Poisoned
Dreams of a better future drowning in taintedwater
In a city long stereotyped for despair, some began seeing reasons for hope: a smattering of recently opened restaurants, students filling newcollege classrooms, fields of green growing where abandoned houses had stood.
The red- brick streets of downtown Flint became lined with once- unlikely businesses such as a crepe shop and wine bar, and nearby, hundreds did the previously unthinkable, moving into new apartments at the city’s core.
A sprawling new farmers market began drawing hundreds of thousands for everything frommango ginger stilton at a cheese shop to thick, fresh- cut pork loins at a butcher. New programs lured students fromaround the globe to the city’s campuses, an ice- skating rink opened, the planetarium got a state- of- the- art upgrade and performers such as Blue Man Group put Flint on their schedule.
Even some signs of blightwere beginning to fall, with hundreds of abandoned homes cleared away.
“It felt different,” said Kimberly Roberson, a Flint nativewho directs grantmaking in the city for the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, “until we hit lead.”
A water crisis that has flooded homes with fear and poisonous toxins has taken a tandem swipe at the city’s psyche, returning it to the negative headlines it was working hard to escape — drawing a new spotlight to poverty and other wounds it never was able to fix— and bringing a renewed sense of insecurity about what the future holds for a place that has been through so much.
Fromits founding, Flint’s fortunes essentiallywere entwined with a single industry.
First, itwas the fur trade, which shifted to lumber, which gave way to the horse carriages, leading to its being called Vehicle City. It was a fitting moniker for its next, most important role, as a powerhouse of auto manufacturing and the original home of GeneralMotors.
Chevrolets and Buicks and lesser- known cars rolled off Flint’s production lines, making the city a magnet forworkers and ancillary businesses. At its peak in the early 1970s, GMemployed 80,000 people in Flint who cashed paychecks strengthened by the United Auto Workers union born in the city. About 200,000 people livedwithin the city limits, alongside sprawling factories, booming commerce, model schools and thriving arts.
But the oil crisis of the 1970s and corporate cost- cutting in the 1980s and beyond led to the decimation of manufacturing jobs in the city. Its population plummeted; crime and unemployment soared. The statelyTudors and colonials thatwere symbols of middle- class prosperity became run- down emblems of urban decline.
By the time filmmaker MichaelMoore released his 1989 film “Roger & Me,” excoriating GM’s managers for the pain they caused their workers and the city, Flint’s transition from boomtown to a drab, dangerous shell of its former selfwas sealed in the public consciousness.
“You look at that film now,” Moore said in an interview, “it makes Flint look like paradise.”
Staggering numbers of houses around Flint are burned out, boarded up or altogether razed. Holdout residents remain on blocks full of desertion and blight. Few neighborhoods are untouched by the devastation. The population, continuing its decades- long decline, has fallen below 100,000. Many schools have shuttered, and groceries are no easy find. But small liquor stores abound, advertising bottles of Olde English 800 for $ 1 and less.
The water crisis, slow to gain widespread awareness outside the area, has brought a renewed, national look at the conditions in the city.
Under Michigan law, debt- plagued cities such as Flint are put under the control of state- appointed emergency financial managers, who have immense latitude in decisionmaking. In efforts to get the city’s finances in line, its water source was changed in April 2014: from a supply treated inDetroit and piped to Flint to Flint River water treated and disseminated locally.
Itwasn’t long before residents began complaining of yellow and brown water from their taps, along with an unpleasant taste and smell. People began seeing rashes on their skin and hair falling from their heads. Workers at a remaining GM plant found their parts were corroding.
TheCityCouncil voted in March to reconnect to the Detroit water supply. The state’s emergency manager refused.
And so the problems worsened even as officials insisted the water was safe. The water being used by families daily for everything from showers to preparing baby formula had corroded the city’s pipes, leaching lead, copper and other dangerous substances and carrying them through the taps. More people got sick. Many are suspicious a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease is due to Flint’s water, although the state has not yet announced such a link.
Long before the pipes leached, though, frustration with Flint’s stagnation was bubbling. Although abandoned houses have been cleared in neighborhoods dotted around the city, many of the most noticeable signs of progress have all been focused on a tight cluster of downtown streets. Blacks, 57 percent of the population, frequently note the positive developments seem mostly to benefit whites.
The city is a study in contrasts: the renewal of downtown, not far from beatendownneighborhoods, and a sense of helplessness expressed by residentswho in the same breath voice a stubborn optimism.
Melissa Mays, 37, a marketing consultant who started a community group, Water You Fighting For?, to call attention to the water problems, fell in love with Flint after moving to the city in 2001. She observed the toughness of locals, and looked with pride at what she believed was the city’s upswing. But after she and her three sons began suffering a bevy of medical problems they believe are linked to the water, she is ready to bid Flint goodbye, if only anyone would want to buy her home.
“Trapped is a pretty decent word,” she said.
Daily life has become a trial for many. Megan Crane, a 33- year- old who left work as a line cook to return to school at Mott Community College, hollers at her sons, ages 7 and 8, to be sure to put downthe toilet lid before flushing, fearful something toxic from the water could make it into the air. Food is prepared with bottled water.
“Things were finally starting to look up for us, instead of being on everybody’s top- 10 worst list,” Crane said, “and then this happens.”