Michael Moore wants to set the record straight about the Flint Water Crisis narrative coming out of Michigan. A scandal of massive proportions, the facts are vastly different from reality, says Moore, an acclaimed independent filmmaker and lifelong Flint, Michigan, resident.
Unfortunately, the rush to get the almost two-year-old story out forced the media to skip or ignore some very basic, but important, facts the public needs to know to put the entire scandal in the right perspective.
Whose Water?
The Detroit Water and Sewage Department System’s water. No, that’s not actually true. It’s Lake Huron’s water, and DWSDS simply pumps and treats it before sending it to customers, charging them for the privilege. Flint paid DWSDS the highest rates in the state for their water, so Michigan’s Governor Rick Snyder decided to contract with Karegnodi Water Authority when DWSD’s contract expired in April 2014, at a savings of $4 million a year – once the pipes were built, which would take three years.
What the governor didn’t tell residents was that he ordered Tucker Young, Jackson & Tull to do a financial study on the costs of switching from DWSDS to KWA. It found that over 30 years, Flint would pay an estimated $800 million more with KWA than it would if the city stayed with DWSDS. Additionally, the study showed KWA “lowballing the project by $85 million” at least.
Whose Decision?
While the KWA built the pipes, Gov. Snyder overrode the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s prior decision and warning to not use the Flint River, and switched from the DWSDS to the river as a water source in April of 2014. A March 2013 testing run uncovered quality problems and switched from DWDS to the Flint River in April of 2014.
GM Got Special Treatment…
General Motors noticed the water was corroding its engine parts, and complained to the city in December 2014. According to Moore, Gov. Snyder moved heaven and Earth to,
“Quietly spent $440,000 to hook GM back up to the Lake Huron water, while keeping the rest of Flint on the Flint River water … While the children in Flint were drinking lead-filled water, there was one — and only one — address in Flint that got clean water: the GM factory.“
GM even announced the switch back to Detroit’s system, but in spite of the water’s obvious quality problem, Gov. Snyder refused to acknowledge the larger problem plaguing Flint residents. As a result, the media ignored the problem, and Flint residents continued drinking the very same water that corroded the GM parts.
…While Flint Residents Got Ignored
Flint residents complained of visibly dirty and foul smelling water immediately after the permanent switch to the Flint River. Even though they complained to the city and documented their plight via social media, city workers, city officials and the mainstream media ignored the situation.
Less than a week after the switch, the first Tweet was posted about the taste.
Did Flint water taste different today or nobody even noticed?
— Dee.On.Tayye (@MochaLaTae) April 26, 2014
Every Person Poisoned…
Lead is a highly potent neurotoxin that leaves the bloodstream in a couple of days, but permanently damages the brain immediately after getting into the blood, according to the Center for Disease Control. According to Moore, the media is misrepresenting who’s been exposed. Moore says,
“When the media says ‘9,000 children under 6 have been exposed,’ that means ALL the children have been exposed because the total number of people under the age of 6 in Flint is… 9,000!”
More importantly, every single person who lived in or passed through Flint from April 2014 until December 2015 has been exposed. Everyone.
…By More Than Just Lead
Moore says there’s much more than just lead in the water, High levels of Total Trihalomethanes (TTHM), a byproduct of the chlorine used to treat the water, E-coli, total coliform, and others. Just four months after the switch, people took to Twitter and other social media to complain.
Second positive e. coli test in Flint water supply – http://t.co/PXZFTxmm5G
— Hilary Louise (@Hilary_Louise) August 18, 2014
According to Moore,
“Doctors are now discovering that another half-dozen toxins are being found in the blood of Flint’s citizens.”
Gov. Snyder’s hand picked and appointed Emergency Manager, Jerry Ambrose, was told that Flint River was indeed the cause of a number of Legionella cases, according to MLive. The Genesee County Health Department notified him on March 10, 2015. However, the public was not notified until after the city went public with the lead crisis.
