The Poisoned City, page 37
suburbs and
water rates and
General Motors Institute. See Kettering University
Genesee County
blood-lead levels in
Flint direct line sold to
KWA ACO and
state of emergency and
Genesee County Board of Supervisors
Genesee County Health Department
Genesee County Hispanic/Latino Collaborative
Genesee County Sheriff’s Department
Gibbs, Lois
GI Bill
Glasgow, Michael
Goya, Francisco
Grand Rapids
Grand Traverse
Great Britain
Great Lakes
Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA). See also Detroit Water and Sewerage District
Great Migration
Great Recession (2008–9)
Great Society
Guyette, Curt
Habitat for Humanity
Hammer, Peter
Hamtramck, Michigan
Hanna-Attisha, Mona
Hard to Swallow (documentary)
hard water, defined
Harris, Alfred
Harrison, New Jersey
Hartford, Connecticut
Hazard, Bethany
hazardous (toxic) waste sites
Head Start
Hedman, Susan
Henry, Jim
Here’s to Flint (documentary)
Hiawatha (Longfellow)
Highland Park, Michigan
“High Lead Levels in Flint, Michigan” (Del Toral)
Highsmith, Andrew R.
Hispanic population
Hollins, Harvey
Homer
Hooker Chemical Company
Housing and Urban Development, Department of (HUD)
housing discrimination
Humes, Cardine
Humphrey, Hubert
Hurley Medical Center
Hussein, Saddam
Hyde Park (Boston)
Imagine Flint master plan
Indianapolis
Indian reservations
industrial pollution. See also hazardous waste sites
industrial dispersion policy
Industrial Revolution
inequality, systemic
infrastructure
cost of rebuilding
preemptive improvement of
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
involuntary manslaughter
iron
Jackson, Bobby
Jackson, Derrick Z.
Jane Fonda’s Workout Book
Jefferson, Lathan
Jersey City school district
jobs
John Birch Society
Johnson, Lyndon B.
Joy Tabernacle Church
Justice Department
#JusticeForFlint benefit
Kalamazoo, Michigan
Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA)
bond debt and ACO
contract and cost of return to DWSD
GM and
Katrina, Hurricane
Kehoe, Robert
Kennedy, John F.
Kennedy, Robert
Kerner, Otto
Kerner Commission (National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders)
Kerner Report
Kettering, Charles “Ket”
Kettering, Ohio
Kettering University
Kildee, Dan
King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Kolb, Chris
Korean War
Ku Klux Klan
Kurtz, Ed
Lake Erie
Lake Huron
Lake Michigan
Lake Ontario
Lake Superior
Lambrinidou, Yanna
Lansing, Michigan
pipe replacement program
Lansing Board of Water and Light (BWL)
Lapeer County
Lapeer Road ice rink
lead
alchemy and
CDC minimizes harm of
Del Toral report and
failure to warn about
Flint Water Study and
MDEQ and
regulation of
toxicity of
UM-Flint and
uses and ubiquity of
Walters home and
Washington, D.C., crisis
Lead and Copper Rule (LCR)
Lead Industries Association (LIA)
lead-sampling kits
Lead Wars (Markowitz and Rosner)
League of Nations
Lear Corp.
Lee, Kendrick
Lee, Sonya
Legionnaires’ disease
Levittown, New York
Levy, Kate
Lewis, Yvonne
Lichtenstein, Roy
Lincoln Institute for Land Policy
Lindsay, John
Living by the Word (Walker)
local control
Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam (LAN)
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Lorax, The (Seuss)
Lorde, Audre
Los Angeles
Love, William T.
Love Canal
Love Canal (Gibbs)
Lyon, Nick
MacArthur grant
Maddow, Rachel
Maddox, Lester
Madison, Wisconsin
Maier, Henry
Markowitz, Gerald
Masonic Temple
Massachusetts State Board of Health
Matisse, Henri
Mattapan neighborhood
Maynard, Corodon
Mays, Eric
Mays, Melissa
McCathern, R. Sherman
McClinton, Claire
McCormick, Sue
McCree, Floyd
McCree, Melvin
McElmurry, Shawn
McLaren hospital
Medicaid
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Memphis massacre of 1866
Metro Times
Michelangelo
Michigan attorney general’s office
special prosecutor on water crisis and
Michigan Citizen
Michigan Civil Rights Commission
Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ)
ACO and
corrosion control and
criminal charges vs.
