The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy

by Anna Clark

Overview

Winner of The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism - 2019

When the people of Flint, Michigan, turned on their faucets in April 2014, the water pouring out was poisoned with lead and other toxins.

Through a series of disastrous decisions, the state government had switched the city’s water supply to a source that corroded Flint’s aging lead pipes. Complaints about the foul-smelling water were dismissed: the residents of Flint, mostly poor and African American, were not seen as credible, even in matters of their own lives.

It took eighteen months of activism by city residents and a band of dogged outsiders to force the state to admit that the water was poisonous. By that time, twelve people had died and Flint’s children had suffered irreparable harm. The long battle for accountability and a humane response to this man-made disaster has only just begun.

In the first full account of this American tragedy, Anna Clark's The Poisoned City recounts the gripping story of Flint’s poisoned water through the people who caused it, suffered from it, and exposed it. It is a chronicle of one town, but could also be about any American city, all made precarious by the neglect of infrastructure and the erosion of democratic decision making. Places like Flint are set up to fail—and for the people who live and work in them, the consequences can be fatal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250125149
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/10/2018
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Anna Clark is a journalist living in Detroit. Her writing has appeared in ELLE Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, the Columbia Journalism Review, Next City, and other publications. Anna edited A Detroit Anthology, a Michigan Notable Book, and she had been a writer-in-residence in Detroit public schools as part of the InsideOut Literary Arts program. She has also been a Fulbright fellow in Nairobi, Kenya, and a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan. Her books include The Poisoned City and Michigan Literary Luminaries.

Table of Contents

Contents

Prologue 1

PART I: TAUGHT BY THIRST

1. The Well 13
2. Corrosion 31
3. Revelations 43
4. Saturation 62

PART II: DIVINATION

5. Alchemy 79
6. Citizen/Science 101
7. Meditations in an Emergency 122
8. Blood 138

PART III: WATER’S PERFECT MEMORY

9. Switchback 153
10. Legion 166
11. Truth and Reconciliation 182
12. Genesis 195

Epilogue 210
Afterword to the Paperback Edition 217

Notes 225
Selected Bibliography 299
Acknowledgments 303
Index 307

Editorial Reviews

[Clark] is a smart, hard-working reporter…you admire her passion and her sweat. [She] is particularly good at describing the importance of infrastructure in a functioning democracy…Clark writes powerfully about the environmental consequences of a shrinking city, about how Flint's financial decline drove the decision to switch drinking-water sources…But she's most effective describing the racism that shaped Flint, especially under the influence of General Motors.

The New York Times Book Review - Jeff Goodell

The Poisoned City is…[a] comprehensive chronicle of the crisis—with an eye for the institutional corruption and indifference that enabled it.

The New York Times - Parul Sehgal

05/28/2018
Journalist Clark (Michigan Literary Luminaries: From Elmore Leonard to Robert Hayden) provides a comprehensive account of the Flint water crisis. Drawing on both existing and original reporting, Clark boils down this complex tragedy and chronologically traces the series of reckless decisions by city and state officials that led to the poisoning of a city: the changing of the water source, trust in an insufficient treatment program, failure to acknowledge residents’ complaints, and repeated cover-ups. The book also demonstrates how, rather than the result of a single decision, the tragedy was “a decades-old, slow-burn emergency” rooted in such broader social, political, and economic trends as industry divestment and population decline, underfunding of cities, inequality and the legacy of segregation, and a “democracy deficit” caused by the emergency management system. Clark also sprinkles in compelling forays into the history of lead, the initial settling of the area, and the early development of public water systems. While devastating, this account is also inspiring in its coverage of the role of Flint’s “lionhearted residents” and their grassroots activism, community organizing, and independent investigation in bringing the crisis to national attention and to the courts. This extremely informative work gives an authoritative account of a true American urban tragedy that still continues. (July)

