and Households Program, which provides housing assistance and replacement of personal property. He will also ask for money and emergency protective measures, according to the release. On March 3, 2016, Governor Snyder filed a second appeal for federal help to replace lead pipes and provide medical support and supplies for affected residents which said the estimated economic impact of the Flint water crisis is beginning to exceed $140 million. FEMA rejected his request again on March 16.
The EPA issued a Safe Drinking Water Act Emergency Order and took over collecting and testing of water samples, while ordering state agencies to send them previously collected data, on January 21. A week later they advised residents to continue using water filters and drink only bottled water. On February 12, the USDA extended their nutrition programs for Flint children diagnosed with high blood lead levels. On the next day, Governor Snyder asked for additional help from Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program for affected Flint children. The Department of Health and Human Services granted his request on February 18, providing an additional $500,000 in Medicaid expansion for affected Flint children and pregnant women. On March 3, a waiver request to include pregnant women and people up to 21 years of age was approved. On March 1, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to expand its Head Start Program to more Flint children affected by the crisis. On March 23, the U.S. Department of Labor announced up to $15 million in National Dislocated Worker Grants will help provide temporary jobs to assist with Flint's water crisis recovery. About 400 temporary jobs at water distribution centers throughout the city will be created through the grant. The workers will take the place of the Michigan National Guard soldiers who have been in place since January.
On March 25, 2016, the EPA and FEMA extended the federal emergency until August 14, 2016. The state took over the emergency response after that date. A $170 million stopgap spending bill for repairing and upgrading the city of Flint's water system and helping with healthcare costs was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on December 8, 2016. The Senate approved it the next day. $100 million of the bill is for infrastructure repairs, $50 million for healthcare costs, and $20 million to pay back loans related to the crisis.
On April 20, 2016, criminal charges were filed against three people in regards to the crisis by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette. Former MDEQ employees Michael Prysby and Stephen Busch are charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy to tamper with evidence, tampering with evidence, a treatment violation of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act, and a monitoring violation of the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act; former city water plant operator Michael Glasgow was charged with willful neglect of office, a misdemeanor, and felony tampering with evidence. On May 4, 2016, Glasgow accepted a plea deal with prosecutors, admitting to filing false information about lead in Flint water and agreeing to cooperate in other prosecutions. Exactly a year later, the case against Glasgow was dismissed, with prosecutors acknowledging his cooperation and the fact that he was the person who reported the crimes of his colleagues to the MDEQ.
On July 29, 2016, Schuette charged six additional people with crimes in the crisis, three from MDEQ and three from the MDHHS. From MDEQ, Liane Shekter-Smith was charged with misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty; Adam Rosenthal was charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy to tamper with evidence, tampering with evidence, and neglect; Adam Cook was charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy to engage in misconduct in office, and neglect of duty. From the MDHHS, Nancy Peeler, Corinne Miller, and Robert Scott were charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy to commit misconduct in office, and willful neglect of duty. MDEQ and MDHHS released a joint statement later that day indicating Peeler, Scott, Cook, and Rosenthal had been suspended without pay. Miller retired in April and Shekter-Smith was fired in February.
The cases were consolidated for preliminary hearing purposes on August 9, since the same witnesses were to testify against all defendants. On September 14, 2016, Miller pleaded no contest to the neglect of duty charge and agreed to testify against the other defendants. She was later sentenced to a year probation, 300 hours of community service, and fined $1,200. On December 20, 2016, Schuette filed false pretenses, conspiracy to commit false pretenses, willful neglect of duty and misconduct in office charges against former Emergency Managers Darnell Earley and Jerry Ambrose; and false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses charges against former Flint Utilities Administrator Daugherty Johnson and former Flint Department of Public Works Director Howard Croft. On November 28, 2017, Daugherty Johnson pleaded no contest to failing to furnish water documents to a Genesee County Health Department employee investigating a possible connection between Flint water and Legionnaires' disease outbreaks. Charges were dismissed in 2018 because of his cooperation with prosecutors.
On June 14, 2017, Schuette announced new involuntary manslaughter charges—15-year felonies—against MDHHS Director Nick Lyon, former Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley, former Flint Department of Public Works director Howard Croft, former Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Office of Drinking Water chief Liane Shekter-Smith and MDEQ District Supervisor Stephen Busch. Also charged was Eden Wells, chief medical executive of MDHHS, who faces allegations of obstruction of justice and lying to a police officer. Lyon was also charged with a single count of misconduct in office after being accused of having received notice of the Legionnaires' outbreak at least a year before informing the public and the governor, while Wells is also accused of threatening to withhold funding to the Flint Area Community Health and Environment Partnership unless the partnership ceased its investigation into the source of the Legionnaires' outbreak. On October 9, 2017, Wells was charged with involuntary manslaughter and misconduct in office. On December 20, 2017, Adam Rosenthal pleaded no contest to a public records charge, a one-year misdemeanor, which was officially dismissed on September 27, 2018, following his cooperation in other prosecutions.
On August 20, 2018, District Court Judge David Goggins found probable cause for a trial for two cases of involuntary manslaughter that were linked to Legionnaires Disease against Michigan's Health Director, Nick Lyon. On December 26, MDEQ employees Michael Prysby and Stephen Busch pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in exchange for their testimony against other defendants.
On December 18, 2019, the cases against former MDEQ employees Steven Busch and Michael Prysby were dismissed by a Genesee County judge. Nine years after Flint's disastrous water switch, prosecutors say no one will stand trial for their role in the city's government-caused water crisis. State prosecutors conceded that they had no viable path forward, effectively dismissing the investigations. Legal experts pointed to a series of missteps by Attorney General Dana Nessel's team, complicating an already challenging prosecution. The conclusion of the investigation left many in Flint disheartened yet unsurprised. Kevin Croom, the executive director of the Asbury Community Development Corporation in Flint, expressed the sentiment shared by many: "It's a slow-walk slap in the face. Lives were lost, and it's just like, 'Deal with it, it happened, go on with your life.'"
On January 8, 2020, a Genesee County judge dismissed a misdemeanor charge of disturbance of a lawful meeting against Liane Shekter-Smith. On April 16, 2020, an article was published giving details of evidence of corruption and a coverup by Governor Snyder and Rich Baird, and stating that the statute of limitations on some of the most serious felony misconduct-in-office charges would expire on April 25, 2020. Responses from Michigan state authorities denied that a deadline was approaching, and said that criminal prosecutions would follow.
New criminal charges were filed against former governor Rick Snyder and eight other officials by the state of Michigan on January 13, 2021, for their roles in the water crisis seven years prior. Snyder facing two counts of willful neglect of duty that could lead to up to one year in prison and up to $1,000 in fines. The officials that were involved were charged with forty-two charges, both felonies and misdemeanors. Charges included; perjury, misconduct, obstruction of justice, extortion, neglect, involuntary manslaughter. The Flint water crisis led to the death of twelve individuals, and left more than 90 people sick by various diseases, including legionnaires' disease. This was due to the water going untreated from the river. Bacteria was able to make its way from the water into the homes of many surrounding families through the service lines. The charges stem from the decision to switch the water supply from the Detroit water system to the Flint River in 2014 as a cost-cutting measure without properly assessing the potential impact on residents' health.
