CHAPTER 4: SATURATION

0.   .  According to information posted online about Flint Engine Operations at the GM corporate newsroom (www.media.gm.com), the engine plant pays out more than $91,181,847 in state wages and $19,835,318 in income taxes. Production began in 2002. Of its 806 employees, 673 are hourly and 133 are salaried. Additional details about this plant and its experience of the water crisis are sourced from Mike Colias, “How GM Saved Itself from the Flint Water Crisis,” Automotive News, January 31, 2016; Ron Fonger, “GM’s Decision to Stop Using Flint River Water Will Cost Flint $400,000 a Year,” MLive—Flint Journal, October 14, 2014, updated January 17, 2015; and Lindsay Smith, “Not Safe to Drink,” Michigan Radio, December 15, 2015. The detail about the plant using about seventy-five thousand gallons of water a day is mentioned in numerous local news articles, including Ron Fonger, “GM Keeps Engine Plant off Flint Water While City Considers Its Options,” MLive—Flint Journal, April 25, 2017.

0.   .  In 1978, about seventy-eight thousand people worked in GM plants in the Flint area, and the local payroll was about $2 billion. By 2016, about seventy-two hundred worked at the company. Colias, “How GM Saved Itself”; and Lawrence R. Gustin, “GM and Flint Grew Together,” Automotive News, September 14, 2008.

0.   .  Ron Fonger, “General Motors Shutting Off Flint River Water at Engine Plant Over Corrosion Worries,” MLive—Flint Journal, October 13, 2014, updated January 17, 2015.

0.   .  In the EPA’s district office in Chicago, Jennifer Crooks responded to Burgess’s message by saying that the MDEQ was aware of the problems and working closely with the city to provide better water until the KWA came online. Burgess later became the lead plaintiff of a group of more than seventeen hundred people who filed a $772 million lawsuit charging that the EPA was negligent in the face of Flint’s water problems, causing injury to people who were exposed to it. Her message to the EPA is quoted in the court filing: Burgess v. United States of America (2:17-cv-10291), Michigan Eastern District Court, filed January 30, 2017. See also Jennifer Chambers, “Flint’s Residents Are Building Their Legal Case,” Detroit News, March 18, 2016; and Jim Lynch, “Flint Residents Seek $722M over Water Crisis,” Detroit News, January 30, 2017.

0.   .  Gadola was replying to an email by Valerie Brader, the governor’s environmental policy adviser. Brader wrote, in part, “Specifically, there has been a boil water order due to bacterial contamination. What is not yet broadly known is that attempts to fix that have led to some levels of chlorine-related chemicals that can cause long-term damage if not remedied (though we believe they will remedy them before any damage would occur in the population).” Brader also suggested that Flint’s emergency manager should restore the connection to the Detroit water system “as an interim solution” to both the quality and financial problems “that the current solution is causing.” These emails were exchanged on October 14, 2014. Later, when Brader and another senior aide talked it over with Flint’s emergency manager, they were told that it would be too expensive to switch back and that any treatment problems were fixable. The EM didn’t have expertise in water treatment, of course; he was relying on the information he got from people such as Mike Prysby, the district engineer for the MDEQ. Matthew Dolan and Paul Egan, “Top Snyder Aids Urged Going Back to Detroit Water,” Detroit Free Press, February 26, 2016; Chad Livengood, “Emails: Flint Water Warnings Reached Gov’s Inner Circle,” Detroit News, February 26, 2016; and Lindsey Smith, “New Emails Show Officials in Gov. Snyder’s Circle Discussed Concerns about Flint’s Water, Did Nothing,” Michigan Radio, February 26, 2016.

0.   .  Fonger, “General Motors Shutting Off Flint River Water.”

0.   .  Laura Sullivan, interview with author, Flint, Mich., May 13, 2016.

0.   .  Colias, “How GM Saved Itself.”

0.   .  “Important Information About Your Drinking Water,” City of Flint, January 2, 2015, https://www.cityofflint.com/wp-content/uploads/TTHM-Notification-Final.pdf.

0. .  Smith, “Not Safe to Drink.”

0. .  For this, and the rest of the paragraph, Robin, Erb, “Who Wants to Drink Flint’s Water?,” Detroit Free Press, January 22, 2015, updated January 23, 2015.

0. .  AP Wire Report, “Flint City Councilman, ‘We Got Bad Water,’” Detroit Free Press, January 14, 2015.

0. .  Christine Ferretti, “Detroit Offers to Reconnect Water Service to Flint,” Detroit News, January 20, 2015.

0. .  “Flint City Councilman, ‘We Got Bad Water.’”

0. .  “About Us: Who We Are,” Veolia North America, www.veolianorthamerica.com, last accessed March 2, 2018.

0. .  Ron Fonger, “Flint Mayor Tells Governor: Lower Water Connection Fees, Offer Amnesty Program for Turn-ons,” MLive—Flint Journal, January 20, 2015, updated January 21, 2015.

0. .  Erb, “Who Wants to Drink Flint’s Water?”

0. .  Ron Fonger, “Officials Say Flint Water Is Getting Better, but Many Residents Unsatisfied,” MLive—Flint Journal, January 21, 2015.

0. .  Per a January 2018 conversation with a resident and community organizer who was present at the meeting. The author did not get this person’s explicit permission to use their name on the record.

0. .  Ron Fonger, “Erin Brockovich: Flint Water System ‘Failing,’ Stop Making Excuses,” MLive—Flint Journal, January 21, 2015.