Del Toral and
emails and
Flint Water Study and
Hanna-Attisha and
Legionnaires’ disease and
media and
test results revised by
TTHMs and
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS)
criminal charges vs.
Michigan Environmental Council
Michigan.gov
Michigan Governor’s Office
Flint Water Study and
Legionnaires’ disease and
Task Force on Flint Water Crisis
Michigan National Guard
Michigan Press Association
Michigan Radio
Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act
Michigan School for the Deaf
Michigan state government
Flint offices, bottled water in
Flint settlement and
Michigan State Legislature
Michigan State Police
Michigan State University
College of Human Medicine (Flint)
Michigan Supreme Court
Michigan Territory
Milwaukee
miner’s disease
Minneapolis
Mishipeshu (Ojibwa mythical figure)
Mission of Hope shelter
Modern Housing Corporation
Monae, Janelle
Monahan, Tim
Moore, Michael
Mott, Charles Stewart
Mott, Ruth
Mott Community College
Mott Park neighborhood
Mount Clemens, Michigan
MSNBC (cable channel)
Muchmore, Dennis
multifamily housing bans
Multiple Listing Exchange
Muncie, Indiana
Muskegon, Michigan
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
National Association of Real Estate Boards
National Conference of Catholic Bishops
National Geographic
National Lead Company
National Parks Service
National Priorities List
National Science Foundation
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
NBC, Flint local affiliate
Needleman, Herb
Neeley, Sheldon
Newark, New Jersey
New Deal
New Flint plan
New Flint Resistance Committee
New Jersey
Newman, Richard S.
New Orleans
Newsweek
Newton, Isaac
New York City
lead and
Legionnaires’ disease and
New York State
New York Times
Niagara Falls
Niagara Gazette
Nixon, Richard
Nolden, Bryant “BB”
Nolden, Willie, Jr.
North Carolina
“Not Safe to Drink” (radio documentary)
Obama, Barack
Office of Environmental Justice (EPA)
Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (EPA)
O’Hara, Frank
Ohio State University
Ojibwa
Ontario
Ontario Hockey League
open records laws
Orr, Kevyn
orthophosphates. See also corrosion control
paint, lead
Paracelsus
Parker, Joyce
Paterson, New Jersey
Patterson, Clair
Pennsylvania
pensions
Philadelphia
Legionnaires’ disease and
Philip, Prince, of England
Phoenix
phosphates
Pictured Rocks
pipes, lead. See also service lines; water mains
corrosion control and
switchback and
pipes, lead-free, defined
Pittsburgh
Pliny the Elder
plumbing
plumbism
pneumonia
polio
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
Pontiac, City of
population loss
Portland, Oregon
Poy, Tom
pre-flushing
property codes
property taxes
property values
Providence, Rhode Island
Prysby, Mike
Public Act 4 (Michigan, 2011)
Public Act 436 (Michigan, 2012)
public health
“Public Health Tragedy, A” (congressional report of 2010)
public water systems
Pulido, Laura
Rabin, Richard
Rachel Maddow Show (TV show)
racial segregation
Raise It Up! Youth Poets
Ramazzini, Bernardino
redevelopment projects
redlining
regional cooperation
regional inequality
Relief Fund for Flint
Republican Party
restaurants
restrictive covenants
retirement board
Reveal (podcast)
revenue sharing
reverse osmosis
Revolutionary War
Rhoads, William
Rhode Island
River Rouge
Romney, George
Roosevelt, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Roselle Register
Rosenthal, Adam
Rosner, David
Rostand, Jean
Roy, Siddhartha
Rustin, Bayard
Ruth Mott Foundation
Safe Drinking Water Act (1974)
amendment of 1986
Saginaw Aquifer
Saginaw Bay
Saginaw, Michigan
Saints of God Church
Sanders, Bernie
San Francisco
schools
boil-water advisories and
desegregation and
drinking water and
emergency managers and
housing segregation and
screening programs and
toxic dumps and
Schroeck, Nick
Schuette, Bill
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Seattle
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Selig, Suzanne
separate-but-equal
Serkaian, Steve
service lines
Seuss, Dr. See Geisel, Theodore
sewage
Shekter-Smith, Liane
Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge
Sikemma, Ken
Silent Spring (Carson)
slavery
Smith, Jacob
Smith, Lindsey
Snow, John
Snyder, Rick
email releases and
failures and apologies by
Soberfest family picnic
sodium chloride
soil, lead in
solder
South Bend, Indiana
Spanish-language information
Stampfler, Michael
Standard Oil
State Integrity Report Card
state of emergency declarations
State University of New York, Buffalo
St. John neighborhood
St. Louis, Missouri
suburbs
Sullivan, Laura
summer jobs program
Superfund
Syracuse, New York
Tacoma, Washington
taxes
Taylor, Connie
Tea Party
Teardown (Young)
TEL (tetraethyl lead)
ten-point plan
Thoreau, Henry David
Time
tobacco industry
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Toledo, Ohio
Toms River, New Jersey
transparency
Trenton, New Jersey
Truman, Harry S.
