The biggest crime scene of the 21st century
An Interview with Jordan Chariton, Author of We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover-Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans
Ironic to think that the country’s worst drinking water crisis took place in Michigan—the Great Lakes State—boasting eleven thousand cold inland lakes with state borders on four of the world’s top eleven freshwater lakes.
Ironic, yes, but also infuriating when you realize that the Flint water disaster involves greed, lies, corruption, and what today’s guest calls the biggest and deadliest government cover-up of the 21st century. Yes, Jordan Chariton says as much, and in his explosive We the Poisoned, he has the details to back it up—due to his extensive time reporting and interviewing Flint residents, asking hard questions of the politicians and government officials involved, building sources and digging through confidential documents he obtained, and frequent Freedom of Information Act requests to Michigan government agencies.
Foreword’s Executive Editor Matt Sutherland, a lifelong Michigan resident, has been following Flint’s travails for years and jumped at the chance to interview Jordan about the book and what really took place, and is currently taking place, in Vehicle City.
From its founding in 1819 as a fur trading post, Flint prospered through lumbering and carriage manufacturing until the very early twentieth century when Buick and then General Motors helped it become one of the most prosperous cities in the Midwest. So, the city’s infrastructure must have originally been outstanding. What was happening—and not happening with repairs and upkeep—above (politically and economically) and below ground (rusting pipes and decay) as the city of Flint began its decades of decline starting in the 1960s leading up to the poisoning crisis?
I see you know about Flint. Good question. As some of the readers here may recall, in the mid 20th century, Flint, Michigan, was the birthplace of the US auto industry. Yes, “Vehicle City”—a nickname which had its origin all the way back to the horse-and-buggy days—was a booming metropolis and the envy of much of the country. Sadly, beginning in the 1960s and early 1970s, a cascade of social, cultural, and racial winds gathered to dramatically shrink and hollow out Flint’s tax base, and in turn, funding for upkeep to its public infrastructure and assets. As part of the Great Migration of Black southerners coming to start lives and careers in big auto manufacturing cities like Flint, the city’s Black population significantly increased. At the height, their city services were comparable to all the other major population centers. Yet, similar to other parts of the country, where Black neighborhoods grew, the “white flight” phenomenon also surged, as white residents fled Flint to the suburbs. The exodus of so many residents shrunk Flint’s tax base, which left less revenue to fund government services.
Adding economic insult to injury for Flint, as American auto companies saw increased competition from foreign automakers, General Motors began closing factories and laying off workers. GM’s relocation from Flint accelerated in the 1980s and ‘90s as federal trade deals sparked auto companies to close down more US factories and outsource auto jobs to Mexico, China, and other low-wage countries. All these factors effectively decimated Flint’s population and tax base.
As the 20th century ended and the 21st century began, Flint was struggling to maintain—much less improve—basic city services like schools, roads, garbage, its water infrastructure, youth programs, etc. The deterioration showed: roads filled with potholes, neighborhoods filled with empty lots of towering grass where homes used to stand, and a spike in crime. With the city’s devolution into a sinking economic ship, its government grew to depend on outside funding from other entities, such as the powerful Mott Foundation (named after original General Motors investor Charles Stewart Mott). This gradual, 50-year metropolitan metamorphosis—from middle class utopia to rotting economic corpse—set the conditions for the Flint water crisis and cover-up.
And then, in 2011, Flint was put under emergency management, as was Detroit in 2013. At the time, Flint was Detroit’s top customer for city water via a seventy mile pipeline. After fifty years, Flint ended its purchase of drinking water from Detroit in order to join a new privatized water system known as Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA). As part of the plan, they temporarily sourced the terribly toxic water from the Flint River. The green light was given on April 25, 2014, and, in your words, “The governor along with his top officials were about to enact what, based on my reporting, would become one of the biggest government cover-ups of the twenty-first century.” Please tell us about the KWA deal and whether it was a good plan for Flint?
KWA was a horrible deal—really a boondoggle—that tragically ended up resulting in the deaths of an unknowable number of Flint residents. It should serve as a cautionary tale to all Americans who are unknowingly becoming victims to similar financial scams sprung by their own elected representatives.