On June 28, 2022, the Michigan Supreme Court overturned the state's use of one-man grand juries to issue indictments in the Flint water criminal cases. In a unanimous decision, the state Supreme Court found that a one-judge grand jury can be used to investigate, subpoena and issue arrest warrants but it cannot be used to indict an individual.
Following the state Supreme Court's rejection of an attempt to raise charges against former Governor Rick Snyder, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's office announced the end of the pursuit of criminal charges related to the Flint water crisis after seven years without any convictions.
As of February 21, 2019, a total of 79 civil lawsuits have been filed in regards to the crisis.
On November 13, 2015, four families filed a federal class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit against Governor Snyder and thirteen other city and state officials, including Mayor Walling and Darnell Earley, who was in charge of the city when the switch to the Flint River was made. The complaint alleges that the officials acted recklessly and negligently, leading to serious injuries from lead poisoning, including autoimmune disorders, skin lesions, and "brain fog". The complaint alleges that the officials' conduct was "reckless and outrageous" and "shocks the conscience and was deliberately indifferent to ... constitutional rights." The case was dismissed on February 3, 2017, with the judge stating his court has lack of subject-matter jurisdiction in the matter. Their attorneys filed an appeal on February 6.
The legal doctrines of sovereign immunity (which protects the state from suit) and official immunity (which in Michigan shields top government officials from personal liability, even in cases of gross negligence) resulted in comparatively few lawsuits being filed in the Flint case, and caused large national plaintiffs' law firms to be reluctant to become involved with the case.
On January 14, 2016, a separate class-action lawsuit against Snyder, the state of Michigan, the city of Flint, Earley, Walling, and Croft was filed by three Flint residents in Michigan Circuit Court in Genesee County. This suit targets lower-level officials who (under Michigan law) do not have immunity from claims arising from gross negligence. A separate suit was filed in January 2016 in the Michigan Court of Claims against the governor and state agencies; that suit alleges violations of the state constitution. In Michigan, the Court of Claims is the only court with subject-matter jurisdiction over claims against the state and its subdivisions.
A federal lawsuit filed on January 27, 2016, seeks the replacement of all lead service lines in Flint at no cost to residents following claims city and state leaders violated federal laws designed to protect drinking water. It is also asking the court to force city and state officials to provide safe drinking water to Flint residents and require them to follow federal regulations for testing and treating water to control for lead.
On February 2, 2016, a class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court was filed on behalf of Beatrice Boler, a Flint mother of two, Flint pastor Edwin Anderson with his wife, Alline Anderson, and a company, Epco Sales LLC. against Snyder, the MDEQ, two former state appointed emergency managers and Mayor Walling that seeks more than $150 million in refunds and compensation for damages for "water that was extraordinarily dangerous, undrinkable and unusable". It was dismissed on April 19, 2016, after the judge ruled the allegations fall under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, which prevents challenges to the law being ruled on in U.S. District Court and states they must be addressed by the EPA, and the case should be re-filed in the Michigan Court of Claims. Also on February 2, a lawsuit was filed in Michigan Circuit Court on behalf of four Genesee County residents who contracted Legionnaires' disease during the Flint water crisis, including one woman who died seven days after entering the emergency room with a headache. The suit names McLaren Regional Medical Center and several MDEQ officials as defendants. Lawyer Geoffrey Fieger represents the plaintiffs.
On February 8, 2016, the parents of a two-year-old girl diagnosed with high blood lead levels filed a lawsuit in federal court, naming as defendants the city of Flint, the state of Michigan, Snyder, Earley, and Walling. The case was dismissed on February 7, 2017, with the judge citing his court has a lack of subject matter jurisdiction. On March 3, 2016, a lawsuit was filed in state court by LeeAnne Walters, the Flint mother who informed the EPA water expert Miguel Del Toral of the health problems her family experienced after the water switch, against multiple corporate entities and three current and former government employees for their role in the city's water crisis. On March 7, 2016, another class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of seven residents alleging that tens of thousands of residents have suffered physical and economic injuries and damages. It argues officials failed to take action over "dangerous levels of lead" in drinking water and "downplayed the severity of the contamination".
On March 8, 2016, a federal class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of over 500 county inmates against the Genesee County Sheriff's Department in regards to the water quality at the Genesee County Jail. The suit seeks only an injunction that will order the sheriff's department to continue to serve inmates only bottled water and dry food that does not require water to prepare.
On March 24, the City of Flint filed a notice of intent sue in the Court of Claims against the State of Michigan, the MDEQ and four MDEQ employees for their mishandling of the crisis. A week later, Mayor Weaver said she has no intentions to proceed with a lawsuit, and the move is to "protect the future interest of the city". On March 25, a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU asked for an order requiring water to be delivered to homes of people without access to transportation or who are physically disabled. The case was settled a year later for $87 million (with an additional $10 million in reserve), which will be used to replaced 18,000 lead pipes by 2020.
On April 6, 2016, a class action lawsuit brought by 15 Flint residents accused Governor Snyder and several state agencies and government officials of being in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in regards to the crisis.
On May 18, 2016, the NAACP sued the state of Michigan and Governor Snyder, seeking compensation for property damages, pain and suffering damages, emotional distress damages and medical monitoring for Flint residents and businesses.
On June 22, 2016, the Michigan Attorney General's Office filed a civil suit against engineering firms Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam (LAN) who were hired to consult Flint water plant officials after the switch to the Flint River in April 2015. The lawsuit accuses Veolia and LAN of professional negligence and public nuisance. Veolia is also accused of fraud. Veolia called the accusations "baseless, entirely unfounded and [appearing] to be intended to distract from the troubling and disturbing realities that have emerged as a result of this tragedy", and then added, "In fact, when Veolia raised potential lead and copper issues, city officials and representatives told us to exclude it from our scope of work because the city and the EPA were just beginning to conduct lead and copper testing." Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel amended the complaint on April 12, 2019, stating the companies "made multiple missteps by designing water treatment measures that made the water corrosive. Those failures ultimately resulted in bacterial problems in Flint's water, potentially dangerous disinfectant byproducts, the corrosion of the city's water distribution system, and high lead levels." On May 28, 2019, Veolia denied responsibility for the crisis, instead blaming state and location officials for the crisis, and filed a motion for summary disposition on that date. In November 2019, a Genesee County judge dismissed four of the plaintiff's five charges against Veolia and LAN.
On June 27, 2016, Flint residents Shari Guertin, on behalf of her minor child, and Diogenes Muse-Cleveland, filed a lawsuit accusing several officials of violating their "bodily integrity" by exposing them to lead-contaminated water and hiding it. The defendants are city and state officials including former Flint Department of Public Works Director Howard Croft, former emergency managers Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose and former DEQ officials Liane Shekter-Smith, Stephen Busch, Michael Prysby and Bradley Wurfel. Several charges in the case were dismissed by the original trial court on June 5, 2017. The charges were re-instated by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on January 4, 2019.
