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[ominous music]
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[Mama Sol] Now we come in peace
with the intent to increase
and restore hope for the hopeless
and love is the focus.
I pray that this message will reach far
beyond them clouds, God, we need you involved.
Now your spirit is needed.
So this isn't repeated.
Why is it like this? A crisis?
I cry with my right fist lifted
for my brothers and sisters.
These little kids are becoming statistics.
Honestly, I'm questioning if this was intended.
[Reporter] It has been five decades
since Flint used the river for drinking water.
Today, they opened up the gates to start that process again.
[Reporter 2] Using river water
for drinking water brings a unique set
of challenges, but the city of Flint is doing many things
to make sure this water meets
the expectations of those who live in the city.
[ominous music]
- Here's to Flint. - Here's to Flint.
- Here, here. - Here, here.
[ominous music]
[Reporter] Flint's residents have been dealing
with a mountain of trouble since the city
began pumping water from the Flint River.
-[Resident] I don't trust it. -[Reporter 2] Residents in
some parts of Flint are distrustful
of what is coming out of their tap.
[Narrator] This is the story of what happens next.
[ominous music]
[children chattering]
No, it's our ball.
I'm landing all these shots.
[voices fading]
[Tammy Loren] All the water hydrants in neighborhood,
all running full blast, 24/7,
and the water completely brown.
And that's when I really realized
that something was wrong.
[Tammy] Can you beat me? Huh?
Elijah, you're on my team.
Peyton Manning!
[laughter]
Hey, hey, hey.
Hey, how's it going?
They're kicking my butt.
[Tammy] Our 12 year old son, Jeremiah...
I got 'em!
Oh, see, I told ya.
[Tammy] ...It started off with the skin rashes and itching.
What looked like chicken pox.
I know it was due to the water
because he's never had these issues before.
And we've never had such serious health problems before.
I've been in and out of hospitals.
And then these bumps started appearing all over my left arm.
Once it happened, we just stopped
and started... went to baby wipes.
Oh, baby wipes.
We have to... have to manage.
[TV Reporter]Residents in Flint have been protesting
about the water problems in Flint...
[Tammy] They go from being high energy,
wanting to do things, to just wanting to sleep.
Go grab a jacket. Look in the hallway.
[Reporter] Residents have been complaining about
about the quality of their water for months.
[Tammy] And lay down and do nothing at all.
[Reporter]...has sediment about this far in the bottom.
So, quite disgusting.
[Tammy] Their personalities have changed.
And ever since we started drinking the water,
it has gotten worse.
As a mother, it breaks my heart
because there's nothing I can do.
[ominous music]
I wanna sit in the house.
We needed a little bit more water, now we have it.
Uh-oh, you wasted more.
- Right here. - Ooh, it's cold.
We need more, Mom.
We gotta to heat the water up.
Extra energy that I have to pay for.
Two, one...
[imitates microwave beeping]
[giggles]
You gotta get a lather.
[Child] I will never trust the water.
[Narrator] For months, the residents of Flint
are told their water may look bad,
but it's perfectly safe by
the very environmental agencies
who were supposed to protect them.
My family and I drink the water every day.
- Right. - It's your standard tap water.
You know, you taste a little bit of the chlorine.
[Politician] We have to do some work
on our water treatment plant.
Not only will that save us some money,
which in the long term...
- You're killing us! - Sir, please.
I'm not killing anybody.
[Man] I think people feel that their bodies
and their lives and their wellbeing is being compromised.
[crowd cheers]
You gonna kill me? And my husband?
What you gonna do?
[ominous music]
[Florlisa Fowler] I'm afraid to use the water in my home.
I'm afraid to go into my bathroom and take a shower.
[Narrator] The Flint River causes
General Motors car parts to rust.
[Reporter] It was one thing after another,
they were treating the water before filtering it,
which caused them to have to use more chlorine.
[Reporter 2] GM says those higher chlorine levels
create some sort of corrosion.
[Florlisa Fowler] They did the news broadcast.
And I was like, if it's corroding parts,
then what is it doing to us?
Yup.
Yeah, she was trying to be really helpful here.
But these are the five gallon jugs that we have to use.
I'm extremely upset. They're literally messing
with our children's lives.
Okay, then. I'll match that.
[laughing]
- Yellow. - Yellow.
- Yellow? - Yellow.
Uno. No, Uno.
Oh, now you've gotta pick up the cards.
[laughter]
He got you.
[ominous music]
[Trachelle Young] I keep the door closed
and I keep the desk in front of the door.
I've not used it since they did the switch
to the Flint River.
So, this was my get away at home.
And now it's not.
