Simultaneous, Reinforcing Policy Failures Led to Flint Water Crisis

“If addressed, these policy failures would mitigate against the disproportionate and unequal patterns emerging in the coronavirus outbreak,” Hughes said. “But absent change, poor and minority cities remain vulnerable to the marginalizing effects of these multiple and reinforcing rationalized policy domains.”

By a rationalized policy Hughes means one that is presented as purely technical in nature and politically neutral. Techno-rational approaches to policy hold out the promise of more effective, unbiased decision-making, but they often cloak decisions and priorities in the language of rationality and science while failing to consider the public’s preferences, according to Hughes.

Rationalized policy approaches were at the heart of the Flint water crisis, involving both the federal drinking water act and the state emergency manager law.

Flint first came under emergency management in 2011 through the law that preceded Public Act 436, then in 2012 through the provisions of PA 436, which was developed and championed by former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. Flint’s state-appointed emergency managers made or forced decisions about the city’s water supplies and treatment protocols that were ostensibly made with the goal of cutting costs.

The second policy failure implicated in the Flint water crisis involves the federal Safe Drinking Water Act’s Lead and Copper Rule. The LCR provides two important sets of criteria: water quality standards and treatment/testing protocols for lead and copper in drinking water systems.

The law requires that local water utilities monitor and test their water supplies and report their results to the state government, which in turn reports all data to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA is ultimately responsible for ensuring compliance.

When Flint switched its drinking water source to the Flint River in April 2014, the state environmental quality department failed to require the city to treat the water for corrosion, as would be necessary to meet federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) standards.

Federal standards for lead in drinking water are 15 parts per billion. Lead levels of up to 1,000 ppb were detected in Flint homes during the water crisis, yet enforcement actions were not triggered.

“The fact that such systemic and prolonged noncompliance, and clear evidence of a threat to public health, failed to trigger regulatory action by EPA calls into question the adequacy of public protections embedded in the SDWA and LCR,” Hughes said.

In much the same way that Michigan’s emergency manager law represents a rationalized approach to municipal financial distress, the federal Lead and Copper Rule is a rationalized approach to protecting human health, according to Hughes.

“The provisions and standards in the LCR create a policy environment that facilitates decision-making that is reactionary, prioritizes cost-effectiveness, excludes the public and tolerates risk,” she said. The LCR has no enforceable health-based standard “and does not protect any individual or household from exposure to elevated lead levels.”

In 2018, the state of Michigan passed its own set of stricter standards for lead, shifting to a lower 12 ppb standard and requiring that communities replace 5% of lead service lines annually. At the national level, the EPA has submitted proposed revisions to the LCR to the Office of Management and Budget, but they have yet to take effect.

Critically, the policy changes resulting from the Flint water crisis have not extended to a reevaluation of how municipal financial distress is addressed and prevented, according to Hughes. Michigan’s emergency manager law remains unchanged. Poor, minority U.S. communities consistently receive lower-quality drinking water, and lead contamination cases fit a pattern of low-income, unequal and largely black cities, according to Hughes.

The study is based on interviews with local activists, decision-makers, scientists, journalists and scholars working in or with the city of Flint, as well as a review of reports, testimony, newspaper articles and secondary demographic and financial data.