The recent group of 87 people who contracted Legionnaires Disease in the last year – a tenfold increase – was recently connected to the water crisis in Flint. Ten have succumbed to the disease, caused by bacteria and curable with antibiotics. Outrageously, no one died from the disease in the five years leading up to the switch to Flint River water.
The Bombshell Revelation – Literally
And as if poisoning Flint residents wasn’t enough, during that time the Governor thought it was a great idea to let the U.S. Army use Flint’s abandoned homes as target practice. Yes, you read that right. Flint residents were only notified “just hours before” the training were to happen, according to Talking Points memo. They took place from June 1 – 12, 2015.
Turning $100 Into $1.5 Billion
In the interest of saving money, Gov. Snyder decided to save “$100 a day for three months” by not adding the anti-corrosive pipe coating. According to Moore,
“In order to save $9,000, the state government said f*** it — and as a result the State may now end up having to pay upwards of $1.5 billion to fix the mess.”
Had the sealant been added, there would be no problem now, but because Gov. Snyder and Ambrose wanted to save every penny possible, they broke a federal law and willfully poisoned Flint.
Anyone involved in the decision willfully broke federal law, and everyone connected with the decision should be charged with a crime.
Wealthy vs. Poor Michigan Residents
The Flint Water Scandal started when Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill that cut taxes for wealthy Michigan residents. Then, he signed the Emergency Manager law and pushed the Republican agenda hard. To save money elsewhere, the governor then cutting public services for middle income and poorer Flint residents, draining the last of the city’s revenue. In other words, Moore says,
“To save $15 million! It was easy. Suspend democracy. Cut taxes for the rich. Make the poor drink toxic river water. And everybody’s happy … Except those who were poisoned in the process. All 102,000 of them. In the richest country in the world.”
Culture Of Death
What makes the fight between the wealthy and poor Flint residents worse, says Moore, is the “culture of death” and the appearance that the government devalues poorer residents’ lives. For example:
GM put profit before human life when the company decided to cover up its ignition switch problems, says Moore, instead of fixing the actual problem. The callousness CEOs display when they decide to go with what’s cheaper. In this case, paying off lawsuits to pennypinch was cheaper than fixing the switch.
Gov. Snyder is a former CEO, and Michael Moore wonders whether his background allowed him to ignore the crisis longer than any human might have been able to.
Follow The Money
Moore uncovered a dubious connection between Nestle and Gov. Snyder – a clear conflict of interest. Dennis Muchmore, Gov. Snyder’s chief of staff, warned the governor of the political football that was the Flint water crisis. He urged the governor to ignore the crisis, and blame it on “city officials,” according to the Mint Vine Press.
What’s more is that Muchmore’s wife Deb is a Nestle spokesperson – Nestle bottles water from Lake Huron, and sells it to Flint residents already, but now Nestle has an agreement with Walmart and other large corporations – they all buy water from Nestle to donate it to Flint residents. The Muchmores are probably making a killing off of the Flint Water Crisis because of Nestle, so is it any wonder Dennis urged Gov. Snyder to ignore the issue?
Another issue related to following the money is the value of Flint homes. Michael Moore reminds readers that the lead crisis has led to home values falling. Various federal and state laws require disclosures regarding lead, and others make it extremely difficult to sell a house when lead is involved.
Michigan’s disclosure law states that not disclosing could land the homeowner in court for fraud – a criminal charge. Every Flint resident is now stuck – those with homes on the market will likely not be able to sell them and even if they can sell, the lead issue likely means they’ll get rock bottom prices at best – further victimizing Flint residents.
Probably the biggest thing that’s happened with the Flint Water Crisis is the willful cover-up of the facts. Dissenters with good information were ignored for a year, and then fired as a result of their supposed ineptitude.
It’s more than time for Governor Snyder to account for his actions regarding the Flint water crisis – for the good of Flint residents, and democracy as a whole.
Featured Image: Screenshot Via MichaelMoore.com
