Would Flint crisis happen in wealthier, whiter community?
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| Michigan National Guard Staff Sgt. James Green hands out a water test kit to be distributed to residents, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016 in Flint, Mich.The National Guard, state employees, local authorities and volunteers have been distributing lead tests, filters and bottled water during the city's drinking water crisis. |
FLINT, Mich.
(AP) -- Ever since the full extent of the Flint water crisis
emerged, one question has persisted: Would this have happened in a
wealthier, whiter community?
Residents in the
former auto-making hub - a poor, largely minority city - feel their
complaints about lead-tainted water flowing through their taps have been
slighted by the government or ignored altogether. For many, it echoes
the lackluster federal response to New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina
in 2005.
"Our voices were not heard, and
that's part of the problem," Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said this week at
the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C., where she
also met with President Barack Obama to make her case for federal help
for her city.
The frustration has mostly been
directed at Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who appointed an emergency
manager to run Flint. That manager approved a plan in 2013 to begin
drawing drinking water from the Flint River, and the city began doing so
the next year. But officials failed to treat the corrosive water
properly to prevent metal leaching from old pipes.
Snyder,
a Republican in his second term, was blasted by Hillary Clinton in her
remarks after the recent Democratic presidential debate.
"We've
had a city in the United States of America where the population, which
is poor in many ways and majority African-American, has been drinking
and bathing in lead-contaminated water. And the governor of that state
acted as though he didn't really care," Clinton said.
Snyder
"had requests for help that he had basically stone-walled. I'll tell
you what: If the kids in a rich suburb of Detroit had been drinking
contaminated water and being bathed in it, there would've been action."
Flint
residents complained loudly and often about the water quality
immediately after the switch but were repeatedly told it was safe. They
didn't learn the water was tainted until the state issued warnings a
year and a half later. Now families fear for their health and especially
for the future of their children, who can develop learning disabilities
and behavior problems from lead exposure.
Snyder,
who has apologized for the mishandling of the situation, declined a
request by The Associated Press for an interview Thursday. But in
response to Clinton's remarks, he said the former secretary of state
should not make Flint a political issue.
His
staff issued a statement to AP that cited his efforts in urban areas
such as Detroit, which also has a large black population. An emergency
manager appointed by Snyder led that city through bankruptcy in 2013-14.
"Bringing
Detroit back to a solid fiscal foundation has allowed the city to
restore services, and we've watched its economy grow, creating jobs and
better opportunities," the statement said. Snyder has also "focused on
improving education in all our cities, knowing that students need to not
just graduate, but graduate with in-demand skills as they compete in a
global economy."
Snyder's staff also noted his signing of Medicaid expansion, which provided health care coverage to 600,000 low-income adults.
Flint,
a city about 75 miles north of Detroit, is the birthplace of General
Motors and once had 200,000 residents. In the early 1970s, the automaker
employed 80,000 blue- and white-collar workers in the area. Fewer than
8,000 GM jobs remain, and the city's population has dropped to just
below 100,000, with a corresponding rise in property abandonment and
poverty.
The city is 57 percent black, and 42 percent of its people live in poverty.
The
decline of GM jobs "left a lot of people destitute and desperate, and
they feel like their voices aren't being heard. It just adds to the
frustration," said Phil Rashead, 66, of Flint, who is white.
Paul
Mohai, a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has
studied environmental burdens and their disproportionate impact on
low-income and minority communities since the late 1990s. He said Flint
is a classic case of minority and low-income residents confronting an
environmental issue and that "it may be one of the biggest environmental
justice disasters we've seen in a long time."
"What's kind of clear is that they've been vocalizing their concerns and the response has been rather weak," he said.
Former
Flint Mayor Dayne Walling, who lost his re-election bid in November
amid the water crisis, said newly released emails by Snyder showed that
the governor's staffers disregarded Flint's plight because of the city's
demographics.
"There are a number of
indications that concerns of Flint's elected leaders and faith and
community leaders were being dismissed as political posturing instead of
taken seriously as efforts to address very real problems," said
Walling, who is white and was first elected mayor in 2009.
Frustrations boiled over at a weekend protest outside City Hall.
"They
would never do this to Bloomfield. They would never do this to Ann
Arbor. They would never do this to Farmington Hills," filmmaker and
Flint native Michael Moore said, referring to much wealthier Michigan
communities. He called for Snyder's ouster and arrest.
Moore
also cited deaths from Legionnaires' disease recorded in the Flint area
over the past two years and only announced publicly last week by
Snyder. The state has not linked them to Flint's waters, but others
disagree.
"Let's call this what it is," Moore
said. "It's not just a water crisis. It's a racial crisis. It's a
poverty crisis. That's what this is, and that's what created this."
