Operational under 50 years. What happened, what needed to happen for that to be successful and what did not happen in the wake of making that switch to the flint river . Hi a lot of upgrades that needed to happen at the plant. Tens of millions of dollars. The plant had not been operational in this way in nearly half a century. A lot of upgrades to systems that needed to be done. There was staff that needed to be adequately trained. Before they actually made the switch, there was not enough. They did not have the adequate training necessary. They could not fathom that they were going to make them turn on the plant in such a short time. One of the workers at the plant, or his his sister, what was he saying at the time before the switch by the government officials . We spoke with matt mcfarland. He had worked at the plant for about 20 years before this happened. Loved his job. Very passionate about it. In the lead up to the switch, matt was responsible for doing a lot. Some of what he was responsible for was operating the systems that killed bacteria. He knew in the lead up that those systems were not working. Matt was very nervous before the switch actually took place. He was calling his sister. He was trying to get a supervisor to delay the switch to not make them run. He spoke to other people at the plant. State officials shut it down. No matter what, we are going to run anyway. Matt called his sister the night before they switched the water. Tell everyone you know and love and flint not to drink the water. People are going to die. Government officials knew. Yes. State officials who were in charge of the city of flint at the time were aware that the plant needed more time and they needed more staff and better equipment. We are talking about pbs frontline new documentary flint deadly water with a producer and director. We will get your questions and comments in as well. We will divide the lines. Regionally. If you live in the Eastern Central part of the country 8000. 2027488001. Michigan 2027488402. You can also you can also text us if you dial in 8003. We also just want to show our viewers a little bit from your documentary. Most people outside of flint look. The killer has been legionnaires. A frontline investigation. Each one of those to see if anything stood out. And in fact, it did. A lot of people did not want us to expose what was happening and why it was happening. Test the water. They should have tested the water. Lets go backt to where we left off. Government officials. They are not readyd to go at the Treatment Plant thats had not been used for years. In charge of making sure that bacteria is killed. What happens after they make the switch. He is deceased. He passed away in 2016. We interviewed his sister who he confided in a lot. Cases of legionnaires disease start popping up in the city of flint. A form of bacterial pneumonia that is very severe and can be fatal if it goes untreated. The community and the medical community both be aware that there is an outbreak of legionnaires otherwise it might go untreated because they typically would not test for it and diagnose it. Cases popping up of legionnaires. What happens. Two alerts who . Nobody alerts anybody. Cases of legionnaires disease start popping up in june. This is in 2014. A couple of weeks after the switch. July and august and september and october. Continuing until the end of 2014. Thirty confirmed cases in a city of of 100,000. Experts we had spoken to say that is one of the biggest outbreaks in u. S. History. At that time, the state Health Director in the state Health Department knew about the outbreak. The county Health Department knew aboutut the outbreak. The residents of flint were very much in the dark about it. As far as we know, the medical community was also in the dark about it for most of the time. Government officials knew about the outbreak. What were they talking about doing at the time . They were talking about where the outbreaks may be stemming from. Talks about whether or not the outbreak could be coming from the flint municipal water supply or if the outbreak was confined to one local hospital. What we found in our reporting is an outbreak of legionnaires disease is not confined often to one hospital. The legionella has to come from someplace. In an email, government officials were both speculating whether or not it was coming from the municipal water supply and also we see this narrative starting to form that maybe it is confined to one hospital and it n is not on the municipal war r supply which is very interestg where were they getting their water . From the city of flint. At that time, it, it was flint city water. What should they have done at this point . When they see the number of legionnaires . What should they have done. Experts we have spoken to say when you see a case, one case in a hospital, and these are not necessarily government officials just yet, but when you see one case in investigation needs to be launched. You need to find the source of the outbreak and you need to decontaminate it. You also need to check and make sure there are not other people that have the symptoms in the city. An investigation should be launched right away. Especially in a city like flint. With high property comes high illnesses. The bronx in 2015. O similar socioeconomic socioeconomic situation, experts that we spoke to actually started an investigation on day one. You will see that their fatality rate was much lower and they were successful. When did the government, the local government, callrc in federal officials, or should they have . The hierarchy as you have a county Health Department, which, in flint, to be fair, they dont have a ton fair, they dont have a ton of resources. They dont have a big staff. The county Health Department was ringing the alarm. They needed additional help. When the state Health Department was not responding and was not adequately responding, they tried getting in touch with the senate for Disease Control. The center for Disease Control needed the permission of the state before they could come in. The cdc sent in emails, this