The actions of a small group of dedicated activists in the Coalition for Clean Water led to the revelation that Flint, Michigan, residents were being poisoned by lead-contaminated water. The activists had been living with the yellow, brown, and red water flowing from their taps even as government officials denied it and the same poisoned water flowed from the taps at government buildings.
The activists, whose different organizations came together to form the coalition, organized, strategized, did water research and testing to expose the government’s lies. Coalition activists included Flint residents Rev. Alfred Harris of the Concerned Pastors for Social Action; Melissa Mays, a mother of three who co-founded the group Water You Fighting For; and Trachelle Young, a former Flint city attorney.
“After the switch to Flint River water, members of my congregation experienced dirty water, hair loss, and rashes,” says Harris, pastor of Flint’s Saints of God Church. “As a concerned pastor, I contacted city and state officials. I was told the water was OK according to these [federal] guidelines. But it was irrefutably true that the water was having an adverse affect on the people of Flint.”
That truth kept the members of the coalition fighting for justice. Now the whole world knows that lead-contaminated water poisoned people in the community of 100,000 where more than 60 percent are minorities and 40 percent live below the poverty level.
It started April 25, 2014, when the city switched from Lake Huron water treated by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to Flint River water treated at the Flint water treatment plant as a cost-saving measure. However, the Flint treatment plant did not add an anticorrosion chemical that would have kept the pipes from leaching lead into the water.