There's nothing more fundamental
to your life than water.
And for that to be what can actually hurt you,
cripple you, or kill you,
it's just something that you could never get over.
[Dan Foley] Flint's News Talk 1470 WFNT.
Dan Foley here with you,
we've got a lotta guests we're gonna talk to.
Dan Foley, Sherman Mayes.
Political aspect of it.
People are swooping in here.
You got this crisis of trust. And the question is,
who do you trust, and what do you turn to?
We're going to play a little bit of this and we'll come back.
You know what, I don't need the last break.
[Dan] I love my job. I love what I do here.
I've been here almost 20 years.
There's a certain toughness.
There's an attitude...
Flint courage. Flint love.
Bravery. Bogus.
Every resident of Flint, we are soldiers.
[Dan] and you root for Flint.
Obviously huge, huge problems.
There's challenges for Flint, absolutely.
You've got a shrinking city.
You got a tax base that's just destroyed.
There's not a lot of money in the city of Flint.
You hate to see what it's become.
[Mama Sol] Hold Flint high.
Flint strong. Flint pride.
[Dan] But this city was
the Silicon Valley of the day.
It's amazing, the history in Flint.
[bell rings, car revs]
[Reporter] Here's the very first GM car.
[Reporter 2] Giant assembly plants,
the great producing units of the nation's
mightiest manufacturing enterprise awaits.
[Reporter 3] New wealth flourishes,
and new prosperity grows.
[Dan] Booming, richest city in the country.
[Reporter] With the whole city watching,
Flint, Michigan throws a birthday party.
[Reporter 2] The 50 millionth General Motors car...
[Reporter 3] As America says, now I know
why people loves Flint.
♪ The city of of Flint salutes you ♪
[Dan] So the population peaked
at about 190,000 in the 1970s,
and about 80,000 people worked in the shops then.
[explosion]
General motors confirmed it today,
it is going to close plants
employing almost 30,000 workers.
[Dan] By 2010, the population is cut in half
and only 8,000 are still working for GM,
less than 10% of what it was.
[Reporter] According to the FBI, Flint now has the highest
violent crime rate in America.
[Narrator] The city enters a period
of wrenching economic decline.
[band playing]
[cannons fire]
I, Richard D. Snyder, do solemnly swear
to uphold the Constitution of the United States
and the office of governor.
[Narrator] Promising to turn things around,
a new governor, Rick Snyder pledges
to run Michigan like a business.
The old ways don't work.
I'm an accountant, and your governor.
I found I can help more people when the numbers add up.
[Narrator] The governor strips the Flint city council
of its powers, and his team makes deep cuts
to police, fire protection and other public services.
[Pastor Harris] Our whole city is gripped
by a spirit of hopelessness.
People are saying, I have no voice.
I have no democracy.
What's more important? What's more valuable?
Is it the budget or is it your citizens?
Now we're talking about cutting police and fire.
Then what? Do we close the doors on the city?
[Snyder] We're on the road to recovery
for every Michigander.
You might not feel it yet, but you will soon.
[Narrator] To save more money,
the state also forces the city
to stop using water from the Great Lakes...
and instead switch to the Flint River.
[ominous music]
- Here's to Flint. - Here's to Flint.
- Here, here. - Here, here.
[Narrator] The change is made to save $5 million.
[ominous music]
Oh, wow. So you'll be able to see along the wall,
how low... you can see the water lines
and how low the river is.
You can look right down to the bottom
and see car parts, tires, shopping carts.
You shouldn't be able to.
Everything that's just been thrown in there
because the Flint River has been a dumping site
for a hundred years.
[Bill Robock] Half the time you walk down to the river,
you'll find a body floating.
The animals, they go drink from it and they die.
So the thought that we would actually be drinking this,
most of us just thought it was a joke.
Flip the switch
and run the water on warm.
And then tell me if anything is discolored.
- Okay. - Thank you. Love you.
So here's What are You Fighting For.
What we do is we collect
news articles, scientific research,
anything that's happening, videos.
[Resident] Watch what comes out of my drinking tap.
Some of our preliminary research,
this is just some of the things that people have sent us.
I wanted to know where were the trouble areas in the city.
The red stars are people that have had medical issues,
hair losses, rashes, bad color, and odor.
So if they checked off all those
on the sheets, we put the stars on.
I'm grateful for you guys that get out on the front line
and do the political work and investigating work.
What my husband did is he designed these door hangers.
Basically, it says please be advised we're here
to help us help you.
[Protestors] What do we want? Clean water!
When do we want it? Now!
Flint Lives Matter! Flint Lives Matter!