To understand why it was so bad, it’s important to understand the history and context:
By the turn of the 21st century, Flint was running annual budget deficits of $12–20 million dollars. In 2011, Flint’s struggling financial situation gave Michigan’s new Governor Rick Snyder—a millionaire computer company tycoon—the political ammunition to controversially declare a financial emergency in Flint and seize control of the local government. He appointed his own emergency financial manager, whose power superseded the power of the elected mayor and city councilmembers (there ended up being four emergency managers leading up to and directly after the crisis). These unelected bureaucrats reported to Snyder, essentially serving as his proxy in Flint, and helped engineer the catastrophic decisions that caused the disaster. In my book, you are introduced to the part they played, including their mysterious relationship to the city and the powerful business interests pulling the strings behind the city government.
Right away, the emergency manager’s first order of business was to cut, cut, and cut some more in a crusade to improve Flint’s economic woes (on the backs of workers and critical public services). This is when the plotting began …
The emergency manager—along with other city and county officials carrying questionable motives and ethics—sprung a quick turnaround idea. Theoretically, it sounded great: instead of Flint spending $1 million dollars a month to purchase water from Detroit ($12 million annually), the city could become part of a new, supposedly cheaper privatized water system (the KWA). However, studies and engineering assessments found that Flint cutting ties with Detroit, in favor of joining the new KWA system, would actually not be cheaper. First, they would be constructing an expensive duplicate pipeline for the project that paralleled the existing Detroit pipeline. Yet, unlike Detroit, which sent Flint finished treated water, KWA would be piping raw water to Flint. But worst of all, during the construction of the new pipeline, they would be using water from the infamously-polluted Flint River.
The thought was alarming to workers on the plant floor; Flint’s water plant was a decrepit skeleton that hadn’t served as a full-time water treatment plant in half a century. Its equipment was outdated—even worse, it was missing critical equipment to safely treat water. The plant was so outdated, a 2011 engineering study advised that it needed $61 million in upgrades if the city wanted to draw its drinking water from its own environmental dumping ground known as the Flint River. In fact, several engineering assessments found it would be cheaper for Flint to continue receiving water from Detroit rather than joining the new KWA system and using its dilapidated water plant.
If dollars and cents were the true north star, it would have been a no-brainer for Flint to continue drawing its water from Detroit. But as my book lays out, in meticulous and infuriating detail, powerful politicians—and Wall Street banks in league with them—saw water as a major cash cow. A brand new water system would shower politicians, contractors, and other powerful figures with plenty of moolah. Sadly, the greed laying as the dark underbelly of the Flint water crisis left the people of Flint as sacrificial lambs.
Beginning with chapter 4, Timeline to Catastrophe subheads chronicle the series of decisions, actions, and inactions that started over a decade before officials stopped drawing from Detroit’s water system and began using the Flint River in 2014. We’re talking twenty years ago. When did you first make landfall in Flint and how much time did you spend researching and reporting there?
I first reported in Flint in July of 2016, which was about half a year after the initial January 2016 media blitz of national news crews rushing to the city to cover the water crisis. At the time I had been covering the 2016 presidential campaign, bouncing all over the country between Bernie and Trump rallies. After a Flint resident approached me at a political conference and told me how things were still so bad there—and that the media had stopped covering the story—I decided I had to check it out for myself.
What I saw on that first trip shook me to my core: residents’ hair falling out, their teeth falling out, children ravaged with full body rashes, mile-long rows of cars waiting to receive two cases of bottled water at designated water “pods,” front patios of homes packed to the top with cases of bottled water, and residents literally begging for help from their federal, state, and local government.
What really struck—and angered me—was the cognitive dissonance, and alternative reality, painted by the mainstream media. Day after day in Flint, I’d observe what was a major ongoing disaster, yet when I got back to my hotel, all I’d see on the news networks was political pundits on a panel arguing about something Donald Trump had said or tweeted. “Am I in the twilight zone?” I thought. Americans are literally being poisoned here, and the national media—and frankly, much of the local media—were barely investigating who and what caused this, much less trying to inform the rest of the country about how dire the situation was.
