Flint’s healing must involve all parties to its crisis

Dr. Laura Sullivan is a mechanical engineering professor at Kettering University in Flint. She co-chairs Flint's Technical Water Advisory Board and was appointed to the Flint Water Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee by Gov. Rick Snyder.

Flint is, lately, a community synonymous with problems and the ensuing individual and collective struggle that results from them.

Flint’s past struggles have often stemmed from external factors such as corporate departures resulting in increased unemployment, population loss, crime and economic inequality. These have delivered negative consequences to Flint but its latest challenge is different.

The water crisis in Flint is internal. It exists under our streets, in our pipes and out of the faucets in our homes. We have a history of banding together to overcome external threats. Today, we can remediate the threat that pours into our homes by acting as the decision-making body for our community’s future.

Rebuilding Flint has to start with the most hurt and disheartened populations that represent the ethical and moral imperative of the community. It is in the suffering of the under-privileged that we will discover plans and solutions for moving this city forward.

The scientific challenge in Flint lacks precedent. Improperly treated water from the Flint River flowed through Flint’s pipes and into homes of citizens in parts of the city from April 2014 to October 2015. Lack of corrosion control caused interactions in galvanized steel and lead pipes in mains, service lines and household plumbing. This interaction was often different at each home and block. Now, the community is attempting to move forward from this crisis by investigating the viability of its water infrastructure.

I am currently serving many individuals exploring solutions to Flint’s current water ills. However, the voice of the residents – the individuals who relentlessly organized and protested with vigor and determination – is absent from this process. The answers to Flint’s current pathology lies in the hands of those most affected by the current crisis. Ignoring the voices of each individual only serves to perpetuate the decades-long mistrust of authority and government in Flint.

Retired National Guard Brig. Gen. Michael C.H. McDaniel and I are attempting to transform this process by empowering Flint residents to prioritize replacement of lead pipe services lines.

The first step is self-reporting by residents. We will provide instructions for residents to evaluate their lead service lines and report them to the city.

Next, we are organizing a group of residents to prioritize their replacement, based on the risk level of the resident, immediacy of need and self-reporting. The process will be driven by residents.

The cure for helplessness is purpose. By including residents in the planning and decision making, their collective voice is amplified. The residents are being heard, trusted and enlisted to participate in the healing of the community. Empowering residents to create a bottom-up solution to Flint’s current ills is the only way to ensure collective success during and after this crisis.

Our recommendation is for all groups, organizations and government bodies working in Flint to abandon the top-down approach to governance that is partly responsible for this crisis. A more sustainable solution is to enlist the support of those living and combating the crisis.

Truly transparent, consensus and collaborative decision-making is an essential precursor to creating a sustainable Flint. The scale of the current struggle is enormous, and goes beyond any single stakeholder or special interest. It spills over neighborhood boundaries. But the solution is more manageable than the problem. The solution will arise one home and one individual at a time. All we have to do is ask the residents for help.