Chapter 22: Demonstration of Proof

Important Events:
1.) Eden Wells, the chief medical officer for the state of Michigan, who had been made the “point person” for the water issues in Flint, called Mona to talk about the water. She seemed to genuinely care, and promised to expedite Mona’s request for the state’s medical data. Mona took the opportunity to share with her a bunch of resources and information. 
 
2.) Marc Edwards issued Freedom of Information Act requests. When they finally went through and agency emails went public, Mona learned  that when Eden had called her, Eden had already received an email from her boss (Nick Lyon) at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) directing her to prove that Mona was wrong, without even having looked at Mona’s study.  

3.)  “Didn’t Lyon care about protecting kids? Didn’t he care about science? No, I think all he cared about was winning. It was risky, a gamble. He had to count on the fact that nobody else in his agency, or the governor’s office, would come along and care about kids or science either. If folks could claim global warming is a hoax, tobacco is good for you, and asbestos is a safe building material, the Flint blood-lead levels should be easy enough to obscure. But I think Eden Wells cared about science, or appeared to. That’s what caused the tide to slowly turn, what eventually stopped the cover-up, the lies, the stonewalling” (Hanna-Attisha 278). 

4.) A press-conference was held which involved the head of MDEQ, the PR person of MDEQ, and others’ saying a whole lot of things about how the state had ‘just decided’ to look at its blood-lead level data and found an increase in lead levels. There were people who talked about needing to ‘rebuild the people’s trust in the water system. Overall, the MDHHS and MDEQ had conceded that there was a problem, but refused to accept the idea that either of their agencies had anything to do with the creation or mitigation of the disaster. 

Chapter 23: All The Things We Found Out Later

All The Things They Found Out Later:
 
1.) “In January 2015, state officials, while telling Flint residents that their water was safe to drink, were arranging for water coolers to be delivered to the Flint State Office Building so state employees wouldn’t have to drink from the tap” (Hanna-Attisha 284). 

2.) The City, controlled by the State, had deliberately manipulated the water samples from Flint homes so they wouldn’t have to notify the public about the presence of lead, per the federal rules. To ensure a low percentage, they collected samples in ways that caused less lead to be detected. When high-lead samples came back, they were thrown out, including those from LeeAnne Walter’s home” (Hanna-Attisha 285).  

3.) Based on emails received from FOIA requests- “as early as December 2014, red flags were being raised about a strange escalation in cases of Legionnaires’ disease, a severe, often lethal lung infection caused by waterborne bacteria sometimes found in the water towers of hospitals, hotels, and large institutions. The number of Legionnaires’ cases quadrupled after the water switch- also related to the lack of corrosion control- yet nothing was done” (Hanna-Attisha 286). 

4.) “At the EPA, when asked about using federal money to buy water filters for city residents, the Region 5 Water Division chief, Debbie Baltazar, wrote to the regional administrator and others, ‘I’m not so sure Flint is the community we want to go out on a limb for’...

The pointed cruelty. The arrogance and inhumanity. Sometimes it is called racism. Sometimes it is called callousness. And sometimes- when the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that left at least twelve people dead was tied to the water switch, something the bureaucrats knew about for a full year- it can be called manslaughter” (Hanna-Attisha 286). 

All The Things They Didn’t Ever Find Out: 

1.) Corrosion control would have cost only eighty dollars a day- so why was the pump to deliver corrosion control never installed, why were so many other shortcuts made?

2.) Why were so many people ignored when they tried to raise red flags, first about the lack of corrosion control, then about the larger issue of the water crisis itself?

All The Progress That Was Made: 
 
1.) Water filters that effectively filtered out lead were being distributed to the public, as was bottled water. 

2.)  Mona and her team fought for getting the water source switched back to Detroit water. Everyone said it was impossible. They said it was necessary. On October 8, Governor Snyder announced that the water source would be switched back to Detroit water from Lake Huron. 

3.) Mona met with Senator Stabenow, who listened as Mona talked about her ideas for potential next steps and specific things she could do to help on the federal level. Senator Stabenow promised to fight for federal funding for long-term support. She also promised to put the weight of her office on obtaining a federal waiver from the USDA to get ready-to-feed formula (that would not need to be mixed with water) for the babies in Flint. 

