The Poisoned City

CHAPTER 6: CITIZEN/SCIENCE

. For the account of Marc Edwards, the author relied primarily on a June 6, 2017, interview with him in Blacksburg, Virginia; emails exchanged in 2017 and 2018; interviews with numerous current and former colleagues; his testimonies before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on February 3, 2016, and March 15, 2016; and several speeches he has given that were videotaped in full.
. Time magazine described the Cuyahoga as a river that “oozes rather than flows.”
. Dan Egan, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes (New York: W. W. Norton, 2017), p. 223.
. It was in 1977 that the Niagara Gazette began investigating the pattern of illnesses in Love Canal. Lois Gibbs and her neighbors had also begun taking action. Hooker had dumped the chemicals in the canal from 1942 to 1953. Prior to the sale, the Niagara Falls Board of Education toured it, and the company drilled holes to show the officials what was underneath. About a thousand families lived in the ten-block area. While there was a great deal of attention at the time on the “housewives turned activists” who unearthed the crisis and won a profound environmental victory for both themselves and the nation, Richard S. Newman has observed that the activists have “gone missing” from many histories, suggesting, in the passive tense, that the pollution simply “was discovered” or that “public health concerns” prompted an investigation. Richard S. Newman, Love Canal: A Toxic History from Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). See also Lois Marie Gibbs and Murray Levine, Love Canal: My Story (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982); and Dan Fagin’s recounting of Love Canal in Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation (New York: Bantam, 2013).
. “Love Canal Chronology,” from the Niagara Gazette, May 23, 1980, in the Love Canal Collections, University of Buffalo Libraries, https://library.buffalo.edu/specialcollections/lovecanal/about/chronology.php.
. Fagin, Toms River, pp. 129–30.
. Ibid. “As both place and symbol, Love Canal remains a shrine to the idea that the American landscape could seal away industrial waste forever—and to the counter-notion that buried toxic waste would haunt Americans for a very long time.” Newman, Love Canal, pp. 2–3.
. Lois Marie Gibbs, Love Canal and the Birth of the Environmental Health Movement (1982, 1998; updated ed., Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2011), p. 163; and Newman, Love Canal, p. 148.
. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 had first defined hazardous waste and empowered the EPA to intervene to force cleanups, but partly because of the law’s limitations and partly because of the EPA’s limited capacity, it was enforced at only a relatively few sites. The formal name of the more powerful Superfund law of 1980 is the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. If the “Superfund” was tapped to pay for cleanup because the dumpers could not be immediately found, or would not pay until compelled by court, the dumpers might have to pay up to three times what the EPA spent on remediation. Money for the Superfund comes from fees paid by the chemical and petroleum industries and general taxes. Congress also established the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to help hold the line between people and hazardous waste. And one of the other great legacies of Love Canal, of course, was how the community inspired people all over the country to work collectively to improve their environment and public health. Fagin, Toms River, pp. 130–31; Newman, Love Canal, p. 6.
. Fagin, Toms River, pp. 131, 268. On the 1983 National Priorities List, the state ahead of Michigan with the most hazardous waste sites was New Jersey. One fifth of the American population lives within a few miles of a Superfund site, according to EPA numbers cited by Newman, Love Canal, p. 7.
. David Nakamura, “Water in D.C. Exceeds EPA Lead Limit,” Washington Post, January 31, 2004. “Although the extent of the water problem and its public health implications are just coming to light, [the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority] officials have been aware of the contamination since random tests on a small number of houses revealed a problem in 2002. Although agency officials discovered a more extensive problem last summer, they did not begin to notify homeowners about the results until November. WASA held a public meeting about the issue in December, but its advertisements did not reveal the lead problem. Instead, they simply stated that the purpose of the meeting was ‘to discuss and solicit public comments on WASA’s Safe Drinking Water Act projects.’”
