Black hoodie: “So, in Flint- where the water has been proven over and over scientifically that it’s poison, it’s toxic, it’s not getting better- we pay the highest rates in the nation for the lowest quality water. Um, we’re at Mission of Hope where their water was shut off I think for a $1,200 water bill. My water bills are currently $1049 as of today. Um, we don’t wanna pay it, we keep fighting to pay it, but, um-”
Voice offscreen: “What happens if you don’t pay the water?”
Black hoodie: “If you- Historically, in Flint, if you don’t pay the water bill they will, um, shut you off after 90 days, cap your sewer, and they can condemn your home, and if you don’t have proper hygiene for your kids then CPS gets called in. It’s nice and wonderful, and they can take your home, so people have lost their homes-”
Baseball hat: “So they cap your water, you don’t have water coming in, you don’t have poisonous water coming in, and then they charge you for not having water come into your-”
Black hoodie: “Oh yeah. And then if you don’t pay your water bill they will put a, um, a tax lien on your property that includes your back water bill. And people -I think 16,000 people or more- have lost their homes.”
Baseball hat: “So you lose your- I don’t know what the value of homes are here…”
Black hoodie: “Not much anymore.”
Baseball hat: “Let’s say you have a home that’s worth $80,000, and your tax lien is $1000, you lose your $80,000 home to a tax lien plus your $1000 water bill. But you don’t have the $3,000 to pay the tax lien or the water bill, so they have your house and your property for $2,000 [another person says something inaudible in the background] And your kids!”
Black hoodie: “Yeah, if you have no home and they live with you, they can take your kids. Now they keep saying they’ve put a pause on shutoffs since we made it a huge national deal, no guarantee. And we’re still getting water bills! So they put a pause on shutoffs but we’re still getting a water bill, so when that ‘pause’ is lifted we’re gonna owe all this money. So we’re tying to get it wiped out and so far, no help. Y’know, no help. And many of us are still buying bottled water because getting down to the fire stations is difficult, if not impossible, and, uh, there are places that aren’t near fire stations and grocery stores. Like the north end, close to where we’re at now.”
Baseball hat: “So lemme ask you a question- we don’t live here, so what- what’s the, what’s the- how do you deal with it every day? How do you deal with not have- I mean, you don’t have drinkable, tolerable water. It’s citywide, right? City wide?”
Black hoodie: “It’s citywide. Unfortunately, we still have to bathe in it so we’re still getting exposed- I have a doctor’s appointment at 3:30 because I’m not getting any better. Uh, in my family we’re dealing with seizures, anemia, bone loss, bone breakage, diverticulosis, liver failure, and that’s just me. Um, [laughs nervously] as well as breathing issues, because you’re breathing in the steam from the chemicals, so what you try to do is you try to limit your kids exposure, you plan your meals-”
Baseball hat: “You’re adapting to-”
Black hoodie: “Yes. You plan your meals around how much bottled water you have. Um, if you don’t have enough bottled water you don’t get to make soup or you can’t rinse your meat and your vegetables because you’re not gonna use that tap water. Um, the filters they give out don’t fit my sink because I have a pull-out sprayer. Also we just found out that in a lot of homes it’s not enough anyways, the filters aren’t filtering the high levels or lead. So we just found out that people who thought they were safe are not, that the little plastic filters- surprise- may not be working.”
Baseball hat: “Has anyone given you, like, testers? So you can be able to test the water for lithium, uh-”
Black hoodie: “We have the, we have the- right now the EPA is in for, uh, previously we’d go to the city and state to test, and we found out through research and Freedom of Information Act from Curt Guyette from the ACLU that they were falsifying their tests.”
Baseball hat: “Sure, I mean why [inaudible]”
Black hoodie: “So yeah, we have nobody, our trust is gone. We trust no one, so if somebody comes back and says ‘Your water’s safe’ there’s just no way we can believe it. In my house we have a copper service line, so we our tub water turns blue every morning, and that’s completely unsafe, it’s a neurotoxin. Lead sauter welds [inaudible] so everytime I see blue water I know that there’s lead in there, lead has no color. We also have aluminum, tin, and chromium in our water which are all neurotoxins.”
Baseball hat: “Lemme ask you a crazy question. Crazy question- like I said, we’re not here. What would it take to fix the problems? Cuz you’re here- this is ground- this is ground zero. You’re livin’ it everyday.”
Baseball hat: “What would it take- if, if money were no object- what would it take to fix the problem? Cuz we don’t know. Cuz we don’t live here.”
Black hoodie: “Replacing the pipes. The pipes were damaged by the caustic, untreated river water, and so that’s the only thing that’s gonna fix this, replacing the torn up pipes. Otherwise they’re gonna keep leeching the heavy metals into the water, and we’re gonna keep depending on people like you to-”
Baseball hat: “-That come from DC-”
Black hoodie: “Yeah, that come from DC and all across the country, to help us.”
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