ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how in Flint, Michigan, the state-appointed Emergency Manager switched the city’s water source from Lake Huron and Detroit River to the Flint River in an effort to save money. State environmental agencies failed to apply corrosion controls to the newly sourced water, however, leading to corrosion of the pipelines and contamination of the water; it took more than a year before governmental officials acknowledged the complaints of lead poisoning by the city’s predominantly poor, African American residents. The chapter provides an overview of Flint’s geography and demography, as well as a description of the processes by which state emergency management laws in the United States permit state officials to appoint a receiver, state agency, or financial control board to oversee local government—a transfer of decision-making authority that precipitated the switch in Flint’s water source. From here, the chapter offers a timeline of the water crisis, noting failures at various governmental levels, while pointing out the lasting impacts of environmental injustice in Flint. As the author explains, the placement of an Emergency Manager, by the governor, into a position of authority, heightened already existing disparities in the lack of political capital among the residents of Flint—a dynamic that is often present in cases of environmental justice. The chapter concludes by describing how the corrosion of pipes has led to the erosion of public health and public trust in government—and that while the city has returned to its original water source, the economic and social futures of its residents remain murky.
