FLINT,
Mich. — Depending on the day, Melissa Mays says, the water flowing out
of her home’s faucets might have a blue tint. Or it might smell like
mothballs. Or it might fill her home with the scent of an
overchlorinated swimming pool.
Lately,
Ms. Mays, who is 36 and works in marketing, has not been turning on her
tap much at all. After Flint changed the source of its drinking water
last spring, Ms. Mays said, she noticed a change in the water’s color
and odor. Then she started having rashes,
and clumps of her hair fell out. When the city issued a boil order, she
stopped using the water for drinking and cooking. Now her family spends
roughly $400 a month on bottled water.
“My
cat gets bottled water, our plants get bottled water, our fish gets
bottled water,” said Ms. Mays, who has helped organize marches to
protest the water conditions and is on a city commission seeking input
on how to move forward. “It takes four to five bottles of water to fill
up a pot for spaghetti.”
Flint
officials insist that the city’s water is safe. They say that the
issues of odor and color are separate from the question of whether the
water meets federal standards, and that no link to health problems has
been proved.
“We
understand the concerns about discoloration and odors,” said Gerald
Ambrose, Flint’s state-appointed emergency manager. “We tell everyone
who complains that we would be more than happy to come out to their
house and test their water.”
Mr.
Ambrose’s position hints at deeper issues in Flint. Though the city has
not declared bankruptcy, it has been in state receivership since 2011
and has deep-seated financial problems, which Mr. Ambrose was appointed
to help untangle. Add to that a plummeting population and violent crime
rates that rank among the nation’s worst, and the water question becomes
one headache among many.
The
problems, almost everyone agrees, started shortly after the city, in an
effort to save money, switched from the supply of treated Lake Huron
water it had long purchased from Detroit and started drawing water from
the Flint River, treating it locally.
On
Monday, Flint’s City Council voted to “do all things necessary” to
reconnect to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. Mr. Ambrose’s
response was swift. Flint water today is safe by all federal and state
standards, he said in a statement Tuesday. “Water from Detroit is no
safer than water from Flint,” he said. “Users also pay some of the
highest rates in the state because of the decreased numbers of users and
the age of the system.”
A
sign downtown still refers to Flint as Vehicle City. Older residents
recall growing up in a place that 200,000 people called home, where
good-paying jobs in the General Motors factories were plentiful. Today,
many of the auto plants are gone, the population is below 100,000, and
once-prosperous neighborhoods are dotted with abandoned homes and vacant
lots.
As
Flint has shrunk, its network of water pipes built for a much larger
metropolis has deteriorated. With fewer customers, water sometimes
languishes in the system, becoming discolored. Moreover, water bills in
Flint are far higher than those in neighboring communities. Officials
say the switch away from Detroit water saves the city $12 million a
year.
“It’s
a very sore point, particularly when you have a population with a high
degree of low-income folks,” Mr. Ambrose said. “To me, the conversation
we need to be having is, how do we lower those rates?”
Some
residents say they would rather not debate the cost until they are
confident that the water is safe. When fecal coliform bacteria showed up
in parts of the city last summer, residents were told to boil their
water before using it. Officials addressed the issue by pumping extra
chlorine into the system, but in solving one problem, they created
another.
The
high chlorine levels led to elevated levels of total trihalomethanes or
T.T.H.M., which required another public notice in January. Residents
will again receive a notice of elevated T.T.H.M. levels in the mail
later this month, Mayor Dayne Walling has said. Long-term consumption of
water with high T.T.H.M. levels can lead to liver or kidney troubles
and an increased risk of cancer, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Some
here say Flint had been on the verge of a rebound when the water
problems started. The walkable downtown area, just steps from the
University of Michigan’s campus here, is now home to the Flint Crepe
Company and other new restaurants. And perhaps most significant, the
emergency manager was expected to leave office in the coming weeks,
handing power back to the elected mayor and City Council.
“We
continue to deal with a number of longstanding challenges with
concentrated poverty and high crime and expensive, old infrastructure,”
said Mr. Walling, a Flint native who returned to his hometown after
studying at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. “But we’re now 30 years past the
major General Motors plant closings in the 1980s, and people are ready
to move forward, so the new problems with water have been a huge
setback.” Mr. Walling said he and his family drank city water.
Mr.
Walling and Mr. Ambrose conceded that communication should have been
better when water problems emerged. But they say the city is reaching
out to residents and answering questions. Officials installed a T.T.H.M.
monitor at the treatment plant and hired a consulting firm to suggest
improvements there, and they have asked state and federal officials for
help. They also note that the switch to the Flint River is not
permanent. A new pipeline connecting Flint to Lake Huron is expected to
be completed next year.
Many
in Flint, though, seem unconvinced. Saterra Hill, 17, a health sciences
major at the University of Michigan-Flint, said she and her father
purchased several gallon jugs of water each month instead of drinking
tap water. Vernon White, 57, said he often bought soda to avoid the
water.
For
many, the water issue stirs emotions. On a recent weekday afternoon,
dozens of people filled the basement of the city’s transportation center
for a meeting of a water advisory committee.
Tony
Palladeno Jr., who arrived at the meeting in a red Flint baseball cap,
was escorted out by a police officer for repeated outbursts. Mr.
Palladeno, 53, keeps a bottle of yellowish water with a layer of
sediment that he said came out of his tap in January. He said local
officials had not acted quickly enough to fix the problems.
“I
don’t feel hopeful,” Mr. Palladeno said. “At one time, I loved this
town. I still love it. There’s good people here. But the governing is
killing us. I think we need a federal intervention.”
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