CHAPTER 2: CORROSION

0.   .  Blake Thorne, “Even the Trees Had a Bad Time in the Flint-Area This Winter,” MLive—Flint Journal, May 6, 2014.

0.   .  Nicole Weddington, “Friends of the Flint River Trail Kick Off Weekly Sunday Bike Rides,” MLive—Flint Journal, May 6, 2014.

0.   .  Adrian Hedden, “Fixing Flint: Revitalizing Flint Lake Park Brings North Side Residents Together,” MLive—Flint Journal, July 17, 2014.

0.   .  William E. Ketchum III, “Flint Nonprofit Brings Flint Symphony String Performance to MTA Bus Terminal,” MLive—Flint Journal, July 16, 2014, updated July 17, 2014.

0.   .  Ron Fonger, “State Says Flint River Water Meets All Standards but More Than Twice the Hardness of Lake Water,” MLive—Flint Journal, May 23, 2014, updated January 17, 2015.

0.   .  Crooks sent the email on May 15, 2014, to three of her colleagues. She notes that Lathan Jefferson spoke with her and with another EPA expert.

0.   .  Ahmad Bajjey, “Flint Residents Avoiding the Tap, Drinking Bottled Water Instead,” WEYI-TV NBC25, June 2, 2014, news, video, and article available online, http://nbc25news.com/news/local/flint-residents-avoiding-the-tap-drinking-bottled-water-instead, last accessed March 3, 2018.

0.   .  The final report of the Flint Water Advisory Task Force sums this up: “In advance of the City of Flint’s conversion from DWSD water supply to use of Flint River water, MDEQ had multiple communications and meetings with Flint Utilities Department staff and their consultants. A plan of treatment of Flint River water was discussed and covered numerous issues including dosing of chemicals, use of polymers, and unit process performance. When asked by Flint water plant personnel about adding phosphate in the treatment process, as DWSD does for corrosion control, MDEQ said that a corrosion control treatment decision would be made after two 6-month monitoring periods were conducted to see if corrosion control treatment was needed.” Flint Water Advisory Task Force, Final Report, March 2016, p. 27. Also, on June 17, 2014, Adam Rosenthal of the MDEQ emailed Michael Glasgow, Flint’s utilities administrator, and confirmed to him that no monitoring for orthophosphates was needed because no orthophosphates were being added to the water (p. 90).

0.   .  The corrosion control requirements come from the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule, and it applies to all community water systems that serve at least fifty thousand people. As early as the 1950s, when Flint still treated its own river water, it was using “polyphosphate … to lessen the corrosion of water pipe when in contact with the cold water” (“The Water Supply of Flint, Michigan,” city brochure, p. 11, as quoted in the final report of the Flint Water Advisory Task Force). Corrosion control ceased in Flint after the April 2014 switch. The MDEQ argued that this was appropriate. According to its interpretation of the rules, it could do two six-month evaluations on the river water before deciding whether to use corrosion control at all, and, if so, what kind was best. For more on corrosion treatment technology: John R. Scully, “The Corrosion Crisis in Flint, Michigan: A Call for Improvements in Technology,” Bridge 46, no. 2 (Summer 2016): 16–29. For the note about half of water systems using orthophosphates: Siddhartha Roy, “Test Update: Flint River Water 19x More Corrosive Than Detroit Water for Lead Solder; Now What?,” FlintWaterStudy.org, September 11, 2015.

0. .  Keith Harrison, “Flint Water, Corrosivity, and Lead,” TapTalk, Delaware Health and Public Services, Division of Public Health, Office of Drinking Water, Spring 2016.

0. .  “Chlorides,” Bureau of Water, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, n.d., https://www.scdhec.gov/HomeAndEnvironment/Docs/Chlorides.pdf.

0. .  Gwen Pearson, “Road Salt Is Polluting Our Rivers,” Wired, March 12, 2015.

0. .  Walter R. Kelly, Samuel V. Panno, and Keith Hackley, “The Sources, Distribution, and Trends of Chloride in the Waters of Illinois,” Bulletin B-74, Illinois State Water Survey, Prairie Research Institute. Champaign: University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign, March 2012, http://www.isws.illinois.edu/pubdoc/B/ISWSB-74.pdf; and Mary Hunt, Elizabeth Herron, and Linda Green, “Chlorides in Fresh Water,” College of the Environment and Life Sciences, University of Rhode Island, March 2012, http://cels.uri.edu/docslink/ww/water-quality-factsheets/Chlorides.pdf.

0. .  “Half of the chlorides came from using ferric chloride instead of ferric sulfate coagulant … added during water treatment,” Marc Edwards, email message to the author, February 23, 2017.

0. .  Ron Fonger, “City Adding More Lime to Flint River Water as Resident Complaints Pour In,” MLive—Flint Journal, June 12, 2014.

