Water Problems in the City of Flint, Michigan

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today just to take a few
minutes to call attention to a problem that I have been trying to raise
in this body and in my work before I came to Congress for some time,
specifically, to describe the conditions in my own hometown of Flint,
Michigan.

The subject that I am addressing is the unique and really difficult
challenges facing America's older industrial cities, cities like my
hometown of Flint, Michigan, a city that is the birthplace of General
Motors. It is where the first UAW contract was created, was signed. But
it is a city that has really struggled as it has made this transition
from the old to the new economy.

It is a city that had 200,000 people just a couple of decades ago and
now hovers right around 100,000 citizens, a poorer city than it once
was, a city that has lost 90 percent of its manufacturing jobs.

I raise this because I believe that this Congress and the Federal
Government have an obligation to reinvest in these communities,
communities that helped build this country and that can have a
significant effect on our future. These are the cities where innovation
took place and where it can take place again.

But my own hometown right now is struggling, struggling with a
problem, unfortunately, that is not entirely of its own making. My home
of Flint, a city that was once really the center of the auto
manufacturing universe, can't even guarantee to its citizens one of the
most essential functions of government. It can't guarantee to citizens
that it can deliver clean, drinkable water to their households.

We have elevated lead levels in the city of Flint in their water
system. It has been known for some time, for about a year that there
have been significant problems with water quality in Flint. And despite
protests, really, at the State and Federal levels, public officials
saying that there is no problem with the water, that it is completely
safe to drink--in fact, one State official told city of Flint residents
that they just needed to simply relax.

It has been revealed recently through independent studies, now
confirmed by the State government, that we have lead levels far in
excess of what is allowed under the Federal lead and copper rules. This
is completely unacceptable.

In fact, what makes this even more troubling is that this is a tragic
set of circumstances that has public health implications for the
citizens of my community that were completely avoidable, that are the
result of decisions that were made by the State of Michigan when it
took over control of this fiscally stressed city.

This is a city that is struggling in a lot of different ways. Twice
in the last decade, it has been under the control of a receiver, of a
State-appointed emergency manager that takes away the authority of
local government officials to make decisions for themselves, takes away
the authority of the Flint citizens to elect their own representatives
to govern themselves, and places authority to control the city in the
hands of a single master, an emergency manager.

Well, it was during the period of time that one of those emergency
managers was in control that the State decided for the city of Flint
that, for a temporary period of time, simply to save money, it would
begin to draw water, rather than from the city of Detroit water system,
which had a water source from Lake Huron, but it would begin to draw
water from the Flint River, a small river that passes through our
hometown, a river that is the namesake of our own community.

The sad thing is--and this tells you a little bit about how some
folks in different levels of government at the Federal and State level
think about these older cities. There was no robust review, no testing,
no examination as to whether or not this river water would result in
clean water being delivered to homes, drinkable water delivered to
citizens. As a result, this water drawn from the Flint River is
substantially more corrosive and has led to lead leaching from the
pipes in the delivery system into the drinking water in Flint homes.

In fact, there was a study that was just done in the last day or two
that shows that in Flint school district buildings, water being
delivered to Flint schoolchildren has lead levels far above the
actionable level under the EPA lead and copper rule.

Think about this. In the 21st century in the United States of
America, we have a city, a great, old city that was a part of the
industrial revolution, that can't even deliver clean and safe drinking
water to its citizens, not only because of our failure to invest in
infrastructure in this country, which is a big part of the problem, but
largely because officials at the State government simply decided, well,
that Flint River water, that will be good enough. There was no real
scientific research that determined whether or not that water would be
safe--``it will be fine.'' And even when evidence was presented
indicating that that water might be unsafe, Flint citizens were told by
the State government to just relax; don't worry about it.

Well, that is a complete failure of government. It is a failure of
government, frankly, at the Federal level because, for almost a year
now, I have been asking the EPA to intervene; to, first of all, help
this old city of Flint rebuild itself and rebuild its water system by
providing some relief through the clean drinking water revolving loan
fund, some degree of loan forgiveness, which is allowable under Federal
law; but in this case, a technicality has prevented the EPA from
allowing the State of Michigan to grant that kind of relief. That could
make a huge difference for the city and its ability to rebuild its own
infrastructure. But so far, all we get from the EPA is ``no,'' and we
asked for technical assistance from the EPA.