Journalistically, this first trip lit a fire within me and made me realize this could not be a one-and-done situation. I would have to keep coming back to Flint; not just to continue covering the humanitarian disaster and crisis, but also to start doing old-school investigating on who-knew-what-and-when.
So, I began making repeated reporting trips to Flint, building sources and peeling back the layers of corruption that fueled the water crisis. Soon enough, I obtained thousands of confidential documents from the Flint water criminal investigation—much of which served as the foundation for We the Poisoned.
Nine years and twenty one trips later, I believe my reporting (and book) reveals the biggest—and deadliest—government cover-up of the 21st century.
Let’s start at the top. Without a doubt, Governor Snyder was first told about the deadly waterborne bacteria Legionnaires Disease in Flint’s water by Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) director Dan Wyant sixteen months before Snyder first notified the public, causing many more people to die than might have happened. There were also hospitals and state agencies detecting high levels of deadly waterborne Legionella bacteria as well as carcinogenic chemicals known as TTHMs. What was going through his head, what political winds was he trying to navigate, during all this time?
If only I could get into Rick Snyder’s head! What I can tell you is the underlying context and political winds that were shuffling through the Governor’s mansion at the time.
Like many Republicans and so-called political “outsiders,” Snyder ran for governor as a successful businessman who was “not a politician”—and felt government should be run like a business. Putting aside the disastrous consequences of that political ideology, Snyder was known for looking at political policies, challenges, and obstacles through the lens of numbers on a balance sheet. Immediately upon entering office, he sought to grow his political brand as an economic wizard who could lift financially struggling cities, like Flint and Detroit, and execute an economic “comeback.”
Based on my reporting and documents I obtained, by October 2014, six months after Flint switched to using the Flint River—and residents were already being poisoned by toxic water—Snyder was made aware of an outbreak of Legionnaires throughout Flint. Given the life-and-death implications, one would hope that any politician would immediately notify and warn their constituents and take emergency action to fix the situation.
One would hope …
But Snyder was a month away from his reelection and, according to the polls, in a close race against a Democratic challenger. He also had eyes on a larger prize: the Oval Office.
Based on what he was portraying as his major success in lifting the city of Detroit out of bankruptcy—which wasn’t exactly how he spun it—and his framing that he helped Flint initiate a turnaround, Snyder was beginning to discuss a 2016 White House run with his brain trust. Well, you don’t have to go to school for political science to know “poisoning a city” is not something to toss on your presidential campaign bumper sticker!
Having covered politics for nearly two decades, I can tell you: power and ambition is one hell of a political drug cocktail. I can’t psychoanalyze to determine why he didn’t do the right thing and act much sooner to save the lives of the citizens he swore to protect. What I can tell you: this was a highly ambitious, wealthy businessman-turned-politician with eyes on becoming the most powerful person on earth. Only he can answer if his zeal for the White House superseded the health and safety of the people of Flint. But it is my opinion, based on nearly a decade living and breathing this story as a journalist, that Rick Snyder intentionally put his political ambitions ahead of the human beings in Flint. I invite you to read the evidence and see what you think.
Several times in the book, you mention the fact that very few if any other investigative reporters were covering this story after the initial days of the scandal, let alone, knocking on more than four hundred doors of Flint residents, as you did. In these times of news deserts, failing newspapers, and fake news, who were the news sources willing to publish your Flint water crisis journalism and why was it important to them?
Glad you asked. In fact, during the process of reporting and writing this book, I told multiple people that I can write another entire book just on the media’s failures—and in some cases, participation in the cover-up—when it comes to the water crisis. My initial entry to the story was the Flint resident approaching me at a conference begging me to come to Flint and cover the water crisis specifically because, as she put it, the media had abandoned them.
