Two years with toxic water.

That’s how long the former emergency manager expected the people of Flint to drink poison.

Of course he didn’t know. But he should have. They should have tested the Flint River, the old system, the water coming out of people’s taps before they chose to make it a two-year stop-gap before the new water lines were finished and different water would flow into the city.

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They didn’t know because they didn’t do their homework.
They didn’t do their homework because they had to save money.
They had to save money because that was the mandate from the state.
That was the mandate from the state because that is the crux of the emergency manager law.
The emergency manager law gives the governor the right to displace the publicly elected officials in a state of emergency.
The state of emergency is determined by the Governor.
The Governor declared Flint in a state of emergency five years ago because the city was virtually bankrupt.
The city was virtually bankrupt because large number of people have left the city.
Large numbers of people left the city because it is dangerous to live there.
The city of Flint is dangerous because large numbers of middle class whites left the city.
Large numbers of middle class whites left the city because jobs left the city.
Jobs left the city because there are always cheaper places to relocate your business.

So because of problems the city, the state, and the region are all deeply familiar with, the state took over the city, imposed deep, dangerous austerity against the will of the city’s citizens and without due process, gave a dangerous mandate to lower expenses however they could and raise funds (without raising taxes) however they could, the state is responsible for making what may be determined to be a criminal choice: rather than negotiate a short-term deal with Detroit, they chose to gamble on the Flint River.

A gamble that has poisoned the tens of thousands of citizens, many of whom are too poor to purchase pure water by the gallon. So they bathe in it, brush their teeth in it, drink it: poisonous water.

Alarmingly high rates of lead poisoning, doubled and tripled, are found in the children. And all have been exposed to it. How are the people to avoid it? Two years cleaning the dirt from your skin with poisoned water? Two years without cold water to drink? Two years to live without one of the basic necessities of life?

We can go a week without food. Less than that for water.

So what’s 100 weeks?

This spring, they declared the Emergency Manager’s work to be done and after 175+ weeks of state control of the city, the people have their city back. A city poisoned, literally sickened by the state.

And after dozens of weeks of begging and pleading, the state has finally heard the cries for help. They’ll study the problem. Then they finally acted.

What should have been done to protect the people is being done after the people have been poisoned.

This is the state of Flint, Michigan. A city reborn in the 1950s with the great rise of manufacturing, led by General Motors. A city which grew to be a central satellite to Detroit, delivering the cars many of the state’s legislators grew up riding in, whose parents drove. A city whose growth was meteoric and whose fall has been catastrophic. A city which has been in pain so long many of us have never seen a glimmer of the good days.

And it is a city which was on the long road to recovery. Local leaders have taken the long-view, trying to eschew the quick fix of dramatic turnarounds. While other cities were bribing businesses to bring the lowliest of jobs so at least they could claim to be doing something, Flint was doing something already outside-the-box. They were intentionally shrinking.

It would reduce crime, incentivize redevelopment, and make the city ultimately more attractive, more exciting (in the good ways), and a healthy city again.

It is an ambitious project for sure and not universally loved. But it was a plan that would bring more green space, eliminate urban blight, build new neighborhoods, and bring a more sustainable footprint to a city whose footprint was even too big for its glory days.

This project isn’t measured in weeks, or even years. It needs to be measured in decades. It takes careful planning, forethought, and diligence. It requires investment and $#&!-ton of hope. Hope carried even though many of the people sowing the seeds would never see the fruit grow from these trees.

This is the city its state poisoned. A city fighting back against the forces that would bring it down. A city of people fighting for their very survival.

And who is hurt most by the toxic levels of lead? The children. 

What poetry, dance, art will we never experience because of human-caused disabilities?

What breakthroughs in science, medicine, and manufacturing will be stolen from us as ability has been stolen from these children?

What innovations, renewals, peace movements will never be born, what tragedies escaped, what hopes unrealized? And for what?

For money.

An unnatural disaster of human arrogance, reckless authority, cruel indifference, criminal negligence, and cowardly self-preservation.

A poisoned city.

The state has finally cut off the water source and reconnected Flint to Detroit. The crisis appears to be over. But the damage is done. A new, different crisis has replaced it.

A crisis the term-limited governor and congress will never face. They will be out of office soon. They won’t have to deal with the long-term damage inflicted on Flint. And they will certainly be gone when the state loses in court and the whole state will pony up for their arrogance. And my guess is that they will still say “no good deed goes unpunished.”

Amos will remind us differently:

I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.