The Poisoning of Flint Our World

As long as the price of cakes do not care what, we will be all right. --

go up. Residents of the small

American city of Flint, Michigan are living

in an ongoing Their water supply has

been contaminated. You shouldn't be afraid

of your tap water. With the crisis in its third year,

tens of thousands of people can't drink their tap water,

and many don't dare cook Many people think that the Flint

story is over, that it's We are still very much

in the middle of this crisis. There's been widespread lead

contamination, and concerns about disinfection chemicals and

bacterial illnesses in the water. We are still having issues

with rashes, we are still There's disbelief that this

could happen in America. Flint has become a byword

for national shame. I'm going to make sure that leaders

at every level of government don't rest until every drop of water

that flows to your homes The city remains under

a state of emergency, and there's no end in sight

to this crisis. Flint, Michigan is home

to 100,000 people. After 30 years of economic decline,

more than a third live in poverty. One in six houses

have been abandoned, and there's not even a full-service

grocery store here. Now they're dealing

with poisoned water. Testing for lead, one of the toxins,

has become a regular part of life We turn it on cold, we fill it up

to half an inch from the top... So far we know that there

is a certain amount We know that there is or at one time

there was high concentrations We know that our house has

exceptionally high levels of chlorine, but there's always

the doubt in my mind Scientists from Virginia Tech tested

homes and discovered dangerously high lead levels in

the summer of 2015. By last October, the people of Flint

were finally warned by Michigan health officials to stop drinking

water from their taps. They had already been

consuming contaminated water Now this is what Mari and Lulu,

and all of Flint's residents, Every ward has a water POD now,

which is short for a point of distribution site,

where you can go for water and supplies and filter

replacements and such. It only takes a few minutes

for Lulu and Mari to drive But this unwelcome routine

is getting old. We've been in a state

of emergency since January. It's already enough that you have

to use gas to go get it. So why is the water

in Flint so unsafe? In April 2014, the state government

switched the water supply from Lake Huron to the highly toxic

Flint River. The move was meant to save money,

but the Flint River water was allowed to run

through the system untreated, There was a whole issue around

chemistry and corrosion And so as that switch

was made and as the water chemistry was not correct,

it then caused some lead to leach out of service lines

and fixtures in Flint, Residents were forced to stay

on the contaminated water until October last year,

when officials finally switched We still cannot drink water

that is from our taps. It is still contaminated with lead,

and that is because the 18 months that we were on the Flint River

water, the untreated water, it significantly damaged

our infrastructure. So you can think of it

as drinking through Chips of lead scale

from our pipes continued to come off into the drinking

water and into our tap. The Department of Environmental

Quality, and other government agencies, initially

denied there was a problem. They are now working

with scientists from Virginia Tech, who helped

uncover this crisis. There is really a comprehensive

response in Flint, and I think the last time I checked we've taken

over 38,000 samples in Flint, which I'll say is probably the most

tested water system at least CHANTING: What do we want?

Clean water! When do we want it?

