The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, is an unmitigated environmental and human health disaster. The tragedy is not just that the Michigan government—both the legislative and executive branches—failed to ensure that the Flint community's basic civil human and health rights were protected. The tragedy is that Flint's entire population of 100,000 was placed at risk to achieve some “costs savings.” The Flint poisoning represents one of the worst environmental public health crises since Love Canal—and it was entirely avoidable.

It would have cost the state of Michigan only about $100 a day to employ the federally mandated anticorrosive water pipe treatment that would have saved every child in Flint from the lifelong, debilitating effects of lead poisoning. In short, the people of Flint (in the eyes of the government) were too poor, and had the wrong complexion, for protection. Every family should expect that the air they breathe and the water they drink is clean, and that they'll be treated fairly and equally by a government acting in their best interests. Sadly, across Michigan, cities like Flint, Detroit, and Benton Harbor have come to realize that this is not the case.

The people of Flint and the citizens of Michigan deserve more than just answers. They deserve immediate state government and U.S. Justice Department action. The democratic process did not fail the people of Flint; it was the willful public policy action and mandates created by state government alone that created this crisis. It was Governor Rick Snyder's appointed emergency manager who supplanted the local democratically elected government as the sole decision-making authority that created this awful problem. This crisis deserves to be treated with urgency, not political expediency. Justice demands that those who have tried to brush it under the rug be held accountable.

The Flint lead poisoning is a failure at every level of Michigan state government. Everyone from the governor's office to Flint's emergency manager is ignoring the crisis that threatens the lives, livelihood, and future of every child, man, and woman in that community. We have to ask: Would this have happened if this community was rich or majority white? Would it have happened in another part of Michigan—for example, in its state capital, Lansing?

We must hold Governor Rick Snyder (who so far has failed to take full responsibility) and his chain of command accountable for this disaster and work together with Mayor Karen Weaver, the EPA, and the National Institutes of Health to take steps to fix the problem and help every single resident who has been affected. Anything less than a clear road map to clean up Flint's water, replace the entire water supply infrastructure in the community, and treat the children who were poisoned by the disastrous decision to switch the water supply to the Flint River will ring hollow. Justice demands that none of the costs and liabilities for repairs be borne by any tenant or homeowner, nor should ratepayers be charged for having been poisoned by the city's tainted water supply.

The Sierra Club stands in full solidarity and support with the residents of Flint and will marshal our grassroots resources to assist in the cause of justice.

Aaron Mair is the president of the Sierra Club.