On November 15, 2016, Chief Judge Richard B. Yuille, Circuit Court of Genesee County, entered a case management Order, wherein he appointed attorney Corey Stern, of Levy Konigsberg, L.L.P., lead counsel for all plaintiffs maintaining claims in the Circuit Court of Genesee County for personal injuries and property damage sustained as a result of the Flint water crisis. Attorney Wayne B. Mason, of Drinker, Biddle & Reath, L.L.P., was appointed lead counsel for the defendants. Judge Yuille called for a small number of lawsuits related to the Flint water crisis to serve as bellwethers, cases that will be fully developed and tried to verdict with the idea that they will help attorneys in other cases evaluate whether to settle or take their cases to trial.
On January 30, 2017, a class action lawsuit with over 1,700 plaintiffs against the EPA seeking $722.4 million was filed, charging them with a violation of section 1431 of the Safe Drinking Water Act, which states, "upon receipt of information that a contaminant that is present in or likely to enter a public water system or an underground source of drinking water, or there is a threatened or potential terrorist attack or other intentional act, that may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to the health of persons, the EPA Administrator may take any action she deems necessary to protect human health".
Two of the lawsuits had reached the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court; in both cases, the Court rejected the city officials' claims of immunity to allow the cases to continue. The Sixth Circuit asserted the citizens had a right to remedy since the officials' decision to switch water sources in 2014 harmed the citizens' Constitutional right to "bodily integrity". The officials had petitioned to the Supreme Court of the United States on the question of immunity, but in January 2020, the Supreme Court declined to hear either case, allowing both cases to proceed at the lower court.
In November 2021, federal District Court Judge Judith E. Levy approved a $626 million settlement in the case against the state of Michigan and other defendants.
On January 7, 2016, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said that estimates of the cost of fixing water infrastructure in Flint, such as aging pipes, range from millions up to $1.5 billion. These figures encompass infrastructure alone, excluding any public health costs of the disaster. DEQ interim director Keith Creagh said that estimation of total costs would be premature. However, in a September 2015 email released by Snyder in January 2016, the state estimated the replacement cost to be $60 million, and said it could take up to 15 years to do.
On January 18, 2016, the United Way of Genesee County estimated 6,000–12,000 children have been exposed to lead poisoning and kicked off a fundraising campaign to raise $100 million over a 10–15 year span for their medical treatment. On January 27, 2016, Mona Hanna-Attisha started a fundraiser for the $80,000 needed for the medical treatment of Flint children affected by lead poisoning. Meridian Health Plan of Detroit has agreed to donate up to $40,000 in matching funds to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint for long-term needs Hanna-Attisha expects to arise from the lead issue.
At his annual State of the State address on January 19, Snyder apologized again, and asked the Michigan Legislature to give Flint an additional $28 million in funding for filters, replacement cartridges, bottled water, more school nurses and additional intervention specialists. It also will fund lab testing, corrosion control procedures, a study of water-system infrastructure, potentially help Flint deal with unpaid water bills, case management of people with elevated lead-blood levels, assessment of potential linkages to other diseases, crisis counseling and mental health services, and the replacement of plumbing fixtures in schools, child care centers, nursing homes and medical facilities. The Michigan House Appropriations Committee passed the bill the next day, while the Senate approved it on January 28. Snyder signed it the next day.
On January 21, 2016, President Obama gave an $80 million loan to Michigan for infrastructure repairs, but the amount going to Flint is uncertain.
On January 28, 2016, Democratic U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters and Representative Dan Kildee proposed an amendment to pending federal energy legislation to add the special appropriation of up to $400 million to replace and repair the lead service lines in Flint and $200 million more to create a center for lead research in Flint. They also said the state could choose to match up to $400 million for its share of infrastructure repairs in Flint. The newly amended bill was rejected by the Senate on February 4. A new $220 million bill to address the crisis was proposed in the U.S. Senate on February 24.
At a news conference on February 9, 2016, Flint mayor Karen Weaver said that the city would remove and replace all of the city's 15,000 water service lines containing lead piping. Work was expected to begin in March 2016. The project will receive technical advice from the Lansing Board of Water and Light, which removed over 13,000 lead pipes in Lansing, Michigan. Lansing mayor Virg Bernero volunteered to provide the assistance. Weaver appointed Michael C. H. McDaniel, a retired National Guard brigadier general, to oversee the group leading the project, the Flint Action and Sustainability Team (FAST). The city government hopes to complete the project within a year, using 32 work crews, with priority given to the most at-risk households.
The project is expected to cost $55 million, and the funding sources are not yet secured, but the city plans to seek it from local, state, and federal sources. The crews began working on March 4.
On February 16, 2016, the state hired Flint-based engineering firm Rowe Professional Services to begin the process of locating, removing, and eventually replacing lead pipes in the highest risk areas of Flint.
On February 18, 2016, the state gave Flint a $2 million grant that will go towards replacing lead service lines.
On March 6, 2016, Union Labor Life Insurance Company donated $25 million for lead pipe replacements in the city.
On July 18, 2016, city council approved a $500,000 contract with three companies for the second phase of lead pipe replacements: WT Stevens and Johnson & Wood were awarded $320,000 contracts to do no more than 50 homes each. Goyette was awarded $619,500 to tackle replacing lead lines at 150 Flint homes. The city is using $25 million in funding approved by the Michigan legislature in June that was allocated for replacing Flint lead tainted pipes for Fast Start's third phase which will replace infrastructure at an estimated 5,000 homes in Flint.
On October 10, 2016, city council approved contracts to replace pipes at 788 more homes before winter. The third phase will be funded using a portion of $25 million approved by the Michigan Legislature in June that was allocated for replacing Flint lead tainted pipes for Fast Start's third phase, which will replace infrastructure at an estimated 5,000 homes in Flint. Goyette will be paid $1,663,300.60 for replacements at 260 addresses in city wards two, six and eight. WT Stevens will be paid $2,306,384 for replacements at 488 addresses in city wards three, four, eight and nine.
On October 17, 2016, the second phase of the program was completed on 218 homes. By November 22, 2016, the total number of homes with new pipes was 460.
Flint's water service line records were largely unreliable, meaning the city could not say how many lead pipes existed, nor where they were. The City therefore started using a machine learning model to prioritize excavations starting in September 2016. Researchers from the University of Michigan developed this predictive model, using utility and parcel-level data to develop a more accurate service line inventory and calculate the probability that a given service is connected with a lead line. As pipes are dug up and more data is gained, the model updates accordingly and yields more accurate results. Using the model to prioritize excavations throughout 2016 and 2017 yielded a hit rate of about 80%.