Now! But that's little comfort

to a community that doesn't know when they'll have clean

drinking water again. For a year and a half residents

were told water like this was safe, even though it looked,

smelled and tasted bad. According to the Michigan

Attorney General, state employees tried to cover up warning

signs of lead poisoning. When you're talking about

government, the trust was broken, and that is something that's really

difficult and hard to repair. We have kids now that

are suffering the consequences of ingesting contaminated water,

or pregnant women that It was a local paediatrician

who brought the crisis to public attention,

by analysing blood data from Flint So our research showed that

in the city of Flint, which is divided into nine wards,

the percentage of kids with elevated lead levels doubled

after the water switch. And in some neighbourhoods,

it was even higher - This is something that we may have

to deal with for decades, There is research on

the epigenetic impacts of lead, where environment

affects your genetics. Mothers exposed to lead -

you can see the DNA changes Lead poisoning shows no symptoms,

but it results in IQ loss, behavioural problems and learning

disabilities in children. It can harm every organ

in the body, especially And there is another worry that has

deadly consequences. The Flint water crisis

is much more than that. Legionella - we had the largest

outbreak of legionnaires' disease in the country

during this water crisis, and 12 people died because of that,

and that could have been Legionnaires' is still

a major concern. Now there's been a significant

increase in shigellosis, and intestinal disease that causes

diarrhoea and vomiting. Generally blamed on poor hygiene

habits, it can also be transmitted through

contaminated drinking water. And the kale is on the bottom,

and then do you want me to put Making a meal isn't

the routine it used to be Now, it involves bottled

water - lots of it. The water may have been switched

back, but this is what According to Melissa,

the family was otherwise healthy Since then, the Mays have all

suffered from rashes, and much more. At first it was the hair loss

and muscle pain and bone pain. Also, my neurologist believes that

I have a lot of copper stored in my brain and that's what's

causing the seizures Our youngest, Cole,

his white blood cell count hovers around four,

so he has little And Christian, our middle child,

has so much pain he has And they have physical therapy three

times a week because blood can be seen and stored in your growth

plates, so when Christian header four-inch growth spurt,

his body didn't stretch with him. His bones grew, but his muscles

and his joints did not. Remember, you're going

to cross one ankle over the other, and then that's right -

push up with your bottom leg. Me and my friends make

Flint water jokes, like, what would be the most dangerous

weapon for a cop to have? So we kept on making those jokes,

then we realised how OK, Christian, arms straight back

on the floor, palms up. It's actually gotten

worse over time, because the stuff's still there -

the lead and copper, and all the other bad

chemicals which I can't name since there are so many,

are still there. The Mays try to limit exposure

as much as possible. They want to avoid absorbing

toxins through the skin, We've got chloroform coming

through in our shower, which is what causes

headaches and dizziness. It can cause cancer,

cause gastrointestinal distress, which my husband deals

with on a constant basis. So they test their water

regularly, with both the government and independent

organisations. You shouldn't be afraid

of your tap water. There's a lot of

people afraid of it. Soon they'll have the results

of the latest sample back from the Department of Environmental

Quality. The Mays family are part of a class

action suit along with others who say they've displayed a range

of serious conditions, but some of the most common

complaints seen around the city are hair loss and skin

problems, and recorded cases I know there's been increased people

with rashes, there's I don't have a water test - we don't

have a water test that shows The dermatologists have not found

any basis of infection in the water. These rashes do not look

like they were caused The whole city has been

traumatised by this crisis. Mari's weekly tumbling

class allows some relief Many of these families

were also exposed to lead in the water supply,

and they feel abandoned. They did it in other states,

they can do it here in Flint. That is the impression that I get,

that Flint people don't count. They tell us that it's OK

to bathe in it - it's not. And people are fed up really,

because of all the lies that we were told to us

about the water situation, and we just try

to deal with it the best we can. We just kind of bind

together as a community Push, push, push...

Yes, up! Sheila Miller-Graham

runs the dance studio. She lives in the water zone,

and is a lifelong Flint resident. I have great hopes that things

are going to improve. I'm a believer in Flint,

you know, I'm a Flintstone. I'm a die-hard with that strong

rock, and so that whole saying, what don't kill you makes

you stronger - we're We don't want to be the guinea pigs

for the rest of our lives, but we definitely want something

done and we want it done now. Mari is known around town

as Little Miss Flint. Worried about what the

community was going through, she wrote to

President Obama to appeal for help. Mr President, hello,

my name is Mari Copeny. I am one of the children

that is affected by this water, and I have been doing my best

to march and protest and speak out for all the kids

that hear live in Flint. In May, the president came to Flint

to meet Mari. Good to see you, sweetie,

how are you doing? I know!