Now, recently we have had more attention; but, frankly, it is not
enough. I mean, where is the urgency?

If the role of the U.S. EPA is to ensure adherence to this rule, this
law that requires clean and safe drinking water to be available to its
citizens, they ought to do more than sit back and offer opinion. They
need to be engaged. So I call on the EPA to take a much more focused
role in making sure that the citizens of Flint have clean drinking
water.

I mentioned that this was not an accident. This decision to use this
questionable water source was done when the city was under financial
receivership, when an appointed emergency manager was making the
decisions for the city of Flint. So here we had a situation where this
emergency manager, this outside new management is appointed to come in
and deal with the issue of fiscal insolvency and, by only looking at
the short-term balance sheet, made a decision to get cheaper water that
turned out to be dangerous for the residents of the city and, actually,
potentially has handed the city a huge cost to fix what could be
hundreds of millions of dollars of permanent damage to the water system
as a result of that decision.

So an emergency manager comes in with the idea that somehow outside
management is the only problem that this city faces, makes decisions
that not only ruin the reputation of the city but also cause
significant health risks,and then hands the city a bill, potentially to the tune of hundreds of
millions of dollars, and at the same time, over the last decade, has
continued to cut direct support to that very city. I mean, this just
doesn't make sense.

The citizens of the city are not responsible for the fact that its
infrastructure has been allowed to deteriorate. They are not
responsible for the fact that at the Federal level and at the State
level we have not supported redevelopment in these places. In fact,
through transportation policy, housing policy, tax policy, land use
policy at the Federal and State levels, we have actually,
unfortunately, contributed to the hollowing out of these older cities,
and now the citizens of this place have to pay the price.

The failure to reinvest in these older cities is not without victims;
and right now, it is the people of the city of Flint that are the
victims of a failure at the Federal, frankly, and at the State level.
It is something that just cannot be tolerated.

So when we think about this question, when we think about this
particular case of the city, my hometown of Flint, and the fact that
these decisions have been made for them by people at the State capital,
they are paying the price. And almost inexplicably, even though today
in a complete reversal, an admission of failure by the State, the State
has come in and said now they are going to help facilitate the
reconnection temporarily to the Detroit water system until a permanent
Lake Huron line can be established. Inexplicably, there they are
actually asking the city government to empty out its remaining
resources, financial resources, and put millions of dollars up to help
contribute to pay for fixing a problem that the State government is
actually responsible for making. The State broke the system, and now,
yet again, it is the city residents who are being asked to contribute
to pay for a problem that they did not create in the first place.

Sadly, while this may seem like an extreme case, it is a pretty
consistent tale all across this country, but especially in the
Northeast and Midwestern United States. But in the South and West as
well, there are older cities that have, in the past, contributed
greatly to economic growth in this country and have been allowed--in
some ways, encouraged--to wither, to be hollowed out, and we can't let
this continue.

So here when we see before our very eyes 30, 40, 50 American cities--
as I said, including my own hometown--continue to fall farther and
farther behind, have their infrastructure continue to deteriorate, what
do we spend our time talking about here in the United States Congress?
Petty fights between Democrats and Republicans and, frankly, more
recently, petty fights between Republicans and other Republicans.

We haven't even touched the idea of a big infrastructure bill that
could help places not just like my hometown of Flint, but other places
across the Midwest and across the country that could be much more
productive if we simply had 21st century infrastructure, a water system
that can deliver clean water to its residents.

There is no excuse. There is no excuse at the Federal level for us
not providing the kind of help that would make a place like Flint a far
more productive place with decent roads, good schools, and a water
system that delivers clean water. I mean, that seems pretty
fundamental, and it is. Without that, these older communities, these
older cities have no chance of connecting to the new economy, no chance
of contributing the way they are capable of to the next economy of this
country. It is shameless that we haven't seen the urgency that I think
is required in order to deal with this enormous problem.

There are victims of this failure. There are victims, individuals who
have been really left behind because of the failure at the Federal and
at the State level.

So, Mr. Speaker, I know I have taken a few moments. I don't need to
take the full half hour that has been allotted to me because we will
continue this discussion. We will continue this conversation.

I just want to make sure that the folks who are listening, the people
in this body, people across the country understand that unless we take
time, unless we make the effort in this body to address the problems of
these older cities, we will not have done our job. It is important that
the American people know that this Congress is willing to stand up for
them and stand up for America's cities.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source