. Even accounting for what happened in Flint, the lead contamination of D.C.’s drinking water stands out in modern U.S. history, in both severity and duration. Edwards would later describe it as thirty times worse than Flint: two times the duration, three times the amount of lead in the water, and five times the number of children exposed to it (2 × 3 × 5 = 30). Marc Edwards, email message to author, February 17, 2018; “Experiences and Observations from the 2001–2004 ‘DC Lead Crisis,’” Testimony of Marc Edwards to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology, May 17, 2010. (Edwards also testified about the D.C. lead crisis to U.S. House Government Reform Committee in March 2004); and Donovon Hohn, “Flint’s Water Crisis and the ‘Troublemaker’ Scientist,’” New York Times Magazine, August 16, 2016.
. Robert McCartney, “Virginia Tech Professor Uncovered Truth about Lead in D.C. Water,” Washington Post, May 23, 2010. (Both the headline and the column, alas, erase the many resident community organizers who did a tremendous amount of work on their own to expose the truth.)
. The 2004 report, which has twenty-one coauthors, is titled “Blood Lead Levels in Residents of Homes with Elevated Lead in Tap Water.” It was published in the CDC’s Morbidity Mortality Weekly Review.
. McCartney, “Virginia Tech Professor Uncovered Truth.”
. The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority had a testing procedure that involved pre-flushing the taps for ten minutes the night before sampling six to eight hours before the test. Michael Birnbaum, “WASA Lead Test Procedure Gives False Reading, Groups Say,” Washington Post, August 1, 2008; and Yanna Lambrinidou, written comments to the author, February 16, 2018.
. Marc Edwards, “Fetal Death and Reduced Birth Rates Associated with Exposure to Lead-Contaminated Drinking Water,” Environmental Science & Technology 48 (2014).
. He’s talked about this a number of times in public speeches, including his 2016 SciFest presentation in St. Louis, and in communication with the author (2017). According to Yanna Lambrinidou (written communication, February 16, 2018), the FOIA requests from Edwards focused on health harm between 2001 and 2004. She and other resident activists, including Ralph Scott, Harrison Newton, and Paul Schwartz, sent requests primarily about information after 2004, “including additional public health harm as well as water utility and government cheating in water sampling, flaws in official investigations of wrongdoing, flawed implementation of the LCR, science journal wrongdoing, etc., etc.” Altogether, this played a pivotal role in revealing wrongdoing in both D.C. and nationally.
. Marc Edwards, Simoni Triantafyllidou, and Dana Best, “Elevated Lead in Young Children Due to Lead-Contaminated Drinking Water, Washington, D.C., 2001–2004,” Environmental Science & Technology 43, no. 5 (2009). The Washington Post published an article about it on January 27, 2009 (Carol D. Leonnig, “High Lead Levels Found in D.C. Kids”). Edwards’s quote here comes from a talk he gave at the St. Louis Science Center on February 22, 2017.
. Carol D. Leonnig, “CDC Misled District Residents About Lead Levels in Water, House Probe Finds,” Washington Post, May 20, 2010.
. Ibid.
. Ibid.
. Ibid.; and Yanna Lambrinidou, phone interview with the author, November 2, 2017.
. Yanna Lambrinidou, phone interview with the author, November 2, 2017.
. McCartney, “Virginia Tech Professor Uncovered Truth.”
. Marc Edwards, interview with the author, Blacksburg, Virg., June 6, 2017; and Marc Edwards, email message to author, February 17, 2018.
. Yanna Lambrinidou and Marc Edwards, “Five Myths About Lead in Water,” Washington Post, February 26, 2016. In D.C., Lambrinidou adds that community organizers “worked like rabid dogs” to bring attention to the dangers of partial-line replacements. “It took months of killer work to achieve. Without that work, I believe that no one would have known about the problem of DC’s partials.” (Yanna Lambrinidou, written comments to the author, February 16, 2018.)