That's why I decided to come. And I'm going to talk

about you in my speech, Like a lot of you,

Mari's been worried about She's worried about what it means

for children like her. She's worried about the future

of this city and this community. I will not rest, and I'm

going to make sure that the leaders at every level of government don't

rest, until every drop of water that flows to your homes is safe

to drink and safe to cook with and safe to bathe in,

because that's part of the basic responsibilities of a government

in the United States of America. But little has changed

since the President's visit. If anything, the permanence of this

situation has set in. This is Flint's water distribution

warehouse. There is 1.3 million litres

here at any one time. That's about nine days' worth

of water for the community. It gets constantly replenished

as cases are shipped out to what they call PODs,

or points of distribution. But the only full-scale solution

to get people off bottled water Today we find the mayor

doing an unexpected spot check on her Fast Start

pipe replacement programme. I just have to keep going back to,

"We need new pipes." That's the only thing that's

going to ease the minds of the people and let them trust

that it's safe again. These workmen are replacing

the city's service lines. Those are the pipes that run

from the roads to the houses. And there's a lot of lead,

but so far Fast Start has been I live here, I have bad water,

so I'm a frustrated person as well. To date, only 218 service

lines have been replaced. There are more than 15,000

in the city needing to be done, and that doesn't even include

all the other pipes in the system. She blames the Republican-controlled

Congress for the delay. They're holding it up,

and that needs to get passed. We didn't do anything to deserve

to be in this situation. But we certainly deserve the money

to be able to fix it, because you have a community of

people that still can't just turn on their water faucet

and drink the water. And as the lines are pulled out

of the ground and replaced, more lead is dislodged,

causing spikes in the system, which is one of the many reasons

the DEQ urges people to use filters. You need to make sure that, A,

you take care of the lead issue, B, you take care of

the chlorine by-products, C, you maintain chlorine

residuals so you don't You need to make sure people

are using filters as you're So it's OK to bathe and cook

with the water if it's filtered? If you lived here, and you had

children, would you allow them Yes, I would, if my kids

and grandkids were here - Relative to cooking,

that'd be OK, and once again Melissa and Adam Mays are not

so convinced, and they won't risk their family's health, especially

after the latest government test results, found hanging

on their front door. Federal standards say lead

should not exceed 15 ppb. It says, "Sorry we missed you,

but you've tested high for lead or copper," and, sure enough,

we have 160 ppb of lead. That's not OK when zero is the only

safe level for my kids. So we're never going

to trust the filters, because who knows what we have

coming in from the city? And what is 160 ppb today may be

double that tomorrow. The Mays took their sample

from the water meter Which means the lead is coming

from the city supply, I just stood on my front porch and I

was like, "All right, then. Great - we are going

in the wrong direction still." And science is screaming this,

and yet these same people who put these results on my door sat

in a classroom about two weeks ago telling us that the water

is the best it's been in 30 years, and that everybody should

trust the filters. Despite residents' fears,

state officials are confident We've been testing since January,

but the water is even better now than it was in January in terms

of lead, copper, pH, The disinfectant by-products

are the same as they would be in any other city in the United States,

if not any country that uses chlorine or any system

that uses chlorine. Because of this crisis,

Melissa has transformed into a vocal activist and is often

at the forefront of protests. CHANTING: Justice for Flint,

arrest Rick Snyder! Residents are demanding answers

from Governor Rick Snyder. He appointed the emergency manager

who made the decision to switch We want to know who knew what,

and when they knew it, and have people held accountable

at all different levels. Lulu and Mari live on the other side

of town from the Mays. They are still waiting

for their latest test results from the Department of

Environmental Quality. For now, Mari and the rest

of the family are playing it safe. They'll continue to use only bottled

water for as long as it takes. What was initially done to save $5

million could, by some estimates, end up costing over a billion,

and take at least a decade to fix. Every agency that was supposed

to protect them failed. And they very much want to know why,

and how this could have happened, So you can almost think of it like

a truth and reconciliation process. And it will be a fair bit of time

before we get that back with residents of Flint,

Michigan. It's going to be a quiet

weekend of weather.