4.) “The EPA reversed course and acknowledged the water crisis. It established the Flint Safe Drinking Water TaskForce- with Miguel Del Toral on it- to help develop and implement a plan for secure water quality in Flint. It eventually issued a directive to prevent state water agencies from fraudulent testing methods that purposely minimized lead content” (Hanna-Attisha 291). 

Chapter 24: Fire Ant

Points of Information:

1.) Mona worked on two projects: perfecting her list of science-based demands and recommendations for Flint kids, and finalizing her study of elevated blood-lead levels after the water switch using geospatial software, and which would be peer-reviewed.

2.) Marc Edwards taught the team about the dangers of hacking. Everyone used code names for each other. For example, Jenny was ‘Red Panda’ while Mona was ‘Fire Ant.’ 

3.) The state had no budget to make a real response to the crisis, but lawsuits were being filed daily by ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) lawyers and NRDC (National Resource Defense Council) for Flint. They held a press conference, the purpose of which was to force an onslaught of misinformation and lies on people to try and disguise their complicity. The most dangerous lie was the ridiculous number they had, the supposed number of kids that had been exposed: 43. 

4.) Mona fiercely protested the lies released at the press-conference. Rachel Maddow, a popular talk-show host, talked about the crisis on her show, connecting it to the undemocratic emergency manager (EM) law that had caused the Flint community to be mostly without representation, as well as categorically stating that the kids of FLint had been “poisoned by a policy decision.” 

5.) Flint’s new mayor, Karen Weaver, declared a citywide state of emergency. This had a ripple effect and forced Governor Snyder to declare an emergency in Genesee County, which caused the National Guard to get involved, which caused President Obaa to declare a “federal” emergency in Flint on January 16, 2016. 

7.) Mona and her team created an advisory committee, established at the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, called the ‘Flint Child Health and Development Fund’ (FlintKids.org).

8.) Mona’s team officially submitted their comprehensive, science-based list of recommendations to the Emergency Operations Center, so that it could be implemented.  

Chapter 25: Truth and Reconciliation

Important Reconciliations: 
 
1.) The governor, Rick Snyder, paid Mona a visit and sincerely apologized for Flint. He told her his plans to help the Flint kids, fulfilling almost everything Mona asked for in her list of what the Flint kids needed for mitigation of toxic stress. 

2.) “The MDHHS director Nick Lyon and Eden Wells were charged, related to the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak. Wells was charged with obstruction of justice, Lyon with misconduct. Both were charged with involuntary manslaughter, along with three others... for their failure to act in the crisis” (Hanna-Attisha 314). 

 3.) Mona and Marc would stay connected. The trauma of the D.C. crisis on Marc and Elin was somewhat healed by the many reconciliations of the Flint crisis. 

4.) One of Mona’s most influential teachers, Bunyan Bryant, who first taught her about the concept of environmental injustice, was suffering from Parkinson’s, but Mona had the opportunity to talk to him again and deeply valued it. She was able to thank him for helping to pave the way. 

Important Truths: 

1.) “For decades, the city and state infrastructure had been neglected in order to save money. State environmental and health agencies had been defunded, and great public servants had become disillusioned and retired, leaving these agencies a shadow of what they were supposed to be. All the budget cuts and so-called fiscal “responsibility” had resulted in a winner-take-all culture, a disdain for regulations and career regulators, a rubber-stamping of bad ideas, a gross underfunding of environmental enforcement, limited understanding of and expertise in public health, a disregard for the poor” (Hanna-Attisha 306).

2.) Mona shares that Michael Moore wrote in Time, “everybody knows that this {water crisis} would not have happened in predominantly white Michigan cities like West Bloomfield, or Grosse Pointe, or Ann Arbor... everybody know that if there had been two years of taxpayer complaints, and then a year of warnings from scientists and doctors, this would have been fixed in those towns... this is a racial crime. If it were happening in another country, we’d call it an ethnic cleansing.” 

3.) “Admitting your mistakes, and then doing what you can to rectify them, takes integrity and strength” (Hanna-Attisha 309).