A University of Michigan study, conducted by the same researchers responsible for developing the machine learning model, was released on December 1, 2016, stating a total of 29,100 pipes, from all parcels regardless of occupancy, were estimated to be lead. This was based on a representative sample taken of the city's water service lines (approximately 200 homes) using Hydrovac method, which revealed the problem was more extensive than the city anticipated. After the report, the city's estimates of lead/galvanized jumped from 10 to 20% to about 50%.
On January 19, 2017, an engineer at the Flint Water Plant said the facility is in need of $60 million worth of upgrades, which would not be finished until well into 2019. On February 7, 2017, another report said the cost would be $108 million.
On February 6, 2017, the Genesee Intermediate School District received $6.5 million for the Early On Genesee program to provide free evaluations to as many as 5,000 children up to 5 years old facing possible lead-related developmental delays from the state of Michigan.
On March 17, 2017, Flint received a $100 million grant from the EPA for water infrastructure repairs.
On June 30, 2017, the Genesee County Health Department's Healthy Start Program received $15 million to provide health and social services for people who have had or are at risk for lead exposure stemming from Flint water crisis.
In January 2018, the city contracted a private consulting firm, AECOM, to take over water service line excavations and consequently stopped using the machine learning model. During 2018, 10,531 excavations were performed, yielding a hit rate of only 15%.
On March 26, 2018, a U.S. federal court mandate required the city to return to using the machine learning model to prioritize excavations. As a result, the hit rate steadily increased and was close to 70% as of 2019.
Childhood lead exposure causes a reduction in intellectual functioning and IQ, academic performance, and problem-solving skills, and an increased risk of attention deficit disorder, aggression, and hyperactivity. According to studies, children with elevated levels of lead in the blood are more likely as adults to commit crimes, be imprisoned, be unemployed or underemployed, or be dependent on government services. While changes in IQ may appear small from the elevated blood levels, it has been estimated that each increase in an IQ point raises worker's productivity by 1.76–2.38%, and that the economic benefit for each year of 3.8 million 2-year-old children could be from $110 to $319 billion.
In addition, early-life exposure to lead may increase risk of later-life neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, and this risk is likely to persist into late life long after lead has been removed from the body. A 2014 study by researchers at Risk Science Center at the University of Michigan, completed before the Flint water crisis came to light, estimated the annual cost of childhood lead exposure in Michigan at $330 million ($205 million in decreases in lifetime earnings, $105 million in additional criminal justice system expenditures, $18 million in health expenditures to diagnose lead positioning and lead-linked attention deficit disorder), and $2.5 million in additional special education expenditures.
Because the developmental effects of lead exposure appear over a series of years, the total long-term cost of the Flint water crisis "will not be apparent in the short term." However, the cost is expected to be high. Philippe Grandjean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, an expert in the effects of environmental pollution on brain development, said that "when calculated from the loss of lifetime income, the societal costs from lead exposure (across the United States) reach billion-dollar amounts."
Dan Kildee, the Democratic party congressman in the House of Representatives representing the Michigan 5th district which includes Flint, along with Republican Michigan Representative Fred Upton, sponsored H.R. 4470, the Safe Drinking Water Act Improved Compliance Awareness Act, which would ensure that the public promptly learns of excessive lead levels in their drinking water by setting forth how and when states, EPA, and public utilities communicate their findings. It has passed the House, but has yet to be passed by the Senate, where it has been read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Among the Michigan congressional delegation, only Representative Justin Amash, Republican of Cascade Township, opposed federal aid for Flint. Amash opined that "the U.S. Constitution does not authorize the federal government to intervene in an intrastate matter like this one."
In December 2016, President Barack Obama signed the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016 which earmarked $170 million to address the Flint water crisis. The first $100 million was released in March 2017, by the US Environmental Protection Agency after President Trump had taken office.
President Donald Trump's plan to fix the crisis in Michigan was folded into a federal infrastructure plan that had no direct reference to or specific proposal for the crisis in Flint.
Dan Kildee, the Democratic party congressman in the House of Representatives representing the Michigan 5th district which includes Flint, reintroduced on July 10, 2019, a bill in the House, originally introduced in 2017, as HR 3677, the National Opportunity for Lead Exposure Accountability and Deterrence Act (NO LEAD) of 2017. Tammy Duckworth, Democratic Senator for Illinois, announced on the same day, July 10, 2019, the introduction of a bill in the Senate as S. 2086, the National Opportunity for Lead Exposure Accountability and Deterrence (NO LEAD) of 2019. The nearly-identical bills aim to help ensure drinking water across the USA is safe from lead and copper contamination, and would update the Lead and Copper Rule, lowering the lead action level from 15 parts per billion (ppb) currently, to 10 ppb by 2020 and 5 ppb by 2026. The bill would also create a lead-service-line inventory to help monitor contaminated service lines and ensure the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) develops a universal testing protocol to make sure the entire lead service line is replaced if water contamination is detected, as partial replacement does not eliminate the risk of contamination.
On January 4, 2016, citing the Flint water crisis, Michigan Representative Phil Phelps, Democrat of Flushing, announced plans to introduce a bill to the Michigan House of Representatives that would make it a felony for state officials to intentionally manipulate or falsify information in official reports, punishable by up to five years' imprisonment and a $5,000 fine.
On March 2, House Democratic leader Tim Greimel called on Governor Snyder to resign, due to his "negligence and indifference" in his handling of the Flint water crisis. Also on that date, State Democratic Party Chairman Brandon Dillon called for Michigan Treasurer Nick Khouri to resign due to his role in a loan agreement from April 2015 that blocked Flint from switching back to the Detroit system.
On January 19, 2016, then-Republican-candidate Donald Trump said, "It's a shame what's happening in Flint, Michigan. A thing like that shouldn't happen." After clinching the Republican nomination, Trump visited Flint on September 14, 2016, and toured the water plant and a Flint church, where he promised to fix the water crisis, and in a speech there, he outlined larger issues, claiming NAFTA caused General Motors' abandonment of Flint and the area's subsequent ongoing recession, saying, "It used to be that cars were made in Flint and you couldn't drink the water in Mexico. Now cars are made in Mexico, and you can't drink the water in Flint. That's terrible."
Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton repeatedly mentioned the crisis during her campaign, saying: "The people of Flint deserve to know the truth about how this happened and what Governor Snyder and other leaders knew about it. And they deserve a solution, fast. Thousands of children may have been exposed to lead, which could irreversibly harm their health and brain functioning. Plus, this catastrophe—which was caused by a zeal to save money at all costs—could actually cost $1.5 billion in infrastructure repairs." In a subsequent interview, Clinton referred to her work on lead abatement in housing in upstate New York while a U.S. Senator and called for further funding for healthcare and education for children who will experience the negative effects of lead exposure on behavior and educational attainment.
The crisis was also the catalyst for a town hall style debate in Flint between Clinton and Democratic rival Bernie Sanders on March 6, 2016, two days before the Michigan Presidential primary election. It was hosted by CNN anchors Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon. Both candidates called for Governor Snyder to resign during the event.
