Photo: Bishop Bernadette L. Jefferson and husband, Lathan Jefferson.
Bishop Bernadette L. Jefferson still remembers the taste of that water. Not the clean, cool tap water Flint once took pride in—but the one that left a film in her mouth and a sinking feeling in her gut. It was April 25, 2014. Her grandson handed her a glass, and something wasn’t right. “It was bubbling,” she recalled. “And I said, ‘Why didn’t you run the water?’ He said, ‘I did, Granny.’” That moment, down to the residue it left behind, never left her spirit. It became her alarm, one that would soon echo throughout Flint and far beyond.
Eleven years later, the state says Flint is nearing the end of its lead pipe replacement efforts. But ask any longtime resident—especially those who were first to speak out—and that claim doesn’t hold. Not when pipes under vacant homes remain untouched. Not when residents say they were skipped, lied to, or misled. Not when trauma lives in bodies, homes, schools, and water lines still standing after a decade of delay.
“They say that it’s completed. It’s not completed,” said Bishop Jefferson, who’s been a frontline voice in Flint’s fight for safe water. “If you didn’t finish and replace all the pipes, then it’s not done. Whether you couldn’t reach the person or whatever reason. But why would you falsify information and say that it’s done?”
Contrarily, Flint Mayor Sheldon Neely told the Michigan Chronicle that, “From crisis to recovery, Flint stands in wonderful position. As EPA has lifted Flint from the status of emergency and the last few residents are giving the required consent to replace lines. We are positively engaging the future.”
Flint’s water crisis began as a political decision, not an environmental accident. In 2014, a state-appointed emergency manager cut Flint off from Detroit’s water system, opting for the Flint River in a bid to save money. But there was no plan to treat the water. According to Bishop Jefferson, for the price of $100 a day, corrosion controls could have prevented lead from leaching into people’s homes. Instead, that decision snowballed into mass poisoning, a public health collapse, and one of the most egregious environmental injustices in American history.
More than a decade later, Flint is still a case study—but not the kind that offers resolution. “Other cities are racing not to be Flint,” said Margie Kelly of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the group that sued the city to force pipe replacement. Under a 2017 legal settlement, Flint agreed to remove all lead service lines and restore yards, free of charge. But the timeline cracked under reality. First, there were no clear records of which homes had lead lines. Some documents were handwritten on notecards dating back to the 1900s. Then, contractors were directed to prioritize known lead locations, not neighborhoods block by block. COVID-19 added another layer of delay.
Even now, the state acknowledges hundreds of lines remain—particularly at vacant properties or homes where owners didn’t respond. That legal loophole created a gap wide enough for public trust to fall through. Bishop Jefferson said residents were repeatedly misled about whether work was completed. “They had to hire people to knock on people’s doors to say that they had came by,” she said. “But they were not knocking. They would put a door hanger on there that said, ‘We stopped by and you weren’t near.’ My daughter was home. She came to the door and they asked if they could just take a picture to show they put it on there.”
What was marketed as outreach, some Flint families now describe as cover-up.
The physical symptoms were just the beginning. Lead seeped into the lives of children, silently reshaping their futures. “My grandson was supposed to be an academic ambassador to go to Washington,” Bishop Jefferson shared. “He was an A-B student. But by 2015, he was a D-E-F student. He had been lead poisoned by the water. He was supposed to graduate three or four years ago. He hasn’t yet.”
That story is not isolated. It’s a warning. Behavior, cognition, rage, and emotional processing—Bishop Jefferson said all have been affected. She described how children who once loved to learn now struggle to focus or manage their emotions. “Mental health has been harmed. I’ve watched them change. The suicide rate is up. Either they’re killing themselves or killing other people because of the rage. They are not able to control their emotions. Not because they’re crazy, not because of ADHD—because of the lead.”
Her husband, Lathan Jefferson, added another layer. From the beginning, he saw danger in Flint’s plan to draw from the river. He even contacted the White House. “I told them they’re going to give people water out of the river,” he said. “It was contaminated by General Motors, DuPont, and AC. AC made rocket fuel and dumped waste in the Flint River. Consumer’s Power had PVP oil in their transformers. That river was toxic, and they knew it.”
Lathan Jefferson said his call triggered a 17-minute conversation between the White House and then-Governor Rick Snyder. “He knew what that river was,” he said. But even when General Motors was allowed to switch back to Detroit’s water in October 2014—because the Flint River was corroding auto parts—residents were told it was too expensive to return the same privilege to households.
“That’s not democracy. That’s dictatorship,” Bishop Jefferson said. “When you take control and have one say-so over everything and everybody, that’s not democracy.”
Neely says the fight for better still continues when it comes to the city, “I am still strongly requesting that water settlement funds be released to Flint residence, that’s totally controlled by the US District Court, by way of special master. I’m asking our federal partners to help advocate for the release of those dollars to Flint residents,” he said. “As a lifelong resident of Flint, I will continue to encourage family friends and neighbors as we move forward.”
The trauma isn’t limited to lead. Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks, at least a dozen deaths, and increased cancer rates have also been linked to the crisis. Bishop Jefferson lost family members. Others in her community were diagnosed with cancer after years of exposure. “We used to be a thriving, vibrant community,” she said. “That’s not here anymore.”
The economic toll has been just as cruel. Whole neighborhoods were gutted—first by water, then by abandonment. Bishop Jefferson pointed to vacant homes on the city’s north and east sides. “They stopped fixing houses. They stopped the money. What does that do? Deteriorate the neighborhood. We used to have communities. Now we just have streets with one or two homes.”
Even funding meant to help the city rebuild, like American Rescue Plan dollars, hasn’t reached the people as promised. “They didn’t do with the ARPA funds what they were supposed to do,” she said. “If they would quit dumping on Flint and begin to help us, we could be made whole.”
The lingering injustice in Flint is more than a failure of infrastructure—it’s a breach of human dignity. It’s a system that treated people as disposable and continues to act like harm can be closed out with paperwork.
Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) says it remains committed to finishing the job. Eric Oswald, director of drinking water, said the state and city are working to leave “no stone unturned.” Contractors have been ordered to visually confirm completed work. But that doesn’t erase what’s been lost. Or the way residents were treated—by government officials, utility companies, and even public health departments that failed to fully educate people about secondary exposure risks.
Lathan Jefferson summed it up clearly when recounting a conversation with a local worker. “I asked, do you still drink Flint water? He said no, he has bottled water. I said, what about brushing your teeth? He said, ‘I don’t swallow it.’ I told him, ‘But you scrub it into your gums.’”
That lack of understanding—of the body, of the system, of the pain—is exactly what continues to push families like the Jeffersons to speak out.
This is year eleven. The headlines may have moved on. But Flint hasn’t. And it won’t. Not until every pipe is replaced. Not until every child harmed is accounted for. Not until communities are rebuilt—not patched over. Not until truth is met with justice.
Because in Flint, the lead never left. But neither did the people.
About Post Author
