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Is the Flint Water Crisis over?

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Pipes are now being replaced and officials say the water is safe, but residents still worry, drink bottled water and doubt their elected leaders.

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Rick Hayood loaded bottles of water into a resident's car in Flint, Mich., in October. Five years after the city's water crisis, suspicions remain high. Credit Credit Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

On April 25, 2014, a group of smiling officials in Flint, Mich., stood in front of television cameras, held their glasses aloft and toasted the switch to the city's new water source, the Flint River.

"Here's to Flint!" Dayne Walling, the mayor, said, taking a gulp of river water.

The Flint water crisis was born that day. Almost immediately, Flint residents began telling their elected officials that there was something wrong with the water, which smelled terrible, tasted like metal and seemed to give them skin rashes. They confronted elected officials outside City Hall, hoisting bottles full of rust-colored water from their taps, only to be told, again and again, that the water was fine.

The water was not fine. Flint officials had failed to add needed corrosion controls to the river water. Lead from the city's old pipes leached into the water, causing alarmingly high lead levels in the blood of many residents. The outcry that followed forced a change in the city's leadership, criminal charges against state and local officials and a yearslong effort to replace Flint's dangerous lead pipes.

But in Flint, the water crisis is by no means in the past.

"It's a community that's still dealing with the trauma and the aftermath of having been poisoned at the hands of the government," Karen Weaver, who replaced Mr. Walling as mayor largely because of anger over the water crisis, said in an interview this week. Ms. Weaver continues to tell residents to drink only bottled or filtered water.

On Thursday, pastors and activists gathered outside the city's water treatment plant to call for more help. Some wore shirts that said "Flint Is Still Broken." Half a decade into the water crisis, here is what has changed in the city - and what has not.

Five years ago, Melissa Mays was a concert promoter in Flint who drank from the tap and never worried about lead or Legionella. But when the water turned foul, Ms. Mays spoke out. She organized protests, filed lawsuits and became one of the most visible faces of her city's troubles.

Today, she drinks only bottled water. She showers quickly. She does not trust what the government tells her. "It's one huge nightmare piled on top of another one," Ms. Mays said this week.

She has scaled back her work in music. She now helps people find social services. There is also a personal toll. "I used to be a lot more optimistic and cheerful," she said, "but now I'm literally just pissed."

For a bit, several years ago, Ms. Mays said there was a sense that Flint might get enough national notice over the water crisis to overcome it. But she said not enough has been done. Attention faded. Faith has dwindled.

"We're back to where we first started, where we're yelling and screaming," Ms. Mays said. "And it seems like nobody can hear us."

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Replacing a lead water line with a copper one in 2016. The water in Flint now meets federal standards, according to Michigan officials. Credit Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

As the state of Michigan tells it, the water in Flint now meets federal standards. Levels of lead and copper are down. "Flint's water continues to test the same as or better than similar cities across the state and country," the state says.

But residents are wary. After all, in 2014 and 2015, officials also had insisted the water was safe, brushing aside the concerns of residents. Bottled water remains in high demand, and suspicion abounds about the city's lead pipes, its decaying water infrastructure and pretty much everything else.

"We don't trust," Ms. Weaver, the mayor, said. "Trust was broken on every single level of government."

Ms. Weaver vowed after taking office to replace all of the city's lead and galvanized-steel service lines, and she has made progress. More than 8,000 service lines have been replaced so far, and thousands more have been examined and found to not be made of lead. She hopes to have the rest - as many as 7,000 more - finished this summer.

But as work on the pipes progressed, officials have tried to wean residents off the free bottled water that National Guard troops distributed at the height of the crisis.

The state closed its bottled water distribution sites last year. Bottles donated by Nestlé continue to be handed out, but only from a few locations and on certain days, and with no promise of it continuing past August.

Flint's struggles did not start with the water. In the middle of the 20th century, Flint was a small but thriving city, a hub of manufacturing where solid, middle-class jobs at General Motors were plentiful. When the automotive industry faltered, so did Flint.

After thousands of factory jobs left Flint, so did many of its residents, and neighborhoods throughout the city are still marked by blight and abandoned houses, often vandalized or taken over by squatters. The city continues to lose residents: In 2017, Flint's population fell to 96,448. In 1960, the city was twice as big.

"Water was a symptom of this much bigger problem of a community with a really rich history that rightfully feels that it's continually being left behind," said Representative Dan Kildee, Democrat of Michigan, whose district includes Flint.