was the largest outbreak that theyve seen in a long time and fullquired a investigation. They were willing to come in and step in and help. But they needed the permission from the state and they never got that. Was there any investigation done by an outside team . Not really. There were these scientists in 2016 after the governor finally comes forward a year and a half later. Telling everyone theres been an outbreak of legionnaires disease. Hires a team of scientists from different universities across the state to investigate the outbreak. As we uncover in our film, these scientists and Infectious Disease experts felt that they were experiencing pretty consistent pushback by state officials in terms of what they could investigate. Who they could talk to. I do not think that they felt, you know, for much for much of their investigation that they were given a full opportunity to do it right. Why were they, i mean, what did they tell you in your documentary . This team of scientists about what should have been done and how their communication with the government, what was it like for them to try to do this investigation . It. It was really interesting. At the time these men and women were brought on to do this investigation, it is around the same time that the special prosecutor who was appointed by the attorney general, starting to amount to a criminal investigation. Absolutely investigating the Michigan Health and Human Services as well as other agencies that may have been involved in some capacity. The Michigan Department was very much overseeing these scientists and their investigation. There is sort of a bit of a conflict of interest here. The very people that are supervising these teams to investigate the source of the outbreak also being investigated criminally by the attorney general for this very situation. The scientist that we spoke to in the film say they experienced pushback. They were not allowed to look at pneumonia deaths. Ofof they were not allowed to test water filters. Three of them have testified to the fact that when they pulled the Michigan Department of health and Human Services director nick client that if they do not up surveillance, they could experience another outbreak. If theyco do not do that, people are going to die. According to these three men, his response was, well, they have to die of something. Frontline, your team, went about to try to investigate the connection between legionnaires and pneumonia deaths. I want topn show our viewers tht part of the documentary. With the rim criminal cases in limbo, we were still trying to determine the toll of the legionnaires outbreak. Is kind of like detective work. You look at the evidence. You evaluate the circumstances. You start pulling these pieces together. After months of reporting and analysis, documenting 115 pneumonia hundred 15 pneumonia deaths that happen in flint during the outbreak. In response to our findings, a spokeswoman told us they had noticed an increase, too, and concluded it was due to influenza. Independent scientists were telling us that in all likelihood, some of them were actually due to legionnaires. Took the information from the death certificates and i plotted out each one of those deaths on a map just to see if anything stood out. In fact, it did. In particular, the older parts of the city. We found these clusters of people that, around the same time frame of the switch, were dying of pneumonia and dying of legionnaires disease. Why was it important to look at those deaths that were supposedly caused or could have been caused by pneumonia in this investigation . Why was it important to look at that specifically . It is a severe fatal form of pneumonia. The symptoms that you might experience are very similar to pneumonia. Unless there is an outbreak of legionnaires disease in the city according to experts that we spoke to, and it goes unannounced. The medical community is not alerted to the outbreak in the public is not alerted to the outbreak. Its very likely that a lot of these cases could go undiagnosed. In that event, these patients would likely just be diagnosed with pneumonia. They might be treated with antibiotics used for typical pneumonia. Those antibiotics likely will not work against legionella. A very severe bacteria and it requires specific treatment. In order for doctors to know to test for it and diagnose it and adequately treat it, they need to know that there is an outbreak going on. When we realized there was never really a full investigation done into this outbreak, it became apparent that there were likely more cases than officially reported. Officially, 12 deaths in 90 cases. We tasked ourselves withh figuring out whether or not there was an increase in ammonia death in the city at the same time as the outbreak of legionnaires disease to determine if the scope of the outbreak could have been larger. Have those cases been reviewed by officials since you made those connections . We have shared our findings with officials, yes. Weve shared them with a number of people in different agencies at the government level. What we found, we found 115 ammonia deaths. Every single death certificate during the time of the outbreak. We found 115. We. We cannot say whether or not that is statistically meaningful. What we did is we brought those deaths to independent epidemiologists who are affiliated with Emory University and they did a broader investigation and used a control group to compare our deaths with deaths and surrounding counties and cities with similar climate and other elements. They found that they can conclude 70 deaths coincide with the outbreak of legionnaires disease. Seventy additional pneumonia deaths during the flint water crisis that otherwise we had not seen previously. Lets get to our callers. Diane has been waiting in kansas flint deadly water, go ahead. Good morning. I was thinking about the crisis with the m lead in the water in the lead pipes. Anyhow, in early june, i was on a train a train to chicago and i met c this woman in the observation car that was from flint michigan. Probably about 60 years old. Nice woman. We got chatting. I asked her how was the situation in flint. N all this time later. She said, well, we are still being given bottled water. She said, theyre giving us plenty and thats not a problem. She said that is not the worst of it. I said whats the worst of it. She said our water bills are outrageous. 