0. .  Detroit Public Schools had been under emergency management since 2009. Their experience with state intervention would last about six years, with four different EMs. It also experienced a different form of oversight in 1999, when the governor at the time signed a law that replaced the elected school board with a seven-member reform board, six of whom were appointed by the Detroit mayor with one spot reserved for the state superintendent of public instruction. Their tenure lasted several years.

0. .  Ron Fonger, “Flint Emergency Manager Says There Are Two Big Reasons Not to Reconnect Detroit Water,” MLive—Flint Journal, January 29, 2015.

0. .  To be clear: Genesee County, like Flint, also had a DWSD contract that expired, and it had also decided to join the KWA. But unlike the city, Genesee County didn’t scramble to find a temporary water source. It simply paid its monthly bills under the terms of the old contract, and the DWSD kept the properly treated water flowing to places such as Flint Township, which now served the GM engine plant.

0. .  This scene is captured in Hard to Swallow: Toxic Water in a Toxic System in Flint, released June 25, 2015, and available to watch at www.aclumich.org/article/hard-swallow-toxic-water-toxic-system-flint.

0. .  “Flint Water Advisory,” Department of Technology, Management, and Budget Customer Service Center, Facility Notification, January 7, 2015.

0. .  “Gov. Rick Snyder awards Flint $2 million in distressed municipalities’ grant for water system infrastructure improvements.” Office of Governor Rick Snyder, Michigan.gov., February 3, 2015; and Ron Fonger, “Governor Awards Flint $2 Million for Troubled Water System; Mayor Says More Is Needed,” MLive—Flint Journal, February 3, 2015, updated February 4, 2015.

0. .  Fonger, “Governor Awards Flint $2 Million.”

0. .  Dominic Adams, “Faces of Flint: Bryant Nolden,” MLive—Flint Journal, May 3, 2016.

0. .  William Elgar Brown, testimony in 67th District Court, Flint, Michigan, January 8, 2018. This was during the preliminary examinations in the state’s criminal case against four MDEQ employees. Brown was a retired engineer and deputy division chief for the department with some forty years’ experience in water issues. Brown signed the KWA’s original permit and later consulted for a construction company that worked with the new water utility.

0. .  “Water Quality Update,” City of Flint, March 25, 2015; and “TTHM Contaminant Notices, Water Quality Updates, Ready for Mailing to Flint Customers,” MLive—Flint Journal, March 31, 2015.

0. .  Ibid. Because of its high TTHM levels in 2014, Flint was held in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act for three months. That required the city to send residents a follow-up notice about how the water fared in the first quarter of 2015, which is where this update comes from. The two-page memo from the city emphasized that the MDEQ “acknowledged our progress” in treating the water.

0. .  Dayne Walling, “Responses from Dayne Walling, Former Flint Mayor,” Michigan Joint Select Committee on the Flint Water Public Health Emergency, Flint Public Hearing, March 29, 2016.

0. .  Natalie Pruett, “Beyond Blight: City of Flint Comprehensive Blight Elimination Framework,” Imagine Flint, adopted February 10, 2015; and Steve Carmody, “Flint’s Blight Problem (and Solution) Detailed,” Michigan Radio, March 13, 2015. The author also reported about this at the time in an article for Next City (“Flint, Michigan, Has an Ambitious New Plan to Fight Blight,” March 16, 2015).

0. .  Aaron McMann, “‘Flint Firebirds’ Unveiled as Name for Flint’s New OHL Team,” MLive—Flint Journal, March 16, 2015.

0. .  Crooks sent the email on February 9, 2015. Joel Kurth, Jonathan Oosting, Christine MacDonald, and Jim Lynch, “DEQ Official: Staffers Earn Raises for Flint Work,” Detroit News, February 12, 2016; and Bridge Staff, “Flint Crisis Timeline: Part 3,” Bridge Magazine, March 1, 2016.

0. .  The vote was on March 23, 2014. Ron Fonger, “Flint Council Votes to Do ‘All Things Necessary’ to End Use of Flint River,” MLive—Flint Journal, March 23, 2015; Ron Fonger, “Emergency Manager Calls City Flint River Vote ‘Incomprehensible,’” MLive—Flint Journal, March 24, 2015; and Mitch Smith, “A Water Dilemma in Michigan: Costly or Cloudy?,” New York Times, March 24, 2015.

0. .  This was captured in a video that was included in Hard to Swallow. After Ambrose said this, the crowd responded. “That is a lie!” someone shouted. “Now, we looked at that, and we said—,” Ambrose continued. “That’s not true,” a second resident said. “I’m not sure that’s true,” the first person repeated. The second echoed: “It’s not.” “Well, we have the Flint River,” Ambrose went on, eliding the point.

0. .  “Flint Water Advisory Task Force,” March 2016.

0. .  For some accounts of these water giveaways, see Jim Lynch, “Flint Taps Options After Complaints About Water,” Detroit News, February 2, 2015; and Steve Carmody, “Flint Residents Line Up Again for Free Water as State and Local Officials Talk,” Michigan Radio, February 3, 2015.

0. .  Blake Thorne, “Semi-truck Full of Clean Water Attracts Crowd in Flint,” MLive—Flint Journal, January 28, 2015.

0. .  Sarah Schuch, “Flint Colleges Independently Testing Water After City Sends Out Violation Notice,” MLive—Flint Journal, January 14, 2015.

0. .  Ibid.