An investigative report by Reuters released December 19, 2016, found nearly 3,000 areas in the United States with lead contamination rates at least double those in Flint. The Trump administration blocked publishing a federal health study on the nationwide water-contamination crisis.
The water disaster called attention to the problem of aging and seriously neglected water infrastructure nationwide. The Flint crisis recalled recent lead contamination crises in the tap water in various cities, such as the lead contamination in Washington, D.C. drinking water (2001), Columbia, South Carolina (2005); Durham and Greenville, North Carolina (2006); Jackson, Mississippi (2015); and Sebring, Ohio (2015). The New York Times notes, "Although Congress banned lead water pipes 30 years ago, between 3.3 million and 10 million older ones remain, primed to leach lead into tap water by forces as simple as jostling during repairs or a change in water chemistry." Inadequate regulation was cited as one reason for unsafe lead levels in tap water and "efforts to address shortcomings often encounter push-back from industries like agriculture and mining that fear cost increases, and from politicians ideologically opposed to regulation". The crisis called attention to a "resource gap" for water regulators. The annual budget of the EPA's drinking water office declined 15% from 2006 to 2015, with the office losing over 10% of employees, and the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators reported in 2013 that "federal officials had slashed drinking-water grants, 17 states had cut drinking-water budgets by more than a fifth, and 27 had cut spending on full-time employees", with "serious implications for states' ability to protect public health".
In the aftermath of the water crisis, it was noted that elevated blood-lead levels in children are found in many cities across Michigan, including Detroit, Grand Rapids, Muskegon, and Adrian. Although statewide childhood lead-poisoning rates have dramatically declined since the removal of lead from gasoline, certain areas of the state (particularly low-income areas with older housing stock) continue to experience lead poisoning, mostly from lead paint in homes built before 1978 and lead residue in dust and soil. Lead abatement efforts are slow.
The water crisis in Flint, Michigan has made it apparent that reform needs to be made nationwide to improve water infrastructure. Michigan, as the center of the water crisis, has since strengthened its Lead and Copper Rule, making it the strongest advocate against lead contaminated water in the country. The new Lead and Copper Rule in Michigan requires that all lead contaminated pipes be replaced within the next twenty years. In 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency suggested the first change to the Lead and Copper Rule in almost three decades to set more strict protocols for when lead is identified in water.
After the crisis in Flint, Michigan, Trump's administration created a new set of regulations that would allow states to react more effectively and in a faster manner in the event of a public health crisis. These changes, proposed in amendments to the Lead and Copper Rule, still allow lead water lines to service communities, which has drawn a lot of criticisms from the public. This new proposal highlighted four changes in the Lead and Copper Rule, a rule that previously has not been revised in years. The proposed revisions consist of:
However, critics are calling for the replacement of all lead service lines in communities; a project that would cost billions of dollars, which was not a part of the proposed amendments to the Lead and Copper Rule.
The problem with the current Lead and Copper Rule is that it allows states to test their own water systems. This can cause problems because the water systems in individual homes affect the quality of the water there. Therefore, water pipes could be contaminated and never get tested, or the test results are never reported. Since the crisis in Flint, the Environmental Protection Agency has called for more aggressive replacement of contaminated pipes, as well as improved education so people know to test their water. The crisis in Flint spurred the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to test water systems across the nation for possible contaminants. The study showed that every state in the country had areas which tested positive for matter that could be harmful to human health. This highlights the sheer number of violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act, of which the Lead and Copper Rule is a part. These violations could be positive results of contaminated water, failing to test water and water systems, and the failure to report contaminated water systems to the proper authorities.
Civil rights advocates characterized the crisis as a result of environmental racism (Flint's population is 56.6% African American per the 2010 census), a term primarily referring to the disproportionate exposure of ethnic minorities to pollution as a result of "poverty and segregation that has relegated many blacks and other racial minorities to some of the most industrialized or dilapidated environments". Columnist Shaun King, for example, wrote that the crisis was "a horrific clash of race, class, politics and public health".
Flint residents themselves have identified racism as a contributing factor to the crisis. In a qualitative study done by The Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health (CRECH) at the University of Michigan, researchers investigated Flint youth's perceptions of the Flint water crisis. The young Flint residents, with 93% identifying as black, were asked questions regarding the socioeconomic factors that attributed to the crisis. In these interviews, themes of race, genocide, and oppression became apparent as youth expressed opinions on how their "poor Black city" was stigmatized and deprioritized by those in power. While some participants attributed the crisis to intentional ignorance in the face of a stereotype of cities with high crime rates such as Flint, others connected the crisis to an "intentional program of genocide". Regardless of varying dissent, the interviews were notably "emotionally charged", and much of the interviewees posed an idea of internalized oppression. Researchers noted that these results can help academics study the racialized mental trauma and stress among youth who experienced the Flint water crisis.
The Michigan Civil Rights Commission later reiterated this belief in a 138-page report titled "The Flint Water Crisis: Systemic Racism Through the Lens of Flint". Its writers, including Agustin Arbulu, Director of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, said of it,
Arthur Horwitz, co-chair of the commission during the time of the investigation, said,
The Governor's office responded: "Some findings of the report and the recommendations are similar to those of the (Flint Water Advisory Task Force and) the legislative panel and the Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee ... The Governor takes the reporting of each of these panels very seriously, and appreciates the public input that was shared." State Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich responded, "The presence of racial bias in the Flint water crisis isn't much of a surprise to those of us who live here, but the Michigan Civil Rights Commission's affirmation that the emergency manager law disproportionately hurts communities of color is an important reminder of just how bad the policy is. Now is the time to address this flawed law. ... The people of Flint deserve the same level of safety, opportunity and justice that any other city in Michigan enjoys".
On October 8, 2015, the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press wrote that the crisis was "an obscene failure of government" and criticized Snyder.
From December 2015 and for the next two years, reporter Jiquanda Johnson reported on the ins and outs of the water crisis for The Flint Journal, beginning with a report on the preliminary findings of the Flint Water Advisory Task Force on December 30. The experience led Johnson to found Flint Beat to do deeper coverage from the perspectives of the community there.
On December 31, 2015, the editorial board of the MLive group of Michigan newspapers called upon Snyder to "drop executive privilege and release all of his communications on Flint water", establish a procedure for compensating families of children with elevated lead blood levels, and return Flint to local control.
Some of the most important reporting on the crisis was conducted by investigative reporter Curt Guyette, who works not for a news organization but for the American Civil Liberties Union's Michigan Democracy Watch Project. The work of Guyette and the ACLU was credited with bringing the water contamination to public light.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has extensively reported on the water crisis on her show since December 2015, keeping it in the national spotlight. She has condemned Snyder's use of emergency managers (which she termed a "very, very radical" change "to the way we govern ourselves as Americans, something that nobody else has done") and said, "The kids of Flint, Michigan have been poisoned by a policy decision." Maddow visited Flint and hosted a town hall with government officials and other involved experts on her show on January 27. On October 5, 2017, Maddow won an Emmy Award for the special.
