Mayor, what is city doing to avoid becoming next Flint or Jackson?
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and his administration are being widely criticized for what many see as a failure to alert residents in the fullest and fastest manner possible to water contamination issues first discovered Saturday.
Two days passed before the city’s Department of Public Works made any mention of the presence of E. coli in the drinking supply, and then the news was delivered via social media on a holiday morning, claiming the problem was likely limited to particular fire and police facilities. While some canvassing also occurred in neighborhoods, it wasn’t until Monday night that the mayor called a news conference, under apparent pressure from media demanding answers. An official “boil water advisory” for affected parts of Baltimore city and county, initially said Anne Arundel was also jeopardized, leading to further confusion and frustration.
The mayor says he was following protocol, and all messaging needs to be approved by the Maryland Department of the Envi- ronment before it can go out. But that sounds a lot like excuse making, especially given the number of residents who say they never got the message or are still struggling to access clean water. Meanwhile, public works officials refused for days to respond to inquiries from The Sun regarding the sampling data, communications with residents, and efforts to disinfect and repair the water system.
This sure doesn’t look like the “transparency, accountability and integrity” the mayor pledged to bring to his role. And he’s rightfully taking heat from all corners — residents, advocates, public officials and news media. The neighborhoods hit hardest by the contamination in West and Southwest Baltimore are among the city’s poorest and have long suffered the worst from its ailing infrastructure. The failure to ensure those residents were aware of the developing danger and provided with safe water at the first opportunity smacks of further neglect and inequitable treatment.
But here’s more bad news: The lack of immediate information, though significant, is among the least of the worries when it comes to the city’s water system, and it’s the easiest for the mayor to correct going forward (which we fully expect him to do). What has potential to be a lot more difficult to deal with are the underlying challenges that led to the contamination in the first place.
E. coli bacteria live in animal intestines; it can make humans sick with cramps, diarrhea and vomiting, and it can be life threatening for young children and older adults. It’s presence in water samples means the system has been polluted with waste, likely through agricultural stormwater runoff, broken water mains, or sewage overflows or faulty systems.
Given that Baltimore City has one of the oldest water systems in the country, and its wastewater management effort was recently deemed to have “systemic problems” and “failures at nearly every level,” the questions we also need to be asking are: What else is coming down the line, and what are we doing to safeguard the public?
As The Wall Street Journal reported this week, the country’s 2.2 million miles of water pipes are crumbling, with a new crack appearing somewhere every 2 minutes. And America’s water
treatment facilities are in similarly bad shape: Many were built in the 1970s and are now operating long past their expected expiration dates.
The problems of such aging infrastructure were made alarmingly evident last month, when flooding overwhelmed the treatment system in Jackson, Mississippi, leaving 150,000 residents without safe drinking water — the latest in a series of water crises resulting from a $2 billion backlog in needed system repairs. The disinvestment in infrastructure in Jackson, where the population is 82.5% Black, has been linked to systemic racism. Racial inequity was also behind the 2015 water crisis in majority Black Flint, Michigan, which was plagued with lead from aging pipes. What was the first warning sign of problems there? The presence of fecal coliform bacteria, of which E. coli is one type.
The issues of systemic racism in Baltimore, which is 62%
Black, are well known, as are the issues with water and wastewater. Decades of deferred maintenance — the blame for which we can’t lay at Mayor Scott’s feet — have led water rates to quadruple since 2000, and the city has been under a Sanitary Sewer Consent Decree for Clean Water Act violations since 2002. That means outsiders are paying attention to Baltimore’s water, and the city is required to perform upgrades. Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency also announced plans to lend the city $396 million for improvements under the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act.
But will it be enough to keep Baltimore from becoming another Flint or Jackson? That’s hard to say. Baltimore officials aren’t sharing enough information about their proactive efforts, either.
We would urge Mayor Scott, then, to not only step up his administration’s “transparency, accountability and integrity” when emergencies arise, but also in the everyday. Tell us what you’re doing to keep water in Maryland’s largest city safe, and not just what’s required under the consent decree or posted online at DPW, because, as you know, Mr. Mayor, secrecy breeds mistrust.