Though the city has been lifted by its universities and a small but energetic push to rebuild small businesses, the solid jobs in manufacturing that were lost decades ago have not been replaced. With a declining tax base, the city's fiscal condition slid, too. Ultimately, Flint's finances were so perilous that the state sent in emergency managers to oversee city operations, a move that irked local leaders and left many in the Democratic stronghold complaining that Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, was taking away local control.

An emergency manager was still guiding the city at the point at which Flint switched water sources, a decision that was aimed at saving money.

"Flint was, I think, before the water crisis, just on the edge of a crisis of some kind," Mr. Kildee said. "And all it took was this one thing to tip the scale."

The authorities pledged to bring justice to Flint. Those at fault in the water crisis would be held responsible, they promised. "These charges are only the beginning," Bill Schuette, Michigan's former attorney general, said three years ago, as he announced the first criminal cases. "There will be more to come - that I can guarantee you."

And there were more. By now, 15 people who worked in state and local government roles have been charged with crimes in Flint's crisis. And the charges have reached high levels of Michigan's government, and suggested that officials had failed to warn residents of known risks and allowed their desire to save money in financially strapped Flint to come before the safety of water.

Still, five years later, no one has been sentenced to prison time. Seven people have pleaded no contest to misdemeanors as parts of plea deals, while others - including some of the highest-level employees - have cases still pending.

"Whether they plea bargain out or actually do jail time, I think it would mean a lot to the community," said Eric Mays, a Flint City Council member who is not related to Melissa Mays. He added: "We are in a watching-every-step-of-the-way mode."

Mayor Karen Weaver of Flint, center, continues to tell residents to drink only bottled or filtered water. Credit Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

Some of the Flint leaders who stood before the cameras, toasting the city's new water supply, are gone - at least partly because of the water.

A re-election bid by Mr. Walling, a Flint native and Rhodes scholar who seemed to have a promising political career ahead, fell apart in late 2015 as test results confirmed what residents had been worried about for months.

Others who are gone: Mr. Snyder, Michigan's governor at the time; a manager appointed by the state to oversee Flint's finances; and numerous state and local employees who were involved in the city's water system.

Mr. Snyder was prevented from seeking re-election by term limits. But Flint was perhaps the most difficult chapter of his eight years in office. Mr. Snyder was not charged with wrongdoing, but some of his administration's leaders were, and some residents blamed him.

Mr. Mays, the councilman, said he had seen progress since the city was released from state oversight and since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, took office this year.

Ms. Weaver, too, sounded hopeful.

"I don't say it's over," Ms. Weaver said, but "we're moving from crisis to recovery, and you can see the progress that we've made."

Mitch Smith covers the Midwest and the Great Plains. Since joining The Times in 2014, he has written extensively about urban violence, oil pipelines, state-level politics and the national debate over police tactics. He is based in Chicago. @mitchksmith

Julie Bosman is a national correspondent who covers the Midwest. Born and raised in Wisconsin and based in Chicago, she has written about politics, education, law enforcement and literature. @juliebosman * Facebook

Monica Davey is the Chicago bureau chief, covering the Midwest. She joined The Times in 2003. She previously worked at The Chicago Tribune, and wrote for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, the Roanoke Times and others. @monicadavey1

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 13 of the New York edition with the headline: Five Years After a Crisis, Flint's Residents Doubt The Water Is Any Safer. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Flint's Water Crisis Started 5 Years Ago. It's Not Over.

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Pipes are now being replaced and officials say the water is safe, but residents still worry, drink bottled water and doubt their elected leaders. On April 25, 2014, a group of smiling officials in Flint, Mich., stood in front of television cameras, held their glasses aloft and toasted the switch to the city's new water source, the Flint River.

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Did the media fail Flint?

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Is the Water Safe?

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Five years ago, the drinking water source for Flint, Mich., was switched, setting the stage for the city's water crisis.

In the years since, residents of the aging industrial city have seen their children's blood lead levels spike, government officials grudgingly admit mistakes and perhaps seen Flint begin to recover.

It's still common to see claims on social media that Flint still doesn't have clean water. However, tests have shown Flint's tap water has improved greatly since the depths of the water crisis. Now, it's well within federal and state standards for lead, even better than many other cities.
The outrage
The city's water problems all began with an optimistic toast.