In February 2018, Jordan Chariton Reports, the YouTube channel and reporting website, released an investigative piece on Truthdig showing that the science and data used to declare the water safe in Flint, Michigan was suspect. This report was later featured on the Thom Hartmann Program.
On April 23, 2019, Status Coup, an independent investigative reporting network co-founded by Jordan Chariton and Jenn Dize, released the documentary Flushing Flint which claimed that the water testing by Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) was falsified by MDEQ staff taking water samples after flushing running water from taps for several minutes before taking the samples, contrary to normal procedures for water testing, and by MDEQ staff telling residents that they should take water samples after flushing running water from their taps for several minutes. This would clearly contravene the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidance that samples taken must be "first-draw samples at taps in homes/buildings".
On April 16, 2020, an article was published giving details of evidence of corruption and a cover-up by former Governor Rick Snyder and his "fixer" Rich Baird, and stating that the statute of limitations on some of the most serious felony misconduct-in-office charges would expire on April 25, 2020. The article was published by Vice News, written by Jordan Chariton and Jenn Dize, the co-founders of Status Coup, with photos by Brittany Greeson. Responses from Michigan state authorities denied that a deadline was approaching, and said that criminal prosecutions would follow.
In January 2016, a coalition of local and national groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), filed suit seeking federal court intervention to secure access to safe drinking water for the people of Flint, Michigan. In November 2016, a federal judge ordered the implementation of door-to-door delivery of bottled water to every home without a properly installed and maintained faucet filter. In March 2018, a settlement was reached that required the city to replace thousands of lead service lines and return to using the predictive model.
In June 2019, the University of Michigan researchers responsible for developing the model, Jake Abernethy and Eric Schwartz, founded BlueConduit, a company aimed at leveraging data science and machine learning to find and remove lead pipes in other municipalities. Retired Brigadier General Michael C. H. McDaniel, who was appointed by Flint Mayor Karen Weaver to serve as program manager for the lead service line replacement programs in Flint, joined BlueConduit as Director of Government and Customer Services.
The watchdog group Common Cause called upon Snyder to release all documents related to the Flint water crisis. The governor's office is not subject to the Michigan Freedom of Information Act.
The hacktivist group Anonymous released a YouTube video calling for the arrest of Snyder.
Michael Moore, a Genesee County native and director-producer of several movies related to Flint, called for Snyder's arrest for mishandling the water crisis in an open letter to the governor, writing, "The facts are all there, Mr. Snyder. Every agency involved in this scheme reported directly to you. The children of Flint didn't have a choice as to whether or not they were going to get to drink clean water." A spokesman for the governor called Moore's call "inflammatory". Later, after hearing of the Legionnaires' outbreak, Moore termed the state's actions "murder". Speaking to reporters in Flint, he emphasized that "this was not a mistake ... Ten people have been killed here because of a political decision. They did this. They knew." Moore also criticized Barack Obama's trip to Flint, where he drank water, "disappointing".
In a post on her Facebook page, environmental activist Erin Brockovich called the water crisis a "growing national concern" and said that the crisis was "likely" connected to the Legionnaires' disease outbreak. Brockovich called for the U.S. Environment Protection Agency to become involved in the investigation, saying that the EPA's "continued silence has proven deadly".
On January 16, 2016, the Reverend Jesse Jackson met with Mayor Weaver in Flint and said of the crisis, "The issue of water and air and housing and education and violence are all combined. The problem here obviously is more than just lack of drinkable water. We know the problems here and they will be addressed." Jackson called Flint "a disaster zone" and a "crime scene" during a rally at a Flint church the next day. Jackson, in conjunction with the group Concerned Pastors for Social Action, held a major national march in Flint on February 19 to address the water issue, as well as inner city violence and urban reconstruction.
On January 18, Nontombi Naomi Tutu, daughter of Desmond Tutu, said in a speech at the University of Michigan–Flint, "We actually needed the people of Flint to remind the people of this country what happens when political expediency, when financial concerns, overshadow justice and humanity."
On January 24, actor and clean drinking water advocate Matt Damon called for Snyder's resignation.
On March 7, actor Mark Ruffalo, head of the group Water Defense, visited Flint and called for more federal aid in the emergency and Snyder's resignation while saying, "It's an absolute outrage, it's a moral indecency." Water Defense conducted studies on Flint water in the spring of 2016, claiming it is still unsafe for bathing or showering. Their findings were disputed by Virginia Tech water expert Marc Edwards on May 31, 2016.
In the third episode of the Adult Swim comedy series Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace, Charles Carroll (member of the group of YouTube comedians Million Dollar Extreme) delivered a monologue where he described how viewers can recreate the contaminated water in Flint. In his monologue, the right wing-leaning Carroll discussed the concept of tyrannicide with costars Sam Hyde and Andrew Ruse and claims that the situation in Flint is a situation where the violent murder of Republican leadership in the state of Michigan would be justified.
Comedian Steve Harvey made a joke which caused controversy after he got in an argument on The Steve Harvey Morning Show. On it a viewer called in to say that "Cleveland don't deserve jack, and he over there bathing in all that silver water" after the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA team lost in the finals to the Golden State Warriors. Steve Harvey retorted "one more thing. ... Enjoy your nice brown glass of water". The network immediately apologized on air for Harvey's behavior. Following this there was considerable outrage with both Flint mayor Karen Weaver and Little Miss Flint demanding an apology from Steve Harvey. Harvey doubled down on his statement saying it was all in good fun.
On April 28, 2018, Michelle Wolf was the featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Wolf's last line in her speech was "Flint still doesn't have clean water".
During its winter 2016 semester, the University of Michigan–Flint offered a one-credit, eight-session series of public forums dedicated to educating Flint residents and students on the crisis.
The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) committed to spending $100,000 to research the crisis and possible ways to address it.
Wayne State University in Detroit is leading a separate study with five other schools focusing on the Legionnaires' outbreak called the Flint Area Community Health and Environment Partnership. On October 9, 2017, they released their preliminary analysis, which showed approximately 10 percent of all homes on the Flint municipal water system had chlorine levels less than 0.2 mg/L when measured at the kitchen faucet (bypassing filters when present) after five minutes of flushing.
On August 7, 2017, West Virginia University published a study validating the correlation between the intake of lead contaminated water and the increase of fetal deaths along with miscarriages during November 2013 to March 2015. The study was led jointly by Daniel Grossman of West Virginia University and David Slusky of the University of Kansas. The data was constructed over the course of two years focusing on the city of Flint and how the data differs among neighboring cites in Michigan. Data shows that after the city switched the water source to the Flint River, fetal deaths rose 58% among women aged 15–49 compared to control areas.
