The ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan has raised troubling concerns about how public officials oversee and manage drinking water systems. Accusations of corruption, negligence, dereliction of duty, and dishonesty have been leveled at federal, state, and city officials charged with protecting Flint’s drinking water. The concerns about the oversight and response of these officials are well-grounded, but I think there are other aspects of the Flint crisis that are not receiving enough attention.
If the Flint system was complying with the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), it is difficult to imagine how system managers were not aware of an exceedance of the lead action level within a few months of switching to the Flint River as a water source. There are other SDWA requirements that should have provided additional sources of information and warning. The system should have conducted an initial distribution system evaluation (IDSA). The IDSA combined with compliance with source water monitoring and assessment requirements should have raised alarms about the possibility of a reaction between lead present in the infrastructure and elevated chloride levels in the Flint River. The only way I can see for officials to be unaware of the elevated lead levels would be if they were not complying with the SDWA and its regulations. One lesson we can take from the Flint crisis is the importance of better integrating the IDSA with source water assessment and monitoring. But conducting and updating an IDSA, complying with the LCR, source water assessment, protection, and monitoring requirements, and regular sanitary surveys is very expensive, especially for relatively small systems struggling to recover costs for treatment and distribution because their customers are in difficult or desperate economic circumstances and are thus struggling to pay water bills. The connection between compliance costs and cost recovery is an under-appreciated aspect of Flint.
It’s an oversimplification to say, “The crisis in Flint occurred because we had bozos and slimeballs in charge.” Even if that is true, there are more lessons to be learned than just a “No Bozos or Slimeballs” hiring policy. Public demands for greater regulation of pharmaceuticals in drinking water could place even more costly monitoring and treatment requirements on systems. In the wake of September 11, systems bear greater security costs. And yet we see protests of water cutoffs for non-payment and opposition to increases in water rates, often in the name of a human right to water. Opposition to water payments occur at the same time federal agencies and state legislatures cut back on funding things like the Monitoring Assistance Program (MAP), which provides funds for small systems to help them comply with SDWA requirements. When systems struggle to recover their costs for treatment and distribution, and can’t get help in mitigating increasing compliance costs, they are often forced into making difficult and potentially dangerous decisions to save money, like the switch to the Flint River as a water source. Adam Smith wrote about the Water/Diamond Paradox, noting that we will pay a lot of money for a shiny rock with little use, but believe the most useful thing on earth should be cheap or free. Free or cheap water sounds like a great idea, but its an idea that can contribute to economically and ecologically unsustainable water management. We need to weigh more carefully the benefits of more stringent drinking water regulation against the reality that such regulations have costs, and if those regulations are met but their costs aren’t recovered, then something else in the system is going to get shortchanged. This can happen even in a system with no bozos or slimeballs.
The other issue surrounding Flint that has received less attention is the outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease, which has resulted in several deaths. While the oversight and response of officials with respect to the lead levels is troubling, the source and reason for the lead contamination is not difficult to understand. The Legionnaires’ Disease outbreak is more difficult to explain. But here’s my guess about what might have happened. Elevated chloride levels in the Flint River may have resulted in high disinfectant byproduct (DBP) levels. The DBPs are typically the product of a reaction between disinfectants (like chlorine) and organic material in the source water. DBPs, like trihalomethanes, are carcinogenic at high concentrations. Elevated chloride levels combined with elevated organics in the Flint River may have resulted in an exceedance of the DBP standard under the SDWA. Officials, in response to that DBP exceedance, may have dropped the amount of disinfectant they were adding to the system, resulting in inadequate treatment of bacteria, like the kind that results in Legionnaires’ Disease. This raises a couple of issues. The first and most obvious is why is the Flint River so polluted with chloride and organics, and how that pollution can be better addressed. The Flint crisis is not just an SDWA problem, it is also a Clean Water Act problem.
The second issue relates to a paper I just finished. Water law incorporates three “agendas,” or set of priorities. I call these the Blue, Green, and Red Agendas. The Blue Agenda deals with water supply and water rights allocations. The Green Agenda deals with chemical water quality and water pollution. The Red Agenda deals with water-borne or water-based pathogens or disease vectors. Often, these agendas are pursued effectively and simultaneously, in ways that are mutually reinforcing. But sometimes, one or two agendas are pursued at the expense of others. Flint is such an example. The Blue Agenda is exemplified by seeking a closer and cheaper water supply, the Flint River. This was done at the expense of the Green Agenda, because it ignored the potential for lead contamination. But if the disinfectant level was dropped to avoid a DBP exceedance, then it is possible that the Green Agenda was pursued at the expense of the Red. In my experience, the Red Agenda is often the set of priorities sacrificed first in implementing water policy. I think the zika virus outbreak is the result, in part, of pursuing the Blue Agenda to address Brazil’s drought by expanding reservoirs, but in doing so, Brazil expanding the breeding habitat for mosquitoes. Flint and zika are both examples of the need to better integrate the Red Agenda into water management and water policy.
Posted by Rhett Larson on March 15, 2016 at 03:19 PM
Comments
Actually, with regards to the zika outbreak in Brazil, the mosquito prefers the human ecosystem with lots of still, warm, standing water; not reservoirs. Go back to the turn of the 20th century and the battle against yellow fever. The same techniques will be used to fight zika.
Otherwise, great article.
Posted by: Paul | Mar 15, 2016 3:28:55 PM