Flint Water Crisis Case Study

In addition to managing people, processes, and resources, public administrators are
also expected to manage and resolve unexpected events in their areas of jurisdiction.
Regardless of how good they are at other tasks, poor management of crises, disasters, and
other unexpected events can lead to the public losing trust in the competence of public
officials. A recent event that reveals the importance of effective crisis management is the
Flint water crisis that started in 2014. Decisions made by the city’s officials resulted in
contamination of drinking water with lead thus endangering the health of the residents of
Flint city, Michigan.
Despite complaints from the city’s residents about the quality of water getting out of
their taps, the city and state officials did not take any action until almost a year later when
they acknowledged the existence of the problem and began taking corrective measures
(Ruckart et al., 2019). However, by then the damage had already been done. Thousands of the
city’s residents had already been exposed to contaminated water and trust in the city’s and
state’s public officials was so low that even when officials rectified the issue and the city
started receiving clean water, residents continued using bottled water even for showering
(Ruckart et al., 2019). The case of Flint water crisis shows how not to handle a crisis. Proper
crisis management requires public officials to acknowledge their mistakes, show remorse, be
open and transparent when communicating details of the crisis, and move with speed and
energy to solve the crisis.

Executive Summary

The Flint water crisis resulted from decisions made by officials at the local level and
at state level. The crisis developed because public officials made cost-saving a priority at the

3
expense of the well-being of the city’s residents. It was made worse by the failure of the
officials that created the problem to acknowledge the existence of the problem when they
started receiving complaints about the quality of the city’s water. This paper shows that had
public officials from the city of Flint and state of Michigan taken quick action when the
problem was brought to their attention, they would have succeeded in making the crisis a
minor local crisis instead of the major national crisis that it turned out to be.

Scenario Background

The Flint water crisis began in 2014 when the city’s officials changed the city’s
source of water from Lake Huron to the foul Flint river. The decision was made as part of the
city’s cost-saving measures. In addition to changing the source of the city’s water supply, city
officials also decided not to add corrosion control chemicals in the treatment of the water. As
a result of these decisions, the city’s water taps started releasing contaminated water with
unpleasant brown and sometimes green sludge (Masten, Davies & McElmurry, 2016). Many
of the city’s residents began feeling ill and experiencing various symptoms, such as hair loss
and skin rashes. State and city hall officials dismissed concerns that the residents raised until
in late 2015 when the governor of Michigan acknowledged that the water that the city
supplied was unclean and unsafe (Masten et al., 2016).

Key stakeholders and Supporting Organizations

The key stakeholders in the crisis were state and city officials. It is the responsibility
of the city government to provide the city’s residents with clean and water for drinking and
other forms of domestic use. Out of negligence and rush to cut costs, the city officials failed
in this responsibility. The state of Michigan also failed the residents of Flint because it is the
state’s Department of Environment Quality that approved supply of water to residents
without application of corrosion inhibitors (Butler, Scammell & Benson, 2016). The decision

4
to switch the water supply from Lake Huron to Flint river was also made by the city’s
emergency manager who is a state-appointed official. Thus, the problem was a result of
failure of both city and state officials. Additionally, in dealing with the crisis, officials from
both the city and state government failed to acknowledge the existence of the problem and
take any measures to correct it. Their poor handling of the crisis worsened it.

Case Analysis

The Flint water crisis developed out of negligence of the city’s officials. There is
nothing wrong with public organizations looking for ways to save money. However, cost-
saving measures should not put lives at risk. In the case of Flint city, it was wrong for the
city’s officials to source water from the foul Flint river and then supply it to the city’s
residents without applying corrosion inhibitors. Secondly, state and city officials should have
acted immediately they were alerted that the water was contaminated. Dismissing concerns of
the city’s residents without bothering to perform any investigations about the matter showed
the city’s and state’s public officials as callous and unconcerned about the concerns of the
people that they were meant to be serving.

Recommendations

Since the Flint water crisis became public, Flint city, with the help of funding from
the state of Michigan and the federal government, has been doing extensive replacement of
aging pipes with newer ones. It has also switched back to getting water sourced from Lake
Huron and treated in the Detroit Water System. Some officials responsible for the crisis have
also resigned. Additionally, the state of Michigan has compensated some of the victims of the
crisis (Masten et al., 2016). However, I believe that the action that the city’s and state’s
officials should have done first should have been issuing apologies to the residents of the city

5
affected by the contaminated water. Officials that were responsible for the crisis at the both
the local and state level should have then resigned.
Conclusion

The Flint water crisis was a monumental failure of public officials. The officials not
only made bad decisions that put the lives of many people at risk but also did a poor job at
managing the crisis. Instead of acknowledging their mistakes and taking corrective measures
quickly, they showed lack of urgency and acted with astonishing callousness. Their actions
led to a massive fall of public trust in the city’s and state’s leadership and bureaucracy. The
situation would have ended differently had the officials acknowledged their mistakes and
acted swiftly to make amends while showing that their greatest concerns were the well-being
of the residents that they served.

6

References

Butler, L. J., Scammell, M. K., & Benson, E. B. (2016). The Flint, Michigan, water crisis: a
case study in regulatory failure and environmental injustice. Environmental
Justice, 9(4), 93-97.
Masten, S. J., Davies, S. H., & Mcelmurry, S. P. (2016). Flint water crisis: what happened
and why? Journal‐American Water Works Association, 108(12), 22-34.
Ruckart, P. Z., Ettinger, A. S., Hanna-Attisha, M., Jones, N., Davis, S. I., & Breysse, P. N.
(2019). The Flint water crisis: a coordinated public health emergency response and
recovery initiative. Journal of public health management and practice:
JPHMP, 25(Suppl 1 LEAD POISONING PREVENTION), S84.