She was 100 percent right. Before I go further, I should point out and credit the few media outlets that saw the urgency, and importance, of continuing to report on the water crisis and cover-up: The Guardian, VICE News, The Intercept, Detroit Metro Times, and Breaking Points. Those outlets published several of my investigative reports because I was exposing major details of a sprawling, unprecedented government cover-up that included federal, state, city, and county government—and Wall Street banks. Thankfully, I was able to demonstrate to them that the Flint water crisis was still a major ongoing issue and that there was a major government cover-up that had broader implications than just Flint.
Sadly, they were the exception to a broader sea of prominent mass-audience news outlets—national, state of Michigan, and city of Flint—that simply moved on or had their own motivations for not wanting to dig further. Throughout my reporting trips to Flint, my sadness and anguish at seeing desperate residents grow sicker was worsened by the fact that, aside from maybe two other independent reporters, I was the only damn reporter in America continuing the investigation and reporting on the criminal poisoning of an American city! Even local Michigan and Flint media had stopped actively investigating and covering the water crisis by the time I had arrived on the scene in 2016 (and when they did “investigate,” the final product was a severely watered down version of the truth).
Aside from the inhumanity, injustice, and corruption of it all, I was truly dumbfounded as to where the rest of the media was. Journalistically, this was the story of a lifetime. It had all the ingredients that usually drive journalists: corruption, greed, powerful politicians lying, racism, a David vs. Goliath subplot of desperate residents fighting powerful government officials, and more. Yet whenever I went to Flint in 2016, and in the years that followed, it seemed like I was stuck in some journalistic twilight zone; here I was, covering the poisoning of an American city, the government covering it up and leaving the people to slowly die—while the majority of the media was 24/7 Trump and the neverending crisis and circus around him. It wasn’t that I didn’t think it was important to cover the president (during his first term), but the media can and must walk and chew gum at the same time. The fact that the poisoning of an American city—by the hands of its own government—was covered and investigated for about five minutes is a secondary crisis.
Let’s talk about the real life health consequences. One hundred thousand people were affected in the crisis. Did people die? In what way were people harmed physically?
This is one the most maddening, and poorly understood, aspects of the Flint water crisis. Despite the state of Michigan’s official—and absurd—death total attributed to the water crisis (twelve deaths ascribed to Legionnaires Disease), the reality is it’s unknowable how many people have died as a result of drinking Flint’s toxic water. Flint is currently one of the worst cancer clusters in America—and it doesn’t take a genius to understand why. Lead is a human wrecking ball, destroying so many of your organs and central systems. For children, it does permanent cognitive damage; for adults, it will slowly eat away at your physical and cognitive state.
I’ll never forget 2018—I bring you along in the book, as I knocked on hundreds of doors in Flint as part of my reporting. So many who opened their doors to talk to me told me about large numbers of residents in their neighborhood who had recently died from various types of cancer, kidney failure, liver disease, major heart issues, and many other serious ailments. The most alarming part: these were not folks in their sunset years of life, they were in their thirties, forties, fifties, and early sixties. “They were perfectly healthy before the water” was a common refrain given to me. But unlike something like COVID-19, for which there were rolling death counts on TV news and websites, these deaths aren’t officially attributed to the Flint water crisis—minimizing the full toll and scope of the human loss.
This was made more personal for me in the context of those I lost. Having gone to Flint over twenty times, there were residents who became more than sources to me. They were the people I called up every time I was there to meet and get an update on their health. They were the people who answered my questions when I was digging into political corruption. Then they became the people I went out to get pizza and a beer with, the ones I called on their birthday. Simply put: they became my friends. This made it even tougher when, each time I returned to Flint, they sadly seemed to have aged by a decade—their health issues piling up. Kidney, liver, heart, seizures…the list was endless. And then several of them died at relatively young ages (late fifties, early sixties). Once again, it’s important to note, those I grew close to and lost didn’t have any major health issues before drinking and bathing in a toxic petri dish for several years.
Sources familiar with the Flint water criminal investigation have told me, based on what they know, it’s very likely hundreds of residents died of Legionnaires Disease that they contracted from Flint’s water (but was misdiagnosed as pneumonia). The same sources told me, when you add in the kidney, liver, and cancer deaths—the true death toll is likely in the thousands.
