National News

Flint Residents Continue Fight For Clean Water

By Barrington M. Salmon -Contributing Writer- | Last updated: Feb 9, 2016 - 8:46:37 PM

What's your opinion on this article?

flint_water-bottles_02-16-2016.jpg
Bottles of water being prepared Photos: Troy Muhammad/Abel Muhammad/Facebook

For Audrey Muhammad, the last 12-14 months has been harrowing. The Flint, Michigan resident has been immersed in a nightmare she and other critics contend was created by government indifference, irresponsibility and a governor’s eye focused more on the bottom line than on the effect state policy might have on human beings.

flint-water-crisis_2016.jpg
Since 2014, residents had been complaining bitterly about the foul taste, color and smell of their drinking water following an executive decision by Gov. Rick Snyder, Emergency Manager Darnell Earley and other state and city officials to switch from using freshwater drawn from Lake Huron to the dirty, polluted and corrosive Flint River, called by filmmaker Michael Moore and others, “General Motors’ Sewer.”

Snyder appointee Earley engineered the move in April 2014 explained by him and state officials as a way to save $5 million. However, the fateful decision by state water officials to opt out of using corrosion prohibitors which would have cost a mere $50-$100-a-day, produced a man-made public health disaster that has affected the lives and health of all of Flint’s residents, particularly children.

Ms. Muhammad— born and raised in Flint— is among a chorus of irate residents who relentlessly voiced their concerns and skepticism, demanding honest answers but state officials, the governor’s former spokesman, and others, dismissive of the complaints, continued to insist that the water was safe to drink.

“Probably a little more than a year ago, I noticed a smell in the water and fire hydrants were on (spewing brown water). It was on the news,” Ms. Muhammad recalled, during a Feb. 5 interview with The Final Call. “There was a water advisory, then they came back and said the water was safe to drink. I didn’t believe them.”

“Everybody is really concerned about our overall health, rashes have broken out on people, others’ hair is dropping out. I have a two-year-old granddaughter and my sister is having a fit. She’s coming to take her to Texas.”

Ms. Muhammad, an occupational therapist, said she and other parents fear for children’s exposure to the lead.

flint_water-bottles_02-16-2016b.jpg
Distributed to the residents of Flint, Mi.

“You can’t watch a child every second. He or she may try to drink the water,” she said. “We don’t use the water for anything but washing clothes. Some people go to laundromats in surrounding communities.”

Now, Ms. Muhammad and fellow Flint residents are forced to deal with the fallout from a lead poisoning tragedy that could affect them and their children for decades. Lead is a potent neurotoxin which can cause memory loss, irreversible brain damage, impaired development, cognitive dysfunction, speech impediments and other serious chronic conditions, particularly in children.  After 10 Flint residents died from Legionnaires’ disease, experts said the outbreak and an uptick in infections caused by water-borne bacteria may be linked to the contamination.

Virginia Tech Professor Marc Edwards, an environmental and water resources engineer and an expert on drinking water safety, castigated state and federal officials for dereliction of duty and a callous disregard for the health and safety for those they purport to serve.

“I knew that something like Flint was inevitable because of the scientific misconduct of the EPA and the CDC, and in the wake of what happened in Washington, D.C.” said Edwards, who assembled a volunteer team to test water samples sent to him by concerned parent LeAnne Walters, a mother who sought answers about the tap water flowing into her home. “They falsified reports to cover up health harm (and) in the process, guaranteed that Flint was going to happen.”

“I accuse them of institutional scientific misconduct. They have to be worthy of the public trust and be worthy of their mission.”

Prof. Edwards said Flint represents a number of disturbing major themes that “makes this issue so profoundly disturbing to Americans.”

“(One) theme is the fiscal irresponsibility of our government and the declining availability of discretionary spending. Flint is ahead of many other cities in terms of going bankrupt.  If you cut corners as Flint did, you can end civilization as we know it. What’s happened in Flint is people who can’t bathe in their water. Many of them left the city which was already on financial life-support.”

Ms. Walters, leader of a cadre of residents who dubbed themselves the “Water Warriors” told the Washington Post that the mistrust of Michigan officials is so deep that residents won’t allow the company chosen by Flint’s elected officials to test their water. The only team they trust, she said, is Edward’s team.

“He was critical, he showed this problem was all throughout the city and not at one person’s house,” she said of Edwards’ work. “I don’t think this fight would be where it was if it wasn’t for Marc.”

Prof. Edwards, a MacArthur genius fellow and the Charles P. Lunsford Professor at Virginia Tech, took on the Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2001-2 when they announced that despite unsafe amounts of lead leaching into D.C. water, no residents were affected. Through his research and Freedom of Information Act requests, Edwards forced the CDC to admit that it had misinformed the public about the risk of lead in the District’s drinking water.

Gov. Snyder has come under intense condemnation for his action and inaction across racial, political and social lines with President Barack Obama, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Flint native and filmmaker Michael Moore, Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), actress and activist Cher and activist and environmental crusader Erin Brockovich joining the fray.

“It’s extreme negligence. It’s time for those responsible in agencies and government, and those voted and in place to govern, to be held accountable,” said Brockovich during a Jan 25 interview with MSNBC’s Tamron Hall. “When does it switch from negligence to criminal? This was man-made. It’s government and political decisions that caused this. And somebody should be held accountable. We can’t do this again. We’ve got to learn from this; we can’t continue to make this mistake.”

Demonstrations continue unabated, residents have started petitions calling for Snyder’s impeachment, arrest and imprisonment and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held its first hearing on the Flint Water Crisis on Capitol Hill on Feb. 3. Gov. Snyder has been invited to appear before lawmakers next week. Meanwhile, the Michigan National Guard, churches, charitable organizations, celebrities and individuals have been collecting and transporting tens of thousands of cases of bottled water to beleaguered residents.

Chicago resident Abel Muhammad is one of those volunteers.

“I’ve been back-and-forth three times every other weekend with water and other aid,” said Muhammad, a member of the Nation of Islam since 1998 who attends Mosque Maryam in Chicago. “We’ve also coordinated with different people in Detroit and Grand Rapids. We’ve organized with churches and other organizations. We’re a unity group bringing some relief to the people of Flint,” said Mr. Muhammad who is also a Student Minister in the Nation of Islam.

“It’s somewhat amazing. The people are resilient. You would expect to see crisis and mayhem but things are pretty normal and calm. There is a lot of distrust. People to one degree are aware of the gravity of the situation but they still have a great deal of difficulty wrapping their minds about what’s been going on.”

During Congressional testimony, Prof. Edwards summed up the extent of government failure and the public distrust. “While misconduct has always been a problem, at some level, since the earliest days of the scientific revolution, the rise of institutional scientific misconduct is a relatively new phenomenon,” he said.

“Clearly, we do not have adequate checks and balances on the power of these agencies, nor do we hold them accountable for their unethical actions. There is a price to be paid for scientific misconduct, and unfortunately it is borne by the poorest amongst us, not by its perpetrators,” said the professor. 

“We have to get this problem fixed, and fast, so that these agencies can live up to their noble vision and once again be worthy of the public trust.”