On November 6, 2017, a retrospective cohort study was published in the Journal of Public Health Policy regarding birth weight outcomes in Flint in the early stages of the water crisis. The study was completed using birth data from 2005 to 2015 to assess the birth weights of infants born before and after the Flint, Michigan, water supply was changed. Low birth weight was defined as a birth weight less than 2,500 grams. Beginning with January 2014 conception dates, the Flint, Michigan, population saw the incidence of low birth weight infants increase from 13.3% to 15.7%. Further analysis, using other counties as controls with similar demographics during the same time period, were then assessed in order to prove these lower birth weights did not happen by chance.
Overall, birth weight in Flint was found to be 48.9 grams less than the control group with a statistically significant 1.53% increase in incidences of low birth weight. The study also analyzed the effects of race in regards to changes in birth weights. White mothers saw a 71-gram reduction in birth weight, resulting in a 2.73% increase in low birth weight infants. There were not any statistically meaningful differences among African American infants. There were likely not enough control counties to properly assess African American birth weights separately. The main limitation of the study was that infants of Flint were compared to infants of other counties. Also, the birth weights after the climax of the crisis were not assessed to see if they bounced back to pre-crisis weights. Increased lead consumption and stress were hypothesized to be reasons behind the increase in low birth weights, but there were likely many additional confounding factors.
In a study published in the journal Communication Studies, researchers conducted a survey on the crisis communications methods used during the Flint water contamination by looking at media use between different racial groups. The results were accordant with past research, where racial minorities generally utilized more interpersonal and social connections as informational resources in comparison to their white counterparts. Additionally, the study found that "In almost every category pertaining to health effects and other topics related to the Flint water crisis, African American respondents wanted additional information at higher levels than White respondents." Lastly, researchers found that Instagram was widely used by African-American residents to receive crisis information.
The crisis highlighted a lack of transparency in Michigan government; the state is one of just two states that exempts the governor's office from state freedom-of-information legislation. A number of commentators framed the crisis in terms of human rights, writing that authorities' handling of the issue denied residents their right to clean water.
Some have framed it as the result of austerity measures and given priority over human life. Jacob Lederman, for example, contends that Flint's poisoned water supply, in addition to high crime rates, devastated schools and crumbling infrastructure, can be attributed to neoliberal economic reforms.
Robby Soave, writing in Reason magazine, said that administrative bloat in public-sector trade unions was to blame for the crisis: "Let's not forget the reason why local authorities felt the need to find a cheaper water source: Flint is broke and its desperately poor citizens can't afford higher taxes to pay the pensions of city government retirees. As recently as 2011, it would have cost every person in Flint $10,000 each to cover the unfunded legacy costs of the city's public employees." Shikha Dalmia wrote in Reason magazine that "Flint was a government-made disaster from top to bottom. Private companies didn't run the system or profit from it".
The crisis brought the National Water Infrastructure Conference to Flint in early March 2017. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and Flint Mayor Karen Weaver spoke on the first day. Marc Edwards spoke there two days later.
On April 20, 2017, Stephen Estes-Smargiassi, director of planning and sustainability at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, told a forum on lead water contamination at the Harvard School of Public Health that a chain-reaction of failures, including those by the financial managers, allowed the water crisis to develop as long as it did. He stated:
According to The Arkansas Journal of Social Change and Public Service, the failure of preventing the crisis in Flint was that of the Michigan officials, however the failure of the situation not being deescalated is due to the Obama presidency. The president failed to declare a state of emergency quick enough, and that was very alarming to many people due to his campaign pushing for bettering the African-American community. Flint city has a huge number of African-American people within its population, thus making the city a minority. So even though the Obama administration encouraged progress in minority communities, Flint's growth was really delayed considerably by his silence. In the end, because the Obama presidency failed to adequately deal with the crisis, many people's lives were ruined.
It took almost two years for the Obama presidency to render aid for the citizens in Flint, and declare a state of emergency for the city. In those two years, the city of Flint really struggled due to their poor economy. Residents of Flint would have significantly benefited from the aid that the federal government could have provided sooner. Flint, a low-income community, lacked the resources needed for dealing with such a problem. Assistance from the federal government was needed, but it came too late. The community had begun to feel the effects of lead poisoning by the time the federal government sent assistance to Flint.
Another reason the Flint water crisis happened was due to faulty policies, and acts. To be specific, the Flint water crisis was caused by the combined collapse of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and Michigan's Local Financial Stability and Choice Act. Because of these acts, a technical strategy was adopted, ignoring the core political and social issues in favor of technical solutions. The primary causes of Flint's water issue, such as poor infrastructure investment and the exclusion effects of budget cuts forced on struggling cities, were ignored by these initiatives.
It was also said that a major reason as to why the government failed to prevent and deal with the crisis was because of the intricacy of the laws governing the upkeep and monitoring of safe drinking water by government agencies. Managing several legal arrangements requires coordination between agencies. That coordination was not done well enough to properly deal with the issue.
According to Larry Clark of Sustainable Performance Solutions, consulting professionals such as "professional engineers, licensed plumbers, or water-treatment specialists" could have had a positive impact on the outcome. In addition to professional consultation, EPA reform would help prevent another Flint water crisis. Current water-testing techniques can underestimate water lead levels because sampling is sometimes concentrated on neighborhoods with known low lead levels or lead-free pipes. Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), said that EPA reform could enforce rules that "ensure that all cities get an early warning when lead levels rise to the danger point".
One preventative measure that was not properly upheld was the Clean Water Act. Passed in 1972, this act established policies to prevent water health crises such as the lead poisoning of Flint, Michigan. The Clean Water Act "established the basic structure for regulating pollutant discharges into the waters of the United States". The EPA has also updated its standards and created six goals for improving the drinking water of the nation. This plan was created in November 2016 to decrease the amount of pollution in water. In the situation of Flint, MI, a corrosive water source was introduced "into an aging water system without adequate corrosion control".
A study at the University of Arizona, Tucson used the Flint water crisis to illustrate the economic benefits of utilizing three specific point-of-use (POU) devices, which included reverse osmosis, activated carbon, and distillation. Many factors such as "POU device costs, lead absorption from water, and economic losses associated with reduced IQ" were taken into account to determine the cost-benefit of each device. The study found that the water lead level breakeven points for reverse osmosis, activated carbon, and distillation were 7.31 μg/L, 3.73 μg/L, and 12.0 μg/L, respectively. The cost-benefit was analyzed as a 70-year (lifetime) duration, which is much longer than the Flint water crisis, and the POU devices proved to be a cost-effective tool in preventing the consumption of water-soluble lead in the future.
In Flint, a data-driven approach has aided in spending public money in ways that directly align with public health protection. Predictive models using historical city data have been utilized to estimate the probability of homes in the city containing lead pipes. Because the public (utility-owned) portion of service lines is buried under roads and sidewalks, it is expensive to verify pipe materials. Depending on the verification method, it can range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars per home. Flint spent more than $20 million on unnecessary excavations when it ignored model predictions in 2018, instead of targeting homes with the highest likelihood of having a lead service line. This could have been largely avoided with the continued use of the machine learning model developed in 2016.