0. .  For the $140 and $35 numbers: Dominic Adams, “Flint Monthly Water and Sewer Bills Highest in Genesee County by $35,” MLive—Flint Journal, June 1, 2014, updated June 27, 2014; Ann Espinola, “Water Rates Revealed for Small, Medium, Large Utilities,” American Water Works Association, Connections, March 27, 2017. The latter describes the findings from the AWWA’s 2016 Waste and Wastewater Rate Survey. “Median water bills at medium-sized utilities were just $31.09 per month for 7,480 gallons of water, but soared to $46.61 for wastewater services and fees,” Espinola writes. “And among the four regions of the United States, the West had the highest water rates, while the South had the lowest. Customers in the Northeast shelled out the most for wastewater services, while those in the Midwest paid the least.” Specifically, the median monthly water rate in the Midwest was $32.48, and wastewater charges were “coming in at less than $40.” So together that’s less than $72.48, compared to Flint’s bills of $140 per month.

0. .  “The State of Public Water in the United States” (Washington, D.C.: Food & Water Watch, February 2016), p. 10; and John Wisely, “Flint Residents Paid America’s Highest Water Rates,” Detroit Free Press, February 16, 2016. The Food & Water Watch report notes that when it conducted its survey (January 2015), Flint had “the most expensive water service in the country,” with an annual bill of $910.05, but during August 2015, a judge ruled that certain rate increases were unlawful and ordered the city to reduce its rates by 35 percent and to end a service fee.

0. .  Matthew Dolan, “Scared Residents Search for Hope,” Detroit Free Press, January 24, 2015, pp. 1A, 13A.

0. .  “One of the most important recent milestones has been the recognition in July 2010 by the United Nations General Assembly of the human right to water and sanitation. The Assembly recognized the right of every human being to have access to sufficient water for personal and domestic uses (between 50 and 100 litres of water per person per day), which must be safe, acceptable, and affordable (water costs should not exceed 3 percent of household income), and physically accessible (the water source has to be within 1,000 metres of the home and collection time should not exceed 30 minutes).” This is from the UnitedNations.org page “Global Issues: Water,” n.d., http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/water/.

0. .  Anurag Mantha, “Understanding Flint’s Water Infrastructure Crisis: Water Infrastructure Inequality in America.” FlintWaterStudy.org, December 9, 2016.

0. .  According to a 2013 study, “The city’s current water efficiency is 65%. Typically water utilities operate at 85–90% efficiency. An increase to 85% efficiency would result in increased revenues in the range of $1.5 million to $3.0 million annually.” This is from the “City of Flint Water Reliability Study: Distribution System,” prepared by Rowe Professional Services Company and Potter Consulting, December 2013. For news stories on water lost to leaky lines: Kristin Longley, “Massive Water Leak, Theft Contribute to Flint Water Rate Increases, Officials Say,” MLive—Flint Journal, May 10, 2012; Kate Wells, “Flint’s Water System Is Falling Apart. Fixing It Could Cost $100 Million” Michigan Radio, August 9, 2016; “Half of the Water Coming into Flint Is Lost to Leaks, Water Theft,” ABC 12, WJRT-TV, April 20, 2017; and Mary Williams Walsh, “Detroit Plan to Profit on Water Looks Half Empty,” New York Times, May 25, 2014. Flint may have had it especially bad, but this is a problem elsewhere, too: David Schaper, “As Infrastructure Crumbles, Trillions of Gallons of Water Lost,” All Things Considered, NPR, October 29, 2014.

0. .  Ted Gregory, Patrick M. O’Connell, and Cecilia Reyes, “Precious Resource, Private Profits,” Chicago Tribune, December 27, 2017.

0. .  Some of this material about infrastructure is adapted from an article by the author that appeared in Next City (“The City that Unpoisoned Its Pipes,” August 8, 2016).

0. .  Wells, “Flint’s Water System Is Falling Apart.” It’s worth adding that fixing a break is cumbersome. A work crew has to control the water spilling out of the main, pinpoint the damage, dig into the ground without compromising any other utilities, repair the main either with clamps or by replacing a length of pipe, turn the water back on, and then restore the excavated area.

0. .  Gary Ridley, “15 Years and $60M Needed to Replace Flint’s Lead Water Lines, Emails Show,” MLive—Flint Journal, January 21, 2016; Ron Fonger, “Flint Data on Lead Water Lines Stored on 45,000 Index Cards,” MLive—Flint Journal, October 1, 2015; and Ron Fonger, “Flint Water Line Replacements have 22 Percent Failure Rate,” MLive—Flint Journal, May 17, 2017.

0. .  Ron Fonger, “Flint Flushes Out Latest Water Contamination, but Repeat Boil Advisories Show System Is Vulnerable,” MLive—Flint Journal, September 14, 2014.

0. .  “City of Flint 2014 Annual Water Quality Report,” City of Flint, Mich., 2014, https://www.cityofflint.com/wp-content/uploads/CCR-2014.pdf.

