After Water Fiasco, Trust of Officials Is in Short Supply in Flint
Sid C. Booker, 57, has had the lead waterline to his house replaced, but he
is still relying on bottled water for daily needs. "I feel good about it,
that they're doing something about it, that they're making some effort, but
feel safe? No," he said.
BRITTANY GREESON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By JULIE BOSMAN
October 8, 2016
FLINT, Mich. - By the sunken standards of life in Flint, Kenneth Glover is
lucky.
Last month, a construction crew arrived at his house, removed the aging,
corroded lead waterline leading up to it and installed a new copper pipe in
its place. His house became one of fewer than 200 in Flint to have received
a new pipe through a city-run program, with thousands more on the waiting
list.
That matters not a whit to Mr. Glover. He still will not drink the water.
"I don't even give it to my dog," said Mr. Glover, who works in a General
Motors plant, as he stood outside his home last week. "I don't care how many
filters they give us. I don't care what they say. How can I trust them
again?"
It has been one year since officials in Flint urged city residents not to
drink the water.
Since then - as an investigation continues into the failed response at the
city, state and federal levels - the authorities have pointed to progress in
repairing the city's lead-tainted water system: Water from the Flint River
is no longer used in favor of the city's former source, the Detroit system,
which gets water from Lake Huron.
The state environmental authority in Michigan said this past week that more
than 90 percent of recent water samples in Flint were below concerning lead
levels.
Yet the fears over using the water have scarcely subsided for Flint
residents. They are deeply suspicious of government officials, who for much
of 2014 and 2015 reassured them that the water flowing from the Flint River
into their taps was perfectly safe, despite its foul odor and appearance and
the way it seemed to be making people sick. Many who live here are convinced
that the water will never be acceptable again.
This fall, an effort to replace pipes leading to Flint homes is finally
fully underway, delivering some promise of a return to normalcy here. City
officials have predicted that 1,000 houses will receive new pipes before
winter. The House of Representatives last month approved a bill promising
$170 million in drinking water upgrades to cities like Flint.
<img class="span-asset-img "
src="https://cdn1.nyt.com/images/2016/10/09/us/09flint2/09flint2-articleLarg
e.jpg" />
A crew replacing a lead waterline with copper on Thursday in Flint, Mich.
City officials have predicted that 1,000 houses will receive new pipes
before winter.
BRITTANY GREESON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
But many of the residents whose water lines have been replaced through the
city program are still recoiling at the thought of drinking the water that
is flowing into their homes.
Mr. Glover, for instance, said he had no plans to change habits developed
over the past two years of lead-tainted turmoil in Flint: He uses tap water
for washing dishes, for mopping floors, for the briefest of showers. But he
uses only bottled water for cooking, drinking and washing his face and
hands.
He is so disgusted by the tap water that he is careful not to let the hand
towel in his bathroom absorb a single drop of it.
He acknowledged that the water in his house looks and smells better these
days. But he and others here cannot forget the stench when it was still
coming from the Flint River. Showering still sometimes produces chalky white
spots on his skin, he said, holding up his arm.
"It's like acid," Mr. Glover said. (Complaints of rashes and other skin
irritations from Flint water have confounded health officials and even
advocates, who have not been able to pinpoint a cause.)
In one neighborhood on the North Side of Flint last week, construction crews
were at work on pipe replacement, a project that the city's mayor, Karen
Weaver, is overseeing. The crews moved from one block to the next in a
pocket of Flint that was once pretty and neat, filled with two-story Cape
Cod-style homes owned by employees at a nearby Buick factory.
<img class="span-asset-img "
src="https://cdn1.nyt.com/images/2016/10/09/us/09flint-3/09flint4-articleLar
ge.jpg" />
Sheila Cunningham, 58, rinsing fish with bottled water. Although she had her
lead line replaced, she said she refuses to use the tap water and has little
trust for officials.
BRITTANY GREESON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Now the factory is closed and at least one-quarter of the houses appear to
be vacant. Weeds have overtaken sidewalks, but neighbors say that the area
is still relatively safe and that they keep an eye out for one another.