As the water crisis unfolded, residents experienced considerable anxiety over the physical and mental health impacts of lead poisoning on both adults and children, stress, and anger at political leaders. Some adults felt guilty about giving children contaminated water, some even felt scared to let their children in the bath, or come into contact with the water. Adults struggled with depression and showed signs of suicidal ideation because of what was occurring with their children. In some cases family members stopped visiting. Some residents related the water crisis to depression and even thoughts of suicide; some sought treatment for mental breakdowns. The state government gave a $500,000 grant to the Genesee Health System for free counseling in addition to sending state mobile crisis teams and expanding Medicaid programs for affected residents. Volunteer social workers arrived from across the state, and the United States Public Health Service offered training.
A study from the University of Michigan provided evidence that demonstrated an association between the Flint water crisis and sleep conditions. Surveys were offered at every opportunity, including by mail, email, social media, and in-person events to as many Flint, Michigan residents as possible. 834 respondents from September 30, 2015, to September 28, 2016, were included in the analysis. In the survey, respondents had to rate the quality of their tap water (taste, smell, appearance), rate the quality of their sleep, list the duration of sleep in a typical night, and fill out basic demographics. The study found that a lower perceived quality of tap water was associated with lower sleep quality and a shorter duration of sleep.
Years after the crisis began, it was reported that up to a quarter of the population was possibly suffering from PTSD.
Another study was conducted on Flint residents to gauge the mental health impact of the crisis on the residents. In May 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the help of the city, conducted a Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER). The study was to get data on the individual and household level data on the physical and mental health outcomes in the communities where there was a public health disaster. CASPER results found that the residents in Flint had lower levels of mental health than previously reported in 2012 and 2014 by the Michigan Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.
The water crisis caused the value of Flint housing to fall between $520 million to $559 million. Home prices remained depressed even after $400 million in remediation spending and after the water was declared safe for consumption.
The lead poisoning from Flint's water has harmed the local environment. Copious amounts of toxins and lead were dispersed into the water, air, and ground in Flint. Due to the poisoning of the Earth, farmers have expressed concern for lead poisoning in their soil through the water that comes in from the Flint river. Contaminating fresh produce creates more than one mode for contaminated drinking water to reach community members.
The elevated lead levels in soil posed a long-term challenge to environmental remediation efforts. Lead can persist in soils for decades, necessitating expensive and time-consuming cleanup efforts, such as soil replacement or phytoremediation techniques. However, financial constraints and limited federal support have delayed the implementation of comprehensive soil decontamination measures.
In 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an emergency administrative order regarding the Flint water system, citing an "imminent and substantial endangerment to the health of persons." The order mandated immediate corrective actions, including the identification and replacement of lead service lines and the implementation of effective corrosion control measures, requiring strict compliance from city and state agencies.
The water crisis in Flint urged many residents and community organizations to take political action. Grassroots activism played a very important role in making the government address the issue. Citizens in Flint called to action and have created the community-based organization the "Water Warriors". They have come together to advocate for their right to have clean and drinkable water alongside the "Flint Democracy Defense League and Concerned Pastors for Social Action" to conduct studies that eventually garnered attention to move the crisis forward to change.
In addition to grassroots efforts, the crisis had a lasting impact on Michigan's political landscape. The long battle for a government response not only made the public health worse but also lessened residents' trust in authorities on state and federal levels. Residents also did not trust the water they were supplied with, even though it was said to be safe. This was found in a 2016 survey of Flint residents revealed that a little less than half of the respondents disagreed with the statement that they trust their local government, while a little more than half said that they disagreed with the statement about trusting their state government. The lack of trust is because of the governments lack of action about the crisis, and the ignoring of the citizens concerns. State leaders faced widespread criticism for their delayed response and mismanagement, leading to calls for greater transparency and accountability in government. Governor Rick Snyder's administration faced constant public scrutiny, as residents and activists demanded stronger regulatory oversight to prevent similar disasters. The controversy also spurred bipartisan efforts to secure federal funding for infrastructure upgrades, signaling a shift in national priorities toward addressing aging water systems.
The political ramifications influenced national conversations on environmental justice and government accountability. National organizations and policymakers began to criticize state-appointed emergency managers for prioritizing cost-cutting measures over public health. Critics argued that the emergency manager system, designed to address financial crises, often sidelined community voices, prioritizing cover-ups over addressing public needs.
The crisis also highlighted systemic inequality regarding race, poverty, and environmental health. Flint is home to a predominantly African American and economically disadvantaged community. Advocacy groups constantly reminded that state and federal governments that clean water as a fundamental human right.
Calls to action examples:
The Flint water crisis has been depicted in various forms of media, including film, theater, documentaries, books, and music. Flint (2017) is a Lifetime television drama film centering a woman from Flint and the impacts of the water crisis on her family. Similar stories of personal struggle through the water crisis were shared through the theatrical productions Flint (2018) and Wrong River.
Multiple documentaries center the Flint water crisis. Local news sources were amongst the first to provide in-depth investigations on the matter, including Michigan Radio's Not Safe to Drink (2015) and WDIV-TV's (NBC affiliate in Detroit's) Failure In Flint: The Crisis Continues (2017). Legal advocacy organization American Civil Liberties Union also produced a documentary, Here's to Flint 2016. National documentary broadcasters also took it upon themselves to report on the water crisis, with RT Documentary producing Murky Waters of Flint: How a whole city was poisoned (2016), PBS's Nova producing Poisoned Water (2017), and PBS's Frontline producing Flint's Deadly Water (2019). Additional documentaries include Flint: The Poisoning of an American City (2019), Netflix-produced Flint Town (2018), and Lead and Copper (2024).
A number of books were written about the water crisis, with the title theme often revolving around poison. The first book was Bridge Magazine's Poison on Tap (2016). In 2018, Mona Hanna-Attisha authored the New York Times notable book What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City. Mona Hanna-Attisha's research played a key role in exposing the Flint water crisis. Other works include Anna Clark's The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy (2018) and Candy J. Cooper and Marc Aronson's Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan, Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation (2020).
Numerous artists used music as an outlet for expressing discontent with the government handling of the crisis. Local artists that produced music include Jon Connor's "Fresh Water for Flint" (2016), King 810's "We Gotta Help Ourselves", and Dr. Andrea Ramsey's "But a Flint Holds Fire" (2016). The water crisis made its way into British music as well, with English rock band Black Midi producing "Near DT, MI" in 2019.
The water crisis was widely referenced in rap music. Big Sean (ft. Eminem) – "No Favors", Big Sean – "Savage Time", Pusha T (ft. Jay-Z) – "Drug Dealers Anonymous", Logic – "America", Vic Mensa – "Shades of Blue", The Game (ft. Will.I.Am & Nas) – "The Ghetto", and Common (ft. Stevie Wonder) – "Black America Again". These big-name rappers used their platform to raise awareness about the water crisis and name Flint, Michigan directly.