"Here's to Flint," Mayor Dayne Walling said as he lifted a glass filled with tap water. Walling and other city and state officials were toasting the switch of the city's drinking water source from Detroit's water system to the Flint River.

The switch was intended to save money, but instead cost the mayor his job.

At first, Flint's nearly 100,000 residents complained their tap water was undrinkable: cloudy, foul smelling and tasting of chemicals or worse. The system also suffered E. coli outbreaks. Eventually, the city acknowledged it was in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

But government officials persisted in defending the water as safe to drink.

Outrage grew. Flint residents took to the streets to voice their anger. Chanting "Flint lives matter," the growing protests demanded the city return to Detroit water.

After 18 months, government officials admitted the switch had been bungled. In October 2015, Flint was switched back to Detroit water.

It was only revealed after the city's drinking water was switched back that a Legionnaires' disease outbreak had killed at least a dozen people during the switch. There are conflicting scientific opinions as to whether the Flint River water was the source of the outbreak.
"We have to be where we are to move forward"
In the past few years, 15 city and state officials have been indicted for their actions related to the crisis. About half have cut plea deals. No one has gone to jail. And the remaining criminal cases are stalled as Michigan's new attorney general tries to decide how to proceed. Meanwhile, multiple civil lawsuits against state and federal agencies and private contractors are grinding their way through the courts.

Flint was left with thousands of damaged water pipes, families surviving on bottled water, and a battered self-image.

Later this year, the city hopes to inspect the last of nearly 30,000 pipes connecting homes to city water mains. Crews are replacing old lead and galvanized service lines with new copper pipes. But residents are still advised to use filters on their taps as the pipe replacements continue.

Federal and state funds are helping Flint fix its broken water system. And that in turn is attracting business investment.

Stylist Dan Buccilli and his husband, David Custer, opened a new hair salon in downtown Flint last month in a rehabbed print shop. Custer, who is also a local TV anchor, says Flint is better off now than it was before the water crisis.

"We joke ... that we have some of the best water in the country now," says Custer. "We have brand-new pipes around our entire city."

Linnette Phillips, the deputy director of small business and workforce development for the city, says this year Flint has about $200 million in new business investment coming in, from new auto parts manufacturing to a new culinary school.

"Of course, no one would ever want to experience this travesty that the city of Flint experienced," says Phillips. "But we have to be where we are to move forward from that."

But while businesses are moving forward, many city residents are having trouble.

Flint's unemployment rate remains high and median income is less than half the state average, with more than a third of city residents living below the poverty line. And it's not surprising to see long lines still forming outside churches during weekly bottled water giveaways.

Flint resident Melissa Mays has been one of the loudest voices during the water crisis. But even she can see some silver linings. "In some ways we're better," says Mays. "In other ways, we're forever poisoned, damaged, traumatized ... that's not gonna ever be better."

Flint still faces a long road to recovery.

For example, it will be several years before studies will be able to show whether drinking Flint's lead-tainted tap water affected the cognitive and behavioral development of thousands of young children.

It is the future of those children that will determine whether Flint truly emerges stronger from its water crisis.

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5 Years After Flint's Crisis Began, Is The Water Safe?

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Five years ago, the drinking water source for Flint, Mich., was switched, setting the stage for the city's water crisis. In the years since, residents of the aging industrial city have seen their children's blood lead levels spike, government officials grudgingly admit mistakes and perhaps seen Flint begin to recover.

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Carmody, S. (2019, April 25). 5 Years After Flint's Crisis Began, Is The Water Safe? Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2019/04/25/717104335/5-years-after-flints-crisis-began-is-the-water-safe

Ganim, S., & Tran, L. (2016, January 13). How Flint, Michigan's tap water became toxic. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/11/health/toxic-tap-water-flint-michigan/index.html

Media Matters. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.mediamatters.org/about-us

Strupp, J. (2016, February 11). How National Media Failed Flint. Retrieved from https://www.mediamatters.org/legacy/how-national-media-failed-flint

Smith, M., Bosman, J., & Davey, M. (2019, April 25). Flint's Water Crisis Started 5 Years Ago. It's Not Over. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/flint-water-crisis.html

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My Investigation
How did the water become toxic?

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How tap water became toxic in Flint, Michigan | CNN

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After high lead levels were uncovered by a local pediatrician, the state of Michigan makes changes amid lawsuits and blame.

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Launched in May 2004, Media Matters for America put in place, for the first time, the means to systematically monitor a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation - news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda - every day, in real time.