Trump, Donald
TTHMs (total trihalomethanes)
21st-Century Infrastructure Commission
Two Weeks in the Wilderness (Tocqueville)
typhoid fever
Ubuntu Village
undocumented immigrants
Union City Ball Fields
unions
United Auto Workers (UAW)
United Nations
U.S. Congress
U.S. Senate
U.S. Supreme Court
United Way of Genesee County
University of Cincinnati
University of Michigan
University of Michigan-Flint (UM-Flint)
University of Washington
urban policy
Urban Renaissance Center
urban riots
Utah
utilities, self-monitoring by
van Gogh, Vincent
Veolia (company)
Vietnam Veterans Park
Vietnam War
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
Voting Rights Act (1965)
Walden (Thoreau)
Walker, Alice
Walling, Dayne
Walters, Dennis
Walters, Garrett
Walters, Gavin
Walters, JD
Walters, Kaylie
Walters, LeeAnne
War of 1812
Warren Commission
wars on crime and drugs
Washington, D.C.
fiscal oversight of
lead crisis
Washington, D.C., Health Department
Washington Post
water distribution sites
water filters
water lines, leaky. See also service lines
water mains
Water Pollution Control Act (1948)
water rates
water safety standards
water testing
manipulation of
wateryoufightingfor.com
Watts riots
Wayne State University
Environmental Law Clinic
Weaver, Karen
Wells, Eden
Westchester County, New York
white lead (lead carbonate)
white people
home values and
lead poisoning and
neighborhood segregation and
Williams, Anthony
Williams, Nijal
Williams, Senegal
Woburn, Massachusetts
Wonder, Stevie
Woodlawn Park neighborhood
World Health Organization (WHO)
World War I
World War II
Worth-Nelson, Jan
Worth-Nelson, Ted
Wright, Jeff
Wurfel, Brad
Wyant, Dan
yellow fever
Young, Gordon
youth basketball league
YouTube
YWCA
Zelizer, Julian E.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have so much gratitude to the City of Flint for teaching me in more ways than I can name. I am especially thankful to Jan Worth-Nelson and Ted Nelson for sharing their wisdom, humor, coffee, and home with me, along with their wealth of extraordinary stories.
I aimed to tell this story as comprehensively as possible to date, drawing on original reporting and analysis, including hundreds of hours of interviews. Some material in this book was first published in articles I wrote for the Columbia Journalism Review, Next City, the New Republic, Elle, Politico, the Boston Review, and, in collaboration with Josh Kramer, Splinter. I also drew from extensive work by mostly local journalists and authors. Among others, I am indebted to the reporting, research, and recording of Curt Guyette; Kate Levy; Lindsey Smith; Steve Carmody; Kate Wells; Mark Brush; Rebecca Williams; the staff of Flint’s East Village Magazine, as well as Flintside and Flint Beat; Ron Fonger; Jake May; Dominic Adams; Roberto Acosta; Oona Goodin-Smith; Nancy Kaffer; Paul Egan; Ryan Garza; Elisha Anderson; Jim Lynch; Stephen Henderson; Leonard N. Fleming; Jonathan Oosting; Karen Bouffard; Scott Atkinson; Belt Magazine; Bridge Magazine; Andrew R. Highsmith, author of Demolition Means Progress: Flint, Michigan, and the Fate of the American Metropolis; and Gordon Young, author of Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City. I also depended upon documents and internal communications that were first uncovered through open records requests by local reporters and the Flint Water Study team, and by numerous investigations and legal proceedings, as well as the emails released by Governor Snyder.
Thank you to Katherine Flynn, my agent at Kneerim & Williams, who made this project possible and delivered a great reading list, and to Riva Hocherman of Metropolitan Books, whose passion for telling the story of Flint impressed me from the start. Thank you also to Sara Bershtel, Grigory Tovbis, Chris O’Connell, and the rest of the Metropolitan team for making this book far better than it would have been otherwise. I am very grateful.
