Prior to 2014, the city was also placed under emergency management twice - where the state of Michigan intervened and oversaw Flint’s financial decisions - after financial emergencies were declared by the governors at the time. Flint was once home to the nation’s largest General Motors plant, but after the company opted to downsize in the ’80s, the local economy began to suffer. The city’s choice to tap into a new source of water was precipitated by decades of economic decline. In the months following April 2014, thousands of Flint residents - 54% of whom are Black or African American - would be exposed to lead-contaminated water, and many would go on to push for accountability and advocate for clean water access. At least 12 million lead pipes carry drinking water to homes across the U.S., according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Though Congress banned the use of lead pipes in 1986, those already in use were allowed to remain. Lead pipes that connect residences to public water supplies aren’t uncommon in the United States.
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“Any competent person should have seen this water will eat up iron and eat up lead,” Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards told the Detroit Free Press in 2015. Testing and treatment of the water prior to the switch could have lessened the community impact. As a result, it began to corrode the lead pipes that ran throughout the city. But water in the Flint River has a high chloride content and was not immediately treated properly.
In April 2014, however, the pipeline was not yet operational, so the city chose water from the Flint River as a temporary stand-in. But Flint was struggling and found it could save money by constructing a pipeline to a local water authority. Previously, Flint purchased its water from Detroit. The decision to change water sources was a fateful one. The date marks the start of the Flint water crisis. On April 25, 2014, water from the Flint River began flowing into the pipes of Flint, Michigan.
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