0. .  Almost exactly one month after the water switch, a New York Times story mentioned how Flint’s rates were going to increase anyway, if perhaps more slowly than they would have on Detroit’s water system. “‘Why isn’t it possible for the water rates to go down?’ demanded Wantwaz D. Davis, a city councilor. He said rising water rates were driving away residents, and he argued that if rates could be reduced for a few years, people might stay. If Flint’s decline could be slowed, he said, it would improve the financial prospects of the new pipeline. And now there is no turning back. The first $220 million in construction bonds for the new pipeline has already been sold. Flint is supposed to repay about one-third of that, and Genesee County will pay back the rest. The new pipeline is scheduled to go into service in 2016. In the meantime, Flint has been getting its water from the Flint River. It turned off the tap on Detroit on April 25.” Walsh, “Detroit Plan to Profit on Water Looks Half Empty.” See also Ron Fonger, “Flint Residents Get a Chance to Speak; Blast Water Rates and State Oversight,” MLive—Flint Journal, June 9, 2014.

0. .  After the switch, there were still 266 customers of Flint water who lived outside the city limits. Neal Rubin, “Outside Flint’s Borders, but Stuck with Its Water,” Detroit News, January 29, 2016.

0. .  This councilman, Scott Kincaid, filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the city had, in 2011, hiked water and sewer rates by far more than it had been allowed. Adams, “Flint Monthly Water and Sewer Bills Highest.”

0. .  Ibid.

0. .  The city’s five-year financial projections (2015–19), including its adopted budget for FY15 and FY16, were detailed in “City of Flint, Michigan: Setting a Sustainable Course for the City of Flint,” prepared by Gerald Ambrose, finance director, and Antonio Brown, deputy finance director, 2014, p. 5, https://www.cityofflint.com/wp-content/uploads/FY15-FY16-Adopted-Budget-Document-21.pdf.

0. .  Adrian Hedden, “Councilman Leads Protest at Flint City Hall, Addresses Police Chases, Water Rates,” MLive—Flint Journal, July 14, 2014.

0. .  Another big issue of contention: water deposits. All prospective renters were required to pay not only a security deposit prior to move-in, but also a deposit against future water bills. In 2013, the mandatory deposit went from $100 to $350. “When residents don’t pay their water bill for months at a time, that cost is passed on to those residents who do pay, and that’s just not fair,” said Ed Kurtz, the emergency manager at the time. “Our goal … is to recover more of the costs associated with non-payments, shutoffs, and those who vacate rental properties without paying.” But this created an impenetrable barrier for many, according to Henry Tannenbaum, a longtime Flint resident and landlord who served on the board of realtors. To rent one of his houses, he said, people had to come up with a water deposit, security deposit, and monthly rent before move-in day. “People … don’t have $1,000 laying around,” he said. “City Raises Water Deposit on Rental Properties,” NBC25, WNEM.TV, February 25, 2015, updated March 25, 2013; Michigan Civil Rights Commission: Housing and the Flint Water Crisis, Statement of Henry Tannenbaum, Genesee Landlords Association and owner of TDM Realty, July 14, 2016.

0. .  Laura Sullivan, interviews with the author, Flint, Mich., May 13, 2016, June 17, 2016, and October 26, 2017.

0. .  Ron Fonger, “Flint Starting to Flush out ‘Discolored’ Drinking Water with Hydrant Releases,” MLive—Flint Journal, July 30, 2014.

0. .  The press release was issued on July 30, 2014. See also Fonger, “Flint Starting to Flush Out Discolored Drinking Water with Hydrant Releases.”

0. .  Ryan Felton, “Flint Residents Raise Concerns over Discolored Water,” Metro Times, August 13, 2014.

0. .  “City of Flint 2014 Annual Water Quality Report,” Flint, Mich., 2014, https://www.cityofflint.com/wp-content/uploads/CCR-2014.pdf.

0. .  Fonger, “City Adding More Lime to Flint River Water.”

0. .  Ibid.

0. .  Fonger, “Flint Flushes Out Latest Water Contamination.”

0. .  Amanda Emery, “Flint Issues Boil Water Notice for Portion of West Side of City,” MLive—Flint Journal, August 16, 2014, updated January 17, 2015.

0. .  Dominic Adams, “Flint Officials Say ‘Abnormal’ Test to Blame in E. coli Scare, Water Boil Advisory Remains,” August 18, 2014, updated January 17, 2015.

0. .  Ron Fonger, “Second Positive Coliform Bacteria Test Means Flint’s West Side Water Boil Notice Still in Effect,” MLive—Flint Journal, August 18, 2014, updated January 17, 2015.

0. .  Ron Fonger, “Flint Says Drinking Water Advisories Will Continue into Tuesday,” MLive—Flint Journal, September 8, 2014; and Ron Fonger, “Flint Lifts Boil Water Advisories for West Side of City, Says Investigation of Contamination Will Continue,” MLive—Flint Journal, September 9, 2014.

0. .  Ron Fonger, “Flint River Water Complicating City’s Efforts to Battle Contamination, Boil Advisories,” MLive—Flint Journal, September 18, 2014, updated January 17, 2015.

0. .  There’s a nice map here that gives an outline of the breadth of the advisories: Fonger, “Flint Flushes Out Latest Water Contamination.”

0. .  Ibid.; and Steve Carmody, “Flint Officials Working to Resolve Water Issues,” Michigan Radio, September 15, 2014.