Unfortunately, we’ll never know for sure. My gut: this crisis, and cover-up has killed thousands of people; it’s also stolen an entire generation due to the permanent brain damage children and teens suffered from drinking tainted water over a decade ago. Those people, who were kids when they were poisoned, now struggle in school, flunk out, struggle to find and maintain work, and tragically, there’s been a spike in teen suicides in Flint. If we had a sane, thorough media system in America, this would still be on the front page of newspapers and one of the lead stories on newscasts. Alas, we do not live in that country.
You use the term “economic terrorism” to describe what was being done to the people of Flint over decades. In fact, it’s the title of chapter 6. Can you explain?
At every turn, there had been reasonable, and more cost-effective, water options for Flint than leaving the Detroit water system. However, the actions of Flint’s unelected emergency manager and KWA’s biggest boosters began to expose the layers of a sprawling scam—the decisions being made seemed to be about making money for politicians, private individuals, and even Wall Street mega-banks rather than saving money for the residents of Flint on their water bill.
A brand new water system represented a cash cow for the developers—at the time, what they dubbed the “blue economy”—via all the water local businesses would purchase from KWA. There were also shady land deals, sweetheart deals for construction contractors who then donated to politicians behind the KWA, and more. The full timeline and shocking tentacles of the KWA privatization scam are revealed in my book.
As the politicians behind KWA lobbied the Michigan state treasurer to approve Flint joining the KWA, they assured that Flint would merely be a customer purchasing water.
Then came the bait and switch.
In reality, the politicians behind KWA were lying—they didn’t have enough funding to complete the construction of the nearly $300-million dollar pipeline and needed the city of Flint to help fund pipeline construction. But there was just one tiny problem: Flint was BROKE.
The city had no credit rating and had reached its legal borrowing limit. Legally, the city was barred from borrowing any more money—unless in the event of an emergency. This was a showstopper for the KWA’s money men who, without Flint, would likely have to cancel the project. So then, how could a broke city borrow $100 million dollars to help fund a questionably-necessary new water system?
This is at the heart of the disaster. A scheme to put the city into even more debt at the cost of the people of Flint, who had been stripped of any power to stop it. There was no transparency about the plans, so the residents were left to figure it out on their own. And, that is a huge part of the story: how hard the residents suffered and fought back once they figured out what was apparently going on. As recounted in the book, in alarming and painful detail, there were key water plant officials who tried to stop the reckless wrecking ball that was the Flint River switch, before it happened—but they were shut down by the powers-that-be.
This story goes far beyond the specific actions that were taken to spark this tragic disaster. The book also weaves in the full account of actual Flint residents as they realized they were being poisoned, fought for relief from the same government officials that poisoned them, and were met in response with surveillance, threats, and even violence.
Erin Brockovich helped you with your Flint odyssey and even wrote the introduction to We the Poisoned. How was it to work with such a legend?
Through my reporting in Flint and elsewhere, I was fortunate to connect with Erin. Initially, I had sought advice from someone who I deemed a legend in the environmental and clean water space. After finally making contact with her during my Flint reporting, we began talking more frequently about Flint and other environmental disasters. It was invaluable to be able to pick the brain of someone who challenged and exposed a massive corporate coverup.
It also lifted my game to observe Brockovich’s take-no-prisoners tenacity in person (she really is like that in real life), which has endured in the environmental and water quality field for decades. I always enjoy speaking to her, particularly her vivid recounting of her history of going up against corporations, politicians, and the rest of the usual suspects. To say I was honored and grateful that she agreed to write the foreword of We the Poisoned would be an understatement.
In a story of greed and corruption, there’s nothing sexier than bags of cash changing hands as bribes. As far as you know, did it ever happen in the Flint water crisis?