300 a 300 a month. Almost 10 times what i pay in kansas. She said, not only that, that, she is a single woman. She lives by yourself. She goes to the gym three times a week and she can wash her clothing right there. She said the cost of the electricity of the water well. I just bring this up, in context with what you are reporting, but, yet, this is occurring in these people are still paying 300 a month, by the way, i asked her this was just her and she said no. It is outrageous. Flint residents have been experiencing extremely high for years. This is one of the reasons that i think people were in favor of joining this new pipeline about five years ago when the crisis sort of began. A lot of officials who came and wanted flint to get a new water supply source using this idea that water rates will go down. In the city of flint, people are so desperate for their water bills to go down because they are so expensive. We lived there and we met residents to have a 6000 water bill. During the water crisis, they were still expected to pay their water bill and their water billo are so expensive. If you go to flint and talk to waterfos there, the contamination and high water bills are almost equally prohibitive to that. En are Flint Residents still drinking bottled water and what is their water source now . They have switched back to the detroit water supply which is now under a new name, great lakes water authority. Flint residents are still drinking bottled water. While we were there, the state of michigan, the administration that was in charge while the water crisis took place actually declared that the water in flint is testing the same as or better than other cities across the state. They discontinued free bottle of water at that time and recommended that people use water filters. Now there are three churches that onlyin operate from donatis and the lines are just isles along with donations of people trying to get bottled water. The same administration that lied to them for so long is now telling them that it is safe and ugthey do not necessarily beliee that. Importantly, though, the water filters that were reported to be the solution actually do not kill bacteria. They only get rid of the lead. There was never this acknowledgment that there was water in the bacteria early on. Even the solution that the state has been providing, they are are not adequate for killing the back area since the crisis. Is it in place . It is in place. Other cities and counties are using the pipeline. Yes. There are thoughts that may be flint is still paying off some of theds bonds that they had to take out to participate in the pipeline. It is still very much in the world of flint and Genesee County. We will go to oscar next. Wasnt the governor of michigan involved in coercing some e. P. A. Officials into the , andh from the flint river how they were negligent . I am reminded of how difficult how even whenre, President Trump tried to say that lets take your question. The role of the governor. I dont know about the governor pressuring the epa specifically and i know that there was a whistleblower at the epa who tried to blow the whistle on lead levels early on and he was discredited but this is something weve seen about the crisis when you have scientists and medical professionals who come to the table with evidence suggesting that there is lead in the water or bacteria in the water and kids blood levels are higher every step of the way it seems government officials have discredited them. They not taken their words at face value initially. What happened in the criminal prosecution by the state attorney general . How does that conclude the mac has a prosecutor assigned to the case charged 15 people over the course of three years and got two cases the former director of Michigan Department of health and the chief medical executive were both charged with Involuntary Manslaughter for the legionnaires outbreak. Both of those cases where bound for a jury trial. A judge in a Pretrial Hearing said theres enough evidence here they should proceed to a jury trial. That was deemed to be a success as far as the criminal prosecutions go. However, last november the Political Landscape in michigan changed a lot in the new attorney general came in and she fired the former special prosecutor and has since dropped all the charges. They dropped the charges without prejudice saying that they can charge again but there is a statute of limitations so the clock is ticking. Is there an effort underway or grassroots or otherwise to pick up this case somehow . The new prosecutor has said they are actively investigating it and we have reason to believe they wont ring new charges but we just have nothing to go on except for their word at this point. They said the previous investigation was fundamentally flawed despite the fact two judges agreed that they should proceed to jury trial and they said that they will do everything they can to bring justice to plant. Flint activists are frustrated and want justice and are likely putting pressure on the attorney general office. What did the special prosecutor unveil about the motivation of the head of the Health Department and chief medical doctor to not alert the public to this legionnaires outbreak . That is still something that was ongoing in his investigation. I know its something we are still reporting as well. To understand the motive of wh why the question is why didnt they just switch flint of the river when they knew there was bacteria in the water and they knew it was killing people and making them sick . Its a question that we are still trying to answer and the special prosecutor in the pulmonary hearings talked a lot about the pipeline and the bonds and money in payments that needed to be made but we have yet to