In January 2016, you couldn’t turn on the news without hearing about the people of Flint, Michigan, and their fight for clean drinking water. The nearly 200-year-old city was made famous for being the birthplace of General Motors, but, in more recent years, had faced a budget crisis that left city officials doing what all Americans do – looking for ways to save money and stay in the black. Unfortunately, that included self-sourcing water for the city, which had always purchased water from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. That change from Detroit’s services pulled from Lake Huron to their own self-sufficient services pulled from the Flint River was a deadly and costly choice that saw approximately 10,000 children exposed to toxic levels of lead, a spike in Legionnaires’ disease, and a $641 Million settlement with the people of Flint.
Poisoned Water is journalist Candy J Cooper’s investigation into the causes of the water and health crisis, and documentation of the struggles the families of Flint, Michigan, still face. If you thought you knew what caused the Flint water crisis based on cursory stories on your local news channel, think again. Cooper’s investigative journalism uncovers the corruption and egotistical decisions to cut the federal authorities out of the investigation to allow anonymity to the local governments. Cooper reveals the underlying bias against the socioeconomic area affected most by the crisis and links it back to why officials denied any trouble with the water system there. This is a book about the greed and inability of government officials to own their mistakes and take correct action, but also about the strength and determination of the innocent families who will remain affected by those mistakes for the rest of their lives.
I give Poisoned Water 4 out of 5 stars. I was in awe at the callousness of the government officials as Cooper portrayed and how determined the families were…until they weren’t. I appreciate the investigative journalistic style used to document the story, but it does come off feeling a bit more like a textbook than a documentary pulling you in at times. Cooper is great at helping the reader put themselves in the shoes of the people she’s writing about on both sides of the crisis. This is a great preservation of first-hand accounts of the crisis and will be a valuable resource for years to come.
I would recommend this book to all government officials and water system managers. The sometimes small, sometimes large mistakes made throughout the crisis serve as a testament to how important those jobs are for the public health. I would also recommend this book to readers who enjoyed the “Erin Brockovich” movie – her name comes up at least once in the pages of this book, but the work to uncover the masking of the crisis by government officials felt reminiscent of those events. I would also recommend this book for readers looking to enter the public health or medical fields – it is a tribute to the work to uncover the reason for the illnesses, treat them, and seek a resolution to the cause.
I chose Poisoned Water for theUS States reading challenge prompt “Michigan”. I live within a mile of Georgia’s Flint River and this crisis caught my attention when it first hit news because of the similar names. While not the same river, our area has its own water pollution crises periodically with chemicals and waste released into the Chattahoochee River. While not to the extent of the Flint, Michigan, crisis, it does put things in perspective after reading this book. I also wanted to read this book because of how close Flint is to Detroit and the link to the manufacturing industry there – as described in this book, it can be easy to discount trouble in neighboring cities when there is such a “benefit” to the public nearby. If you are interested in the socioeconomic divide and discrimination, you will enjoy this book!
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What I’m Reading
- Current print book: Legends of the Fall, Jim Harrison
- Current audio book: Biloxi, Mary Miller
- Book I’m most looking forward to: Call Upon the Water, Stella Tillyard
Read With Lindsey 