At this writing, families in Flint, Michigan, are coming face-to-face with the full scope of the harm done to the community's children by drinking lead-laden water for what appears to be nearly the last two years. The Planet sat down with Leslie Fields, director of the Sierra Club's environmental justice and community partnerships program, and Dave Holtz, chair of the Sierra Club's Michigan Chapter, to talk about the ongoing crisis in Flint.
Holtz: Beginning last October, the Michigan Sierra Club began playing an active, more visible supporting role in Flint, helping the other groups that have led this fight. It's the people of Flint who have organized themselves, who are drinking the water; who raised the issue over two years ago that there was something wrong with the water; and who have carried this fight themselves. It was only last year that rest of the state and the country started paying attention, and this was primarily due to three Individuals: Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech researcher, who first began responding to complaints about the water the lead levels; Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician at Hurley Medical Center; and Curt Guyette, an investigative reporter for the Michigan ACLU. They made it into a state and national issue, finally prompting some response from the government.
We wrote to the EPA last October, asking for answers and an investigation into what happened -- not just within the EPA but also the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which wasn't just ducking responsibility for the issue, but was in fact actively hostile to people who were bringing them information, including doctors and scientists. What has happened in Flint, and what has happened in the state agency, is indicative of a pattern of behavior that has seen them issue an air permit to a steel plant in zip code 48217, the most polluted zip code in the state, that allowed for an increase of 725 times what they had previously been emitting, and the former Severstal Steel, now part of AK Steel, that had been cited 28 times for violating their air quality permit prior to the state giving them a permit to pollute more. Rhonda Anderson, a Sierra Club environmental justice organizer in Detroit, has worked in the 48217 community for many years, fighting for the rights of this community that has borne a disproportionate share of the burden for local polluting industry.
Michigan Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence of Detroit, a ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked for congressional hearings on the situation in Flint and provided a list of people to testify on February 3, including Governor Snyder. But the committee has said they're not going to call Governor Snyder to testify; they're going to allow him to duck responsibility for the people of Flint, when he has already admitted the state is responsible for making it happen.
Right now we have Sierra Club members in Flint who are going door-to-door, making sure people have the information they need and they have access to bottled water. We are helping with recycling of the millions of plastic drinking water bottles. We are also working to make sure that we strengthen the EPA's compliance and enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act and working to change the current laws that make it more difficult for cities like Flint to replace lead pipes.
Fields: I come at this from a perspective of state and national environmental justice work. This issue is indicative of the problems with the state agencies in Michigan and more broadly in the region. This is an environmental justice crisis and should be called out as such. The Sierra Club hasn't been involved until recently, but now the Club and the chapter are involved. We need to emphasize the fact that there are "Flints" everywhere, and many other parts of Michigan have also been contending with and suffering from water pollution issues.
The Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant processes waste from over 250 of the region's most polluting facilities. It is the largest source of discharge into the Detroit River. In 2005, there were more than 200 reported sewage overflows. In 2011, the plant dumped more than 18 million gallons of diluted raw sewage and storm water into the Detroit River. Impacts from the sewage overflows contribute to contaminated drinking water, decreased property values, waterborne illnesses, and basement backups, Downriver residents, especially in the community of River Rouge, which is over 50 percent African American and more than one-third of residents live below the poverty line, use these waterways for fishing, and water for domestic use, As a result of the water contamination from the treatment plant, these residents are experiencing a myriad of negative health outcomes.
Make no mistake about it -- the poisoning of Flint was caused by decisions made by the state of Michigan and it's the governor, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and other agencies who need to take responsibility for providing the resources to restore safe drinking water to Flint residents and providing health care and other support to kids and parents. The state also needs to replace those lead lines in Flint, and to date there's been no commitment to do that.
The communities affected should be credited and reimbursed for paying for their poisoned water bills and for water they have had to purchase. In addition, all the relevant state decision-makers should be held accountable. The State of Michigan and Governor Snyder need to fix these all problems immediately and find the funding to support the affected families. The Michigan Emergency Manager Law should be repealed. The EPA should not waiver and enforce all the relevant Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water Act, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the other relevant laws for Michigan.