DECADE of Crisis: 10 Years Ago Today, This Key Meeting Occurred That Led to the Flint Water Crisis

On June 29th, 2013, state, Flint city and county officials—pushed by the unelected emergency manager appointed by MI Governor Rick Snyder—held critical meeting at Flint's water plant

A decade ago today a cabal of local officials met at the skeleton of a water plant in Flint for the opening hearing in the city’s collective death sentence.

Three days after Flint emergency manager Ed Kurtz authorized the Flint water plant to “treat water from the Flint River to serve as the primary drinking water source for approximately two years,” city of Flint and Genesee County officials gathered for an all-day meeting at Flint’s dilapidated water treatment plant.

Kurtz was one of several unelected puppets appointed by then-Governor Rick Snyder to take over the governing of cities like Flint, superseding the authority of the elected mayor and city council. Kurtz might have signed on the dotted line to seal Flint’s tragic Flint River fate, but it was really a shadowy figure pulling the strings behind-the-scenes. Jeff Wright, the powerful Drain Commissioner of Genesee County, which Flint was the biggest city within, had a checkered past that included accusations of bribery and money laundering in his elected role. Rumored to be under scrutiny by federal authorities, Wright ended up serving as an FBI informant.

Somehow, as the elected Drain Commissioner of the county Flint resided in, Wright was permitted to double as the CEO of a proposed brand new water pipeline—in name a public water authority but in reality a privatized water system known as the Karegnondi Water Authority [KWA]. From his first days as Drain Commissioner in the 2000s, Wright had loudly led the charge pushing for Flint and Genesee County to end its decades-long purchasing of drinking water from the city of Detroit in favor of building its own water system. His pitch was simple: Detroit was perennially price gouging Flint, its largest customer, and building our own water pipeline would allow the county and city to control long-term costs. An additional benefit, Wright argued, was in addition to receiving cheaper water for its residents, Flint could also sell a percentage of the raw water it got from KWA to businesses and industries in demand of raw water.

Those industries included manufacturing, agriculture, meatpacking, and…fracking.

So, after a year of tense, and often-times headscratching, negotiations between the city of Flint and Detroit Water and Sewage Department [DWSD], its longtime water provider, emergency manager Kurtz—in tandem with Wright—decided to end purchasing water from DWSD in favor of joining the proposed KWA. In terms of math, the decision was puzzling. At the last minute, DWSD, desperate not to lose its largest customer Flint, offered to cut the city’s water rate in half. The offer would have saved Flint $800 million over 30 years—ultimately a 20 percent savings compared to what joining KWA would cost.

Yet, despite the significant savings for Flint of continuing to purchase water from Detroit, Kurtz, in cahoots with Wright, stood firm and decided Flint would be joining the KWA pipeline upon the completion of construction. With construction beginning in the spring of 2014, and estimated to take two years, the priority in June 2013 became getting Flint’s rusty, outdated water treatment plant ready to operate as a full-time operator to treat more acidic Flint River water —in less than a year—by April 2014.

But there was MAJOR obstacles to achieve the goal, which workers at the plant were ordered to achieve with it being conveyed to them by city officials that no was not an option.

On the top of the list of issues: Flint’s water plant had not operated as a full-time water treatment system for decades. It had long been the backup source for the city’s main source (DWSD). In fact, by state law, Flint’s plant was only required to operate full time for one month out of the year. As a backup source, the plant had not received badly-needed upgrades, which according to a city-commissioned 2011 engineering study, would total at a minimum of $61 million dollars.

Where was a nearly bankrupt, economically battered Midwest city going to come up with tens of millions? Math and reality be damned, city and county officials forged ahead with the plan for the plant to treat Flint River water 24/7 by spring of 2014.

So on June 29th, workers from the plant, officials from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality [MDEQ], engineering and construction officials from meeting were workers from the plant, MDEQ officials, officials from engineering firm Lockheed, Andrews, & Newman [LAN], and Drain Commissioner Jeff Wright met at Flint’s water plant for an all-day meeting to develop the plan to get the plant up and running in time for the Flint River switch 10 months away.

Warren Green, the chief engineer with LAN, told prosecutors details of the meeting. At one point, Green relayed, a plant worker asked whether Flint would be adding corrosion control chemicals to the Flint River water.

“Flint will use two monitoring periods and then we will review the results,” Stephen Busch, an MDEQ supervisor, said, according to Busch. The answer was stunning: instead of adding corrosion control inhibitors to the river water, Flint would instead test the water for a year to see if there was any heavy metal corrosion in the water that would necessitate adding the corrosion control chemicals.

Not only was this backwards. It was also against federal regulations.

The EPA required cities with population sizes over 50,000 to add corrosion control chemicals to their water supply. The reason was simply: the water pipes distributing water underground throughout America were anywhere from 50 to 100 years old. In some cities, pipes were first installed in the 1800s. The result was old, corroding pipes that routinely have lead and other heavy metals leaching off the pipes into drinking water being delivered to homes and businesses.

In order to protect consumers against this, the EPA requires that corrosion control chemicals be added to most cities' water in order to form a protective coating over the pipes, and prevent heavy metals—like lead—from dislodging into the water supply. But, Busch, and MDEQ, were simply blowing off the requirement upon the city switching to a brand new, harder-to-treat water source (the Flint River).

Green questioned the wisdom of the decision, but Busch insisted that was how the state and city would proceed.

But there was another problem. Even if MDEQ and Busch had decided to add the proper corrosion control chemicals at the time of the switch, the water plant didn’t even have the equipment in place to distribute the chemicals.

It was just one more reckless, haphazard decision to switch to a brand new water source with a plant incapable of safely treating the water for residents’ drinking or bathing consumption—essentially the equivalent of hopping on a Boeing 747 with one of the wings cut in half.

On April 25th, 2014, with an ill-equipped plant, understaffed crew, and delusional—and in many cases corrupt—state and city officials behind the plan, the switch was flipped and Flint switched to the Flint River.

Tragically, we all know the rest of the story.

This is Part One of Status Coup’s “Decade of Crisis” Flint water series, where we will mark the decade anniversary for key, and some unknown, events that took place in the lead to the Flint water crisis. SUPPORT our investigative reporting on Flint—which is still going through an ONGOING water crisis—by becoming a Status Coup member for $5-10 bucks a month.