The greed underpinning the water crisis wasn’t as obvious as the infamous smoke-filled, back-room political deals in the days of Tammany Hall—but I’d say it was even darker. As laid out in the book, some of the most powerful officials in the state government preyed on—and paid off—the sickest Flint residents in exchange for their silence; you get to read their stories. Then there were the engineering companies who donated hundreds of thousands to the CEO of the KWA, which in return, received fat pipeline construction contracts. Add in Wall Street mega banks JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo reaping hundreds of millions of dollars by helping engineer the fraudulent KWA bond deal—and the Flint water crisis stands as a caravan of dirty cash rather than a few bags exchanging hands.
Give us a sense of the cover up that was revealed by your investigations?
When many Americans think of the quintessential government cover-up, their minds immediately jump to Watergate. I’m here to tell you, Watergate was child’s play compared to Flint (and no one died from Nixon and his goons’ political crimes).
As I reported on-the-ground in Flint, and spoke with residents, activists, the small handful of honest politicians, and eventually sources familiar with the criminal investigation, a sinister plot came into focus that even the best Hollywood filmmaker couldn’t conjure up. I uncovered one brazenly corrupt bombshell after another: the governor’s “fixer” offering payoffs to sick residents who threatened the “official” government line; top officials destroying potential evidence and tampering with witnesses to force them to lie under oath; the Snyder Administration manipulating water lead data to falsely declare Flint’s water was safe; top officials scrambling via phone to cover-up the deadly outbreak of Legionnaires Disease in Flint, and more. Based on my reporting, the cover-up’s tentacles spread from every level of government—federal (EPA), state of Michigan, city of Flint, county of Genesee—all the way to powerful private foundations and Wall Street banks.
Some of my reporting exposing the cover-up led to criminal charges being filed against top officials in the Snyder Administration (charges that were infuriatingly later dropped due to extremely suspect decisions made by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel). In my view, any one of these corrupt elements would be a major scandal on their own. When you group them together, however, and consider the deadly results, I firmly believe this book reveals the biggest and most sinister government cover-up of the 21st century.
In June of 2022, Michigan’s Supreme Court dismissed indictments against nine defendants that were issued in 2021 by Genesee County Circuit Judge David J. Newblatt, serving as a one-person grand jury. As often happens in these matters, the criminal cases were thrown out on procedural grounds rather than facts. What about all that evidence? Is it sealed? Might that change allowing the public to see all the evidence against Snyder and the other defendants?
Great question! This one actually enters territory of my post-book reporting, and based on my reporting and interactions with her department, what I believe is Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s participation in the ongoing cover-up. Yes, much of the most pertinent evidence is under criminal seal—in large part because of AG Nessel.
After the Michigan State Supreme Court tossed all of the Nessel office’s criminal charges due to those procedural errors, the investigation was effectively over. Done. Up until then, the AG’s office had denied yours truly’s Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] requests for critically important documents from the criminal investigation—citing the “ongoing” investigation. Those specific documents, I have on good authority, would have exposed explosive new information about the financial scheme that caused the crisis. A top source told me: those documents “are the ball game.” I was told in no uncertain terms: get those documents, and I would completely blow the lid off the whole scandal and expose what very powerful figures wanted to keep buried. Therefore, with the investigation over, I re-submitted my FOIA requests. Without getting too in the weeds, first the AG’s office told me they didn’t possess the documents I sought (a lie), then after I delivered a public lawsuit threat, they came to me vowing they would look again (unusual for a FOIA), and then—voilà—they magically found the documents in question.
But they then, based on dubious legal grounds, told me they wouldn’t release the information to me after all.
Bottomline: the Michigan AG’s office is withholding documents, and information, that the residents of Flint and broader public have a right to know regarding who, and what entities, were responsible for poisoning them. If those documents do not see the light of day (I sure hope they will), we will never have the full picture of all the players responsible for one of the worst government-made public health disasters in American history.
Eleven years later, what is the current state of Flint’s water? Is it safe now?
Unfortunately, over a decade into reporting on Flint and other disasters, I’ve learned you can’t take what the EPA and state agencies tell you on faith (or even at face value). In the case of Flint, the same Michigan environmental and health agencies declaring Flint’s water safe today were involved in covering up its toxicity a decade ago. Time after time—in disasters ranging from water, air, soil, lead, bacteria, chemicals, and more—government agencies have presented a “nothing to see here” message when, on the ground talking to sick Americans, it was clear to me there was plenty to see.