Denise Daniel, 45, stood at her front door, next to a stack of bottled water
on the porch. The workers had already finished with her house, she said, but
she refused to drink the tap water.
"I'm not going to touch it," she said. "It was messed up and they didn't
tell us before. They can come out and test it all they want. I'm still not
going to drink it."
Stacks of bottled water can be spotted throughout Flint, in garages, in
living rooms, on side porches. Heaps of plastic empties also pile up,
feeding another environmental problem; not everyone recycles them.
Emma Johnson, 74, is one of the many people in Flint using bottled water;
she said she had received conflicting information about her tap water from
people who routinely come to test it.
"They said it was O.K., but not to drink it," she said with a soft chuckle.
"I still don't know what that means."
<img class="span-asset-img "
src="https://cdn1.nyt.com/images/2016/10/09/us/09flint-JP/09flint3-articleLa
rge.jpg" />
Jackie Denise Thompson, 45, had her lead line replaced but still relies
heavily on bottled water. "I'll drink rainwater in a clean bucket before
I'll drink that water that come out of the faucet," she said.
BRITTANY GREESON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
State and city officials have urged Flint residents to use filtered water
from their taps whenever possible; the filters are available free. "We need
to move the water in Flint if we want to move Flint forward," Gov. Rick
Snyder said in a statement on Wednesday, noting that the recovery of the
water system is enhanced when residents run taps frequently.
"Scientifically, the Flint tap water treated by the lead filters is
currently as safe, or safer, than tap water in other U.S. cities," Marc
Edwards, a scientist from Virginia Tech who helped expose lead contamination
in Flint, said in an email. "But the loss of trust is so profound, and the
sense of betrayal so complete - some Flint residents will never consume or
bathe in tap water again. Given their personal experiences, I would not call
that unreasonable."
The distrust is so ingrained that some people in Flint are not washing their
hands enough, a factor in a recent outbreak of shigellosis, a contagious
infection that can cause severe diarrhea, fever and stools containing blood
and mucus, health officials said.
Laura Sullivan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Kettering
University in Flint who has worked closely with the authorities on solving
the crisis, was among the sick, hospitalized for several days in July with
shigellosis.
She washes her hands frequently and has not been able to definitively
pinpoint the cause of her infection.
But Ms. Sullivan, too, is afraid of the water, and she said convincing
others in Flint that it is fit to drink is a long way off.
"It's difficult to convince people once they're aware that it has been
unsafe that it is now safe," she said. "The messenger that says the water is
safe can't come from the state government. They've already ruined their
potential to be someone who can be trusted."
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Sid C. Booker, 57, has had the lead waterline to his house replaced, but he
is still relying on bottled water for daily needs. "I feel good about it,
that they're doing something about it, that they're making some effort, but
feel safe? No," he said.
Brittany Greeson for The New York Times
By JULIE BOSMAN
October 8, 2016
FLINT, Mich. - By the sunken standards of life in Flint, Kenneth Glover is
lucky.
Last month, a construction crew arrived at his house, removed the aging,
corroded lead waterline leading up to it and installed a new copper pipe in
its place. His house became one of fewer than 200 in Flint to have received
a new pipe through a city-run program, with thousands more on the waiting
list.
That matters not a whit to Mr. Glover. He still will not drink the water.
"I don't even give it to my dog," said Mr. Glover, who works in a General
Motors plant, as he stood outside his home last week. "I don't care how many
filters they give us. I don't care what they say. How can I trust them
again?"
It has been one year since officials in Flint urged city residents not to
drink the water.
Since then - as an investigation continues into the failed response at the
city, state and federal levels - the authorities have pointed to progress in
repairing the city's lead-tainted water system: Water from the Flint River
is no longer used in favor of the city's former source, the Detroit system,
which gets water from Lake Huron.
The state environmental authority in Michigan said this past week that more
than 90 percent of recent water samples in Flint were below concerning lead
levels.