. Edwards, “Fetal Death and Reduced Birth Rates.” The study was published online in December 2013 and was also reported in the paper: Carol D. Leonnig, “Increase in Miscarriages Coincided with High Levels of Lead in D.C. Water, Study Finds,” Washington Post, December 9, 2013.
. Marc Edwards, “Saving Humankind from Itself: Careers in Science and Engineering as Public Policy,” SciFest presentation, St. Louis Science Center, February 22, 2017.
. The course earned recognition by the National Academy of Engineering. Lambrinidou has also taught a class that has similar themes: “Experts and the Public: Ethical Frameworks.” Siddhartha Roy, interview with the author, June 2017; and Marc Edwards, interview with author, Blacksburg, Virg., June 6, 2017; Yanna Lambrinidou, written comments to the author, February 16, 2018.
. Marc Edwards, email message to author, February 17, 2018.
. LeeAnne Walters shared a document with Del Toral that listed the chemicals that the city plant used to treat the water. No orthophosphates or any other form of corrosion inhibiter was on the list. As Del Toral told Donovon Hohn: “I couldn’t believe that they didn’t have corrosion control,” particularly since the Flint River “was corrosive as hell.” Hohn, “Flint’s Water Crisis and the ‘Troublemaker’ Scientist”; and LeeAnne Walters’s testimony before the Michigan Joint Select Committee on the Flint Water Public Health Emergency, March 29, 2016.
. On April 23, 2017, Del Toral wrote to Cook: “What’s Flint doing now (post Detroit) for corrosion control treatment?” After discussing the question with Mike Prysby and other MDEQ colleagues, Cook replied on April 24: “Flint is currently not practicing corrosion control at the WTP” because “there are not additional requirements for the City of Flint based on the levels of lead and copper in the source water and the results of the lead and copper distribution monitoring.” However, he added, “we will re-evaluate this after the 2nd round of 6 month sampling is completed.” Del Toral’s description of this as “very concerning” was in a lengthy email sent April 27, 2015, to four EPA colleagues: “Pat Cook has confirmed that following the disconnection from Detroit, Flint has not been operating any corrosion control treatment, which is very concerning given the likelihood of LSLs in the city.” These emails are collected in the batch of communications called DEQ4 (February 2016 update), released by the Office of Governor Snyder on a Michigan.gov site, http://www.michigan.gov/snyder/0,4668,7-277-57577_57657-376716—,00.html, last accessed on February 21, 2018.
. Marc Edwards, email to the author, March 3, 2018; and Yanna Lambrinidou, written comments to the author, February 20, 2018.
. Testimony by LeeAnne Walters, 67th District Court, Flint, Michigan, January 8, 2018.
. Del Toral’s report also described how the corrosion of the infrastructure was made worse by the decision to use a new coagulant to treat the water after the switch from Detroit. It helped remove organic matter, but a side effect of this particular coagulant was the potential to exacerbate the corrosion of galvanized lead in the plumbing—the last thing Flint needed.
. Del Toral wrote this in an email to the EPA’s Rita Bair, Nicholas Damato, and Jennifer Crooks on June 25, 2015. He added, “If there truly is a question in anyone’s mind that there is a widespread lead problem in Flint, despite the painfully clear science, I am requesting that I be provided two assistants and that you folks allow me to go and sample 100 homes in Flint without the pre-flushing and then we can satisfy any doubts that anyone may have. I am not even asking for a per diem and I’ll pay my own hotel.”
. Guyette’s story is primarily drawn from the author’s interviews with him in Detroit, Mich., on October 21, 2015, and September 12, 2017, from his reporting and films, and from email exchanges and a handful of presentations he’s given. Some of this material appeared in a previous form in an article by the author for the Columbia Journalism Review: “How an Investigative Journalist Proved a City Was Being Poisoned with Its Own Water” (November 3, 2017).
. According to Guyette, as of September 2017, this model has since been replicated at ACLU chapters in Texas, Florida, and Virginia.
. Mitch Smith, “A Water Dilemma in Michigan: Cloudy or Costly?,” New York Times, March 24, 2015.