Sadly, most journalists and media outlets simply regurgitate what they are fed by these government agencies (in the case of Flint, reporting that the water is meeting all environmental regulations). But all you have to do is talk directly to the residents living there to know that is not true.
Just last year, while in Flint as part of my book tour, residents showed me fresh rashes across their skin from the city’s water—a decade after the initial water switch. Residents still post on social media videos of their water coming out brown and discolored. Others talk of a foul smell when they turn on the tap.
To me, it all makes perfect sense; over a decade later—and contrary to spin by the state of Michigan and EPA—they have barely put a dent into replacing all the city infrastructure severely damaged and corroded by the equivalent of acid (Flint River water) running through the water distribution pipes for several years. Despite declarations that they have fully replaced the damaged lead service lines (which run from residents’ curbs into their homes), sources in Flint tell me there are still a large number of homes whose service lines haven’t been replaced. Worse than that, the state and city never touched damaged pipes inside residents’ homes—nor the main pipes running underneath the streets.
You don’t need to be an engineer or chemist to understand: if the water today is still traveling through pipes that were battered and corroded by toxic water, there will still be cases of lead and other contaminants leaching into the water. I trust what residents tell me—and what I’ve seen on-the-ground with my own eyes as recently as a year ago—far more than what the EPA or state of Michigan tell me. Until they replace all of the water infrastructure—service lines, main street pipes, and interior home pipes—there is no way to declare the water in Flint safe. And if you want to break it down to its most basic commonsense form: if the water in Flint was truly safe, why would the mayor still urge residents to use water filters?
It’s important to note: the book might be about the city of Flint and the cover-up there, but I’ve found similar patterns in other cities across America. From the Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical detonation in East Palestine, Ohio; to a lead crisis in East Chicago, Indiana; to a lithium battery factory fire contaminating vegetable and fruit farms in Central California—in so many cities and towns that have suffered from government and/or corporate-born disasters, the EPA and state agencies quickly declared everything fine and assured the public there was no threat to their health, water, air, soil, or animals. But the residents’ own bodies and deteriorating health debunked the government’s lies. This is why it is vital for investigative reporters to stay on these stories after they initially break and to rely on what you’re seeing and hearing on-the-ground far more than the government agencies who are motivated to minimize the damage.
Your work was exhausting, exasperating, and down right infuriating, no doubt. Who do you most hope reads We the Poisoned? What, if any, changes—legal, political, social, media, journalism—would you like to see the book inspire?
Of course, being that Flint is a cautionary tale for all Americans—one that can happen in any of our communities at any time—I’d like as many people and different audiences to read the book as possible. With that said, if only one thing can be accomplished from the publishing of this book, my hope would be that as many residents in Flint could read it so that they can be armed with the truth of who poisoned them and, perhaps most importantly, why. One of the most frustrating parts of my near-decade of reporting there was seeing and learning how few of the residents of Flint truly knew the full details, including the financial scam, of the disaster that permanently altered their lives. As I’ve stated above, this is a sad reflection on the current state of our media (particularly local media).
In this crazy digital and social media age, where we are all suffering from information overload, I still believe in word of mouth. The more Flint residents are able to read the book, and obtain the details of what was done to them, the further they can spread it to their neighbors and community. My hope is this would build and eventually activate residents to demand the justice and financial reparations they’ve thus far been deprived of.
Those people in Flint have fueled me to stay on this story to expose the truth and help deliver whatever justice is possible. This book was for them—and anyone in any place who may feel that no one gives a damn about what their community is going through. It’s important to support true journalism. The current media structure in the US doesn’t focus on journalism, it’s become an infotainment medium that treats politics like a sporting event. We need to demand more actual journalism filled with muckrakers seeking to be disliked by the powerful rather than maintain their access to them. And, journalists are, by nature, writers. It starts with reading and writing and critical thinking—like you are all doing now. It’s important to encourage your children and grandchildren—maybe even yourself— to question the official narrative, to read alternative and independent sources beyond the mainstream, and maybe even become journalists.