prove any of that to be true. Carol in royal oak, michigan. Carol is where is royal oak in the state . Caller well, we are about 20 minutes from plants. Flint is north of us. Abby, forgive me if you have answered this but what in the world ever made Flint City Council decide to unhook from detroit water and start this mess . Guest im not sure if youre familiar but in michigan they have theirs the former administration used Emergency Managers a lot to state officials appointed by the governor who answered yes to the treasury their job is to balance the budget in these cities. Flint was under emergency manager at the time so in state control and had about four different Emergency Managers shuffling in and out during this time. While the city council did vote in favor of joining the pipeline their vote did not matter and it was more of a rubberstamp process. They could have voted against it in state officials still voted for it. While we say city council did vote in favor of this is a moot point because they really do not have any power at all in again, their motivation was they were being told that water would be less expensive each month and that potentially could turn into something lucrative because flint, made for the first time in a long time, cap the opportunity to treat its own water and sell its own water instead of buying water from detroit. Host don in wisconsin is next. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. At some point along the way the citizens of that city and that area boded further local officials and got what they voted for. I dont know i happen to live on a farm in a rural area and have my own well. I dont have someone coming out and checking my well to verify if i have a concern i have to take it and get it tested and take appropriate action. People are being charged 300 a month and youve got 100,000 people in the city you got a whole lot of income to be able to take some changes and action on yourself. Why is someone elses why is it always someone elses fault . Guest it is difficult for those of us who now lived in a city like this that in michigan the governor appointed state officials who had all the power. During the flint water crisis and before the flint water crisis local elected officials had no power. They were not allowed to make decisions on behalf of of the residents of flint. Its a real tragedy. Michigan is one of the leading examples of how this policy can harm in cities but actually it so important to know all of these decisions are being made by the state of michigan and residents when a resident started protesting almost immediately after this when the switch was and the water was brown people were getting sick. They fought and fought and the cries were completely silent because they were protesting to their elected officials and say we voted for you and elected officials had their hands tied because a state official was in charge of the city of flint. There wasnt much democracy at the time or before the switch at all. Residents have been to some powered and went for a long time is of these policies. Host john in michigan, your town is caller pinckney. Host where is that located . Caller that is located between lansing and detroit. My comment is what i see here on the pbs is typical of all this bs going on in this country. This all started because the people in flint did not pay their water bills. Their water bills werent 300 a month. That was in a cumulation because they werent paying them in because they werent paying their water bills they had to switch to somebody else and they could not continue with the detroit water. You can play this anyway you want but what it boils down to is theres a bunch of freeloaders in this country that are trying to turn this country into a socialist country. Host lets take your point. Did the start with water bills not being paid . Guest no, this was not the result of water bills not being paid. At the time flint did not need a new water supply and cannot afford to pay to get a new water supply. This was very much a decision made by state officials and powerbrokers in the region who wanted this new pipeline to go through in our reporting and found that it would have been difficult for this new pipeline which was servicing other cities and other counties would have been difficult for it to go through without getting the hundred thousand residents from flint. This had nothing to do in the switch in the municipal water supply had nothing to do with the inability to pay waterfalls. Host ronald in illinois. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Host go ahead, ronald. We are listening. Caller back in the 70s i went to school to get my certified operators license for the epa and i was a class b certified operator and responsible charge for not just one but two servers directly south of chicago. When i went to school i wasnt told by all the instructors if there is any type of water contamination in the areas you are responsible for and they traced back that it was because of your incompetence or your ineptitude or your ability to get water samples every month and Something Like that happened i would go to jail. Well, that stuck with me the entire time that i was a certified water operator and responsible for the charge. We never, ever had any problems whatsoever with our Water Supplies because i was very, very set on getting these water samples when they were supposed to be taken and sending them to the epa and within one or two days we would get the results of these water samples and given the okay from the epa. So, during that time there was one suburb with the certified water operator was putting addresses down for getting water samples but was getting all the water samples from one or two faucets and probably doing it for only where he worked. He even eventually caught up with him because there was an outbreak due to a cleaning facility that was pouring poison into the water and they found out and traced it back and that man got a five year sentence in jail. Host abby, what you make of what ronald is saying . Guest i think one thing weve