. Curt Guyette, interviews with the author, Detroit, Mich., October 21, 2015, and September 12, 2017, as well as an email message to the author, July 11, 2017.
. Bridge Staff, “Flint Crisis Timeline: Part 3,” Bridge Magazine, March 1, 2016 (quoting email of July 7, 2015, from MDEQ Public Information Officer Karen Tommasulo to MDEQ Communications Director Brad Wurfel).
. This email exchange is recorded as part of the House Oversight Committee’s 2016 investigation into the Flint water crisis, available online: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/7-1-7-2-Emails-from-Hedman-to-Mayor-Walling-of-Flint.pdf.
. Some of the material about Michigan Radio here and elsewhere in the book originally appeared in an article by the author: “How Covering the Flint Water Crisis Has Changed Michigan Radio,” Columbia Journalism Review (February 16, 2016).
. Kate Wells, “Flint Artist Makes Installation out of Water Bottles to Highlight Water Safety Issues,” Michigan Radio, May 29, 2015.
. Lindsey Smith, “Leaked Internal Memo Shows Federal Regulator’s Concerns about Lead in Flint’s Water,” Michigan Radio, July 13, 2015. Smith had also asked the EPA for comment, but the agency declined an interview. It only issued a bland written statement that said, in part, that the “EPA conducted limited drinking water sampling … in response to a citizen complaint. The initial results and staff recommendations to management were documented in an internal memorandum, which was cited in the ACLU article. EPA will work with Michigan DEQ and the City of Flint to verify and assess the extent of lead contamination issues and to ensure that Flint’s drinking water meets federal standards.”
. Of course, the city’s population had been below one hundred thousand when the previous round of tests were done, too.
. Lindsey Smith, “Not Safe to Drink,” Michigan Radio, December 15, 2015.
. Marc Edwards, email to the author, March 3, 2018.
. When researchers later looked into the official Flint tests in 2014 and 2015, they observed that the results suggested that “only a small percentage of homes with LSLs [lead service lines] was sampled, leading to under-estimation of lead at the tap compared to legal requirements. It was later acknowledged that the Flint sampling pool did not target homes with LSLs as required by law, and use of the University of Michigan-Flint database indicates that only 9 of the homes sampled in the ‘official’ 2014 pool (n=96 of 100; 4 homes could not be located) and only 7 homes sampled in 2015 (n=69) had LSLs.” Kelsey J. Pieper, Rebekah Martin, Min Tang, LeeAnne Walters, Jeffrey Parks, Siddhartha Roy, and Marc A. Edwards, “Evaluating Water Lead Levels During the Flint Water Crisis,” submitted to Environmental Science & Technology, excerpt provided by email to the author from Marc Edwards, March 4, 2018. The reference to the UM-Flint database acknowledges the hard work of Dr. Marty Kaufman and a team that he led at the Geographic Information Systems Center at the university. They dove into all the scattered material available to build a complete digital database of the location of lead service lines in the city. They announced the results of the project in a press conference at city hall, alongside Mayor Karen Weaver, in February 2016 (UM-Flint News, “New UM-Flint Research Shows Location of Lead Pipes in Flint,” UM-Flint NOW, February 22, 2016).
. Paul Egan, “State’s Handling of Flint Water Samples Delayed Action,” Detroit Free Press, December 23, 2015, updated December 24, 2015.
. Ibid.
. “Flint’s Mayor Drinks Water from Tap to Prove It’s Safe,” WNEM-TV5, July 9, 2015.
. LeeAnne Walters’s testimony before the Michigan Joint Select Committee on the Flint Water Public Health Emergency, March 29, 2016, and Walters’s testimony before the 67th District Court on January 8, 2018, during the preliminary examinations in the criminal case against four MDEQ employees.
. “Here’s to Flint: Broadcast Premiere of ACLU Documentary on the Fight for Democracy and Clean Water,” Democracy Now!, March 8, 2016.