At the end of the book, you write: “But the Flint water crisis is about a lot more than a disastrous legal mess. A decade after the poisoning of Flint began, and eight years after I first stepped foot in the city, I believe this story is really about the meaning of one word. Crisis.” Can you expand on that, please?
In today’s America—with its political tribalism and neverending volume of natural disasters, climate catastrophes, mass shootings, public health emergencies, and more—it is really hard to remember the crisis of last week, much less a decade ago. Every day, we all become a little more numb to the calamity swirling all around us. We also become numb to words and terms—like the Flint water crisis. You hear and see it so often that it loses its true meaning and urgency, leaving folks to forget that the situation is still an ongoing crisis. Perhaps not as dire as a decade ago, but still very much a crisis (the reasons why I outline toward the end of the book). I think it is important for journalists not to normalize American cities being poisoned, the government then covering it up, and leaving the residents to slowly die. Moreover, it’s on journalists to make sure Americans know when a crisis, like in Flint, is truly over versus when the government is trying to sweep things under the rug and move on.
That’s why we have to make sure we don’t let our fellow Americans become numb when a crisis is still very much a crisis.
In your epilogue, you write, “I firmly believe the nightmare the people of Flint have been living through can happen to any of us.” Is that the world we live in now?
Sadly, this is the country we are living in—it’s just that most Americans don’t know it yet. Communities all across America have water contamination and other environmental issues that elected representatives are keeping residents in the dark about (only to feign ignorance and point the finger elsewhere when disaster strikes).
Not to get too deep, but based on my reporting, disasters—whether environmental, public health, or a combination—can strike any working class or working poor community. I intentionally specify those communities because, let’s face it, the Flint-level disasters are not happening in Beverly Hills or Park Avenue in Manhattan. They are mostly happening in poorer and middle class Black, brown, and white communities—whose residents are too low on the class totem-pole to buy off their politicians (or to rise that high on their priority list).
The disconcerting reality is: our families and lives can be permanently destroyed at any time as a result of reckless and criminal decisions made by the people we elect to represent us. That fact has only become more crystallized by the Flint water crisis and dozens of other environmental disasters and government cover-ups I’ve covered.
I spent some time at the City of Flint official website and got a sense that the new mayor, Sheldon Neeley, is doing his utmost to keep fighting for Flint’s water-crisis recovery? How do you feel about Mayor Neeley?
Based on my reporting, Mayor Neeley, like many Flint politicians, is not making decisions based on the best interest or public health of Flint residents. He has also minimized and toed the government line that Flint’s water is now “safe”—and the current issue is not the water, but rebuilding “trust” between state and city government and the residents of Flint. I lay out some of Neeley’s questionable comments—and ethics—in the book. Given my interactions with him, it’s a case of, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
What’s next for you and your talented pen?
With a newborn and toddler in tow, hopefully some sleep! But more seriously, professionally, I am not done with Flint or future reporting trips there. People become numb to the crisis when they stop hearing about it, so I see it as my job to keep Flint in the public consciousness.
As I’ve often told folks, this cover-up is so deep, with so many layers, it could keep a journalist busy digging for the rest of their career. Although I have nothing to currently announce, I have had recent discussions with a high-profile filmmaker about trying to turn the book into a Hollywood film. We’re a long way from this happening, but it was encouraging when someone expressed interest. In American culture, a major movie can thrust the Flint water crisis back to the forefront.
Beyond Flint, I am also growing my independent news outlet Status Coup News. We’re closing in on 500,000 subscribers on YouTube and growing our audience and small-dollar paid membership based on covering and staying on stories like Flint. As Status Coup grows, I hope to be able to do deeper-dive reports, and potentially documentaries, on the exploding number of water crises spreading across the country, and the growing crisis of privatization and gentrification running amok resulting in America’s new economic Gilded Age.
And on the book end, I have interest in perhaps doing a We the Poisoned sequel about another community poisoned by their government only for it to then be swept under the rug. Lord knows there’s a growing list of contenders.
Matt Sutherland