tragically seen in flint is that very early on in throughout the second year of the water crisis there were tests being done and residents were begging to have their water tested for lead. Tests were being done and then they were being faulted in the last and in addition to that people who were testing the water for lead have been those charges have now been dropped but have been charged and accused of having water in an area that does not have lead line. So throughout this entire water crisis there were instances in which the very people who were responsible for testing the water have been accused of falsifying those tests and not testing the water in the right area. Host i want to show our viewers a bit more from the documentary. This is how the medical team from Emory University conducted their own visitation on funds water. The team compared this to a control group. The control group we can chose for this announcement were counties that were similar Genesee County in many respects and term of size income and education level and socioeconomic profile but were both in michigan and in surrounding states. What we see here is that when we start in 2011 we follow this rate and their similar between Genesee County and the controls and pretty similar and quite similar and this continues until we get to about the middle of 2014. This is where it happens here. Smack the increase was most pronounced in the First Six Months of 2014 and less so in 2015. Its not clear why since flint was still on river water and then. Right when that legionnaires epidemic starts the ammonia death rate goes up while in the other counties its going down. We got this very clear divergence when you thought that over time. Abby, what did we learn there . Guest we learned that there were 70 additional deaths during the water crisis linked to the ammonia during an outbreak with pneumonia like symptoms in that outbreak. Furthermore will be found in what emery confirmed is that in pockets of the city of flint we had confirmed cases of legionnaires disease and pneumonia deaths. Be found in a 1 mile long neighborhood there were three confirmed cases of legionnaires disease and six pneumonia deaths. These deaths and cases took place over a couple of months in the summer of 2014. What we found in what emery confirmed is that after the switch in Water Supplies to spite the pneumonia death rates go up and this is a time when typically pneumonia should be going to because think about pneumonia is usually associated with influenza and something to happen in the wintertime, not spring and summer. Right after the switch on the ammonia death rates were going up in Genesee County where flint was located its going down in other counties. Emery confirmed what we thought from the beginning which is that the outbreak in flint of the legionnaires outbreak was significantly higher than officially reported. Host oceanside, new york. And, good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to say first to the gentleman that did work for epa and if there is people that is negligent in their jobs or inapt and doing things improperly and people are paying the price whether legionnaires or lead in water these people five years as a slap on the wrist as far as im concerned. Give peoples lives on your hands. We want to remind everybody you can trust me better trust in to verify the water is safe. We were told the air was safe. A lot of my friends are dying and Louis Alvarez died not too long ago from 911 and is on point but we were told the air was safe. Okay . Thats the point. Dont trust the government. Their fight for yourself and your community. I dont know how we get paid but its usually poor people. The sad thing to think that lead was in the water and pretty sure it was democratically run and i dont want to bring politics into it but sometimes the political people arent the people and its up bureaucracy that are running they are not privy to everything and almost like senator mccain making a visit to the ba and everything they run it shipshape the day he comes because the note two weeks beforehand but then the day after he leaves people are suffering and dying. Maybe he really didnt know what was going on and maybe we dont know whats going on and maybe that air was not safe in our pain. Host i will leave it there. Abby alice, tell us who knew what when it came to the legionnaires outbreak. Guest we know that towards the end of the summer of 2014 the beginning of the fall the state how the permit was made aware the county Health Department was absolutely aware and we know for sure by january of 2015 that director of the commission Michigan Department of health was aware and a couple months later we know that several members of the government were aware about cabinets and ease of the governor however the governor of michigan from rick snyder has said he did not learn about the outbreak of legionnaires until another year later in january 2016 after which the outbreak has significantly subsided and it had been a year and a half since it began. Host what does legionnaires due to somewhat . Guest legionnaires is a very severe form of pneumonia. Almost all get admitted into the icu. It can cause kidney failure, heart failure, lung failure and it is a very severe type of pneumonia which is why its so crucial you get treated right away. Why its so crucial to medical community be aware that there is an outbreak. Its also important the public knows theres an outbreak because if you have call for fever or nausea or any thank you may have a cold or the flu if you know visited the outbreak of legionnaires disease in your community you might go to the emergency a lot quicker. Host you profiled Flint Residents who got sick during this outbreak of legionnaires disease and some connected her illness with that and she has since passed away and i want to show our viewers a little bit from the documentary featuring jasmine right. Ive been doing a breathing treatment to open on my airways and lungs. Ladies and gentlemen, the 45th president of the united at
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