Publishers Weekly

**Winner of the 2019 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism

**Winner of the 2019 Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award

**Winner of the 2019 Gross Award for Literature

**Finalist for the 2019 Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Book Journalism

**Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction (2019)

**A Michigan Notable Book (2019)

“It’s hard to overstate how important Anna Clark’s new book is... A taut, riveting and comprehensive account.” —USA Today

"An exceptional work of journalism. Clark delivers a thorough account of a still-evolving crisis, one with an unmistakable racial subtext.... Her book is a deeply reported account of catastrophic mismanagement. But it’s also a celebration of civic engagement, a tribute to those who are fighting back.”—San Francisco Chronicle

"A comprehensive chronicle of the crisis with an eye for the institutional corruption and indifference that enabled it.”—The New York Times

“Clark writes powerfully about the environmental consequences of a shrinking city, about how Flint’s financial decline drove the decision to switch drinking-water sources… She’s most effective describing the racism that shaped Flint.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A meticulously annotated, brutally honest, and compassionately narrated account of a disgraceful American crisis... The Poisoned City is a cautionary tale for every town and city across the land.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“Gripping and packed with meticulously sourced reportage... Clark’s rich account intersperses policy and environmental science with vivid portraits of Flint and its citizens, ramping up the tension as the horror unfolds.”—Nature

“An arresting and copiously documented saga of moneyed corruption… A bracing, closely reported chronicle… Clark ably pieces together the grotesque convergence of forces that transformed Flint into a byword of failed oversight and artificially induced hazard. And she rightly notes that the water crisis, as sudden and unexpected as it might have seemed, was the culmination of more than a generation’s worth of systemic neglect and cynical austerity-minded pillaging from on high.”—Bookforum

“Searing scrutiny... Riveting... A sobering read through all the spin and cover ups... A cornucopia of history and responsibly researched details... I have yet to encounter a more thorough, accurate or readable account of the poisoning of Flint’s municipal water supply than The Poisoned City. This is an important book, for Flint, for all American cities, and for our nation.”—East Village Magazine (Flint, Michigan)

“Incisive and informed... In the first full accounting of the Flint water crisis, Clark combines a staggering amount of research and several intimate story lines to reveal how the Michigan city was poisoned by its leaders and then largely abandoned to its fate by state officials.... Clark takes no prisoners, naming all the names and presenting the confirming research. ‘Neglect,’ she warns, ‘is not a passive force in American cities, but an aggressive one.’”—Booklist (starred review)

“A complex, exquisitely detailed account... A potent cautionary tale of urban neglect and indifference... Clark goes far beyond the immediate crisis captured nationally in images of bottled water being distributed to Flint’s poor, the most severely affected to explain ‘decades of negligence’ that had mired the city in ‘debt, dysfunctional urban policy, disappearing investment, disintegrating infrastructure, and a compromised democratic process.’ She warns that other declining American cities are similarly threatened.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Compelling... A comprehensive account [that] boils down this complex tragedy... While devastating, this account is also inspiring in its coverage of the role of Flint’s ‘lionhearted residents’ and their grassroots activism, community organizing, and independent investigation... This extremely informative work gives an authoritative account of a true American urban tragedy that still continues.”—Publishers Weekly

“With every heartbreaking detail, Anna Clark’s must-read and beautifully rendered account of the Flint water crisis makes clear that this horrific poisoning of an essential American city was never just an unfortunate accident. Instead, it was the tragic, and indeed tragically inevitable, result of the fiscal, as well as environmental, racism that seems to run as deeply and powerfully in this country as water itself.”—Heather Ann Thompson, author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

“Anna Clark’s book on the Flint water crisis rises to a great challenge: it sacrifices neither complexity nor moral clarity. And by etching this story’s outlines in decades of racist neglect, it is not just a splendid work of journalism. It is a genuine contribution to history.”—Rick Perlstein, author of The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

“The Poisoned City is a gripping account of a devastating, unnatural disaster. Through deep research and on-the-ground reporting, Anna Clark makes the case that Flint’s water crisis is the result of decades of disinvestment and neglect, worsened by austerity policies and governmental malfeasance. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand America’s ongoing failure to deal with environmental injustice, racial inequality, and economic marginalization.”—Thomas J. Sugrue, author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit

“The story of the Flint crisis is disturbing enough even if one knows only a few details. But the entire case, as laid out by Anna Clark, is enraging. Clark has sifted the layers of politics, history, and myopic policy to chronicle the human costs of this tragedy. Flint is not an outlier, it’s a parable – one whose implications matter not just to a single municipality but to every city in the country and all who live in them.”—Jelani Cobb, Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism, Columbia University

“The poisoning of Flint was unintentional but it was no accident. Read Anna Clark’s empathetic yet emphatic history and you will understand how this American tragedy could have been prevented – and why it wasn’t. Her book will make you mad, but it will also give you hope for the rebirth of our cities and maybe even our democracy.”—Dan Fagin, author of Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation

From the Publisher

★ 2018-05-15
The story of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis.In 2014, the city of Flint—pop. 99,000, majority black—turned off its drinking water in preparation for joining a new regional water system. In the meantime, the city began using Flint River water. Officials said the interim source was safe. It wasn't. In this complex, exquisitely detailed account, freelance journalist and Detroit Free Press contributor Clark (Michigan Literary Luminaries, 2015, etc.) draws on interviews, emails, and other materials to describe the ensuing catastrophe, in which city, state, and federal officials engaged in delays and coverups for 18 months while residents complained of discolored drinking water that caused rashes, hair loss, and diseases. Citizen demands for government action went ignored, "even ridiculed," until public pressure, media coverage, and independent studies revealed the cause of the contaminated water: lead and other toxins traveling through aging pipes that lacked mandated corrosion control. The shameful story has its heroes—e.g., persistent engineer Marc Edwards, journalist Curt Guyette, and NPR's Michigan Radio—and its "buck-passing and turf-guarding" villains, including countless officials who dodged responsibilities while lead-laced water killed 12 people and left a lingering uncertainty over possible long-term health effects. "An Obscene Failure of Government," said a Detroit Free Press story. Clark goes far beyond the immediate crisis—captured nationally in images of bottled water being distributed to Flint's poor, the most severely affected—to explain "decades of negligence" that had mired the city in "debt, dysfunctional urban policy, disappearing investment, disintegrating infrastructure, and a compromised democratic process." She warns that other declining American cities are similarly threatened. A report of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission pointed to the long-standing "systemic racism" of segregated Flint, once a General Motors-led innovation hub that attracted many African-American workers. The city faces continuing lawsuits and use of bottled water until lead pipes are replaced by 2020.A potent cautionary tale of urban neglect and indifference. Infuriated readers will be heartened by the determined efforts of protesters and investigative reporters.

Kirkus Reviews

The tainted and harmful water supply of Flint, Michigan, did not happen accidentally. It resulted from an ongoing failure of individuals and institutions and reflects how our nation values some lives over others. To communicate such a blunt message, Xe Sands is the perfect narrator because her voice is smartly intimate. Her inviting tone comes through like a confidante’s whisper and transforms the harsh issues that Clark highlights into a narrative that listeners will be ready to hear. Sands uses both emphasis and tone to help listeners navigate the technical parts of Clark's audiobook, as when she dives into the breakdown of chemicals or the legal responsibilities associated with the poisoning of public water. L.E. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2018 - AudioFile

The tainted and harmful water supply of Flint, Michigan, did not happen accidentally. It resulted from an ongoing failure of individuals and institutions and reflects how our nation values some lives over others. To communicate such a blunt message, Xe Sands is the perfect narrator because her voice is smartly intimate. Her inviting tone comes through like a confidante’s whisper and transforms the harsh issues that Clark highlights into a narrative that listeners will be ready to hear. Sands uses both emphasis and tone to help listeners navigate the technical parts of Clark's audiobook, as when she dives into the breakdown of chemicals or the legal responsibilities associated with the poisoning of public water. L.E. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2018 - AudioFile