Fix the pipes! Fix the pipes!
[Reverend Cardwell] So we come, God, to pray,
broken spirits, broken lives.
[Reverend Edwards] See what happens when
we elect a businessman to run the state.
He doesn't care about the people that he hurts.
He doesn't care about the lives he affects.
Enough is enough. We want our water fixed now.
[ominous music]
[Narrator] Taking matters into their own hands,
residents organize their own citywide water testing
with the help of professor Marc Edwards,
a highly decorated scientist from Virginia Tech University.
Do you have pictures of those at all?
Pull out the data for these.
[Narrator] He made his reputation uncovering
a water contamination scandal in Washington, DC.
[Marc Edwards] We're one of the few labs in the country,
a CSI of plumbing, if you will,
that solves people's problems
that they experienced in their houses.
And it's proving to be
the research frontier of the 21st century.
Can you do that, Cole? Look straight at the camera.
Come here, come here. Hold still.
[Melissa] We're a pretty normal family of five.
My husband and I have been married for 19 and a half years.
And we have three amazing sons, Caleb, Christian, and Cole.
And we do normal things. [laughs]
[loud metal music playing]
I am a promoter. I manage bands.
One actually practices in the house.
[metal singing]
[Melissa] Also back in that same general vicinity,
you'll see the guitar that's been autographed.
So make sure you get your tickets because that is a...
[indistinguishable muttering]
One of a ki... I'm not even drinking yet!
One of a kind guitar! So speaking of drinking,
I think I should get started.
So should you. But right now,
I want you guys to give it up for Portals!
Thank you, Melissa.
Okay, here, will you put these under the sink?
Give those to your dad, and then put this up
in the cabinet for me, please.
Thank you.
[Melissa] We have a government state not listening to us.
So we are testing 300 people's homes.
This photo is awesome. This is Virginia Tech.
They have students over in Virginia
that are sending us 300 test kits.
They're sending us the bottles next week.
We're going to test people's homes and we're going
to get accurate answers for copper and lead.
Everything you're going to need to do,
the sampling, is the sampling kit box that you received
and let that first liter fill up.
When it's done, I'll take note of the time
and set the bottle aside and let the tap run for 45 seconds.
[Marc] When we started this,
we didn't know what we'd find, but we had to act.
I mean, children, literally I felt were unprotected
by the law,
by the agencies who were paid to protect them.
This is the bottle that we put the water in.
[Melissa] We walked them through
and we sent everybody the YouTube link.
It's time to repackage them
to send them back to Virginia Tech.
Do you need someone to pick it up?
Okay. Where are you located?
We're going to test with Virginia Tech.
We seal it up.
Everyone's complaining. Why is my water red?
Why does my water taste bad?
Hold on, where's Marc at?
Yay, we got an outsider.
Ain't no politics in it, you know?
And he has no reason to come in here and tell us a story.
Right. So I was like, great.
We've got somebody, an outsider doing it.
And everybody kind of was looking for somebody
to tell the truth.
[Narrator] Volunteers deliver hundreds
of water sampling kits to homes throughout the city.
It should be the first left after Court Street.
I've been here since I was two, I'm 66.
- Okay. What's this, this is it? - Yep.
[cat meows]
[Anthony Baxter] What kind of water does he drink?
I'm giving bottled water.
I mean, it's just heartwrenching.
It's like, what? Are you serious?
People are going through a lot with this water.
[Narrator] In just six weeks,
the volunteers collect ten times as many samples
as the state government tested in the previous six months.
[Maddie Brouse] All the bottles are being shipped back
to the lab this week, and we should have
the results next week.
Over 585 volunteers, we got 277 tests backs.
This is what America is about,
the people do rule
and you all have proven that.
We have people with 158 parts per billion lead...
[Marc] Melissa was just incredible.
She was always there front and center, truly heroic.
[Dan] This is a collaboration
between people who are affected by the water,
and scientists who can come and say, no, this is not right.
They're telling you things that aren't true.
[Marc] 90% return rate.
I've never heard anything like it.
In fact, I would've bet money to say it wouldn't be possible.
13. This is bottle three.
Double check, triple check everything.
Okay, so here for the press conference.
We're going to be setting up over here.
So if you want to be on camera, go that way.
Everybody here? Thank you all for coming.
Melissa from What are You Fighting For?
Today is a huge, huge day
for the water fight in Flint.
This is what... this is what some
of the water across the city looks like.
I've sampled water personally
from people's homes that looks like this.
This is occurring because the water is too corrosive.
It has too much salt in it.
And there was no plan to control the corrosion.
Flint is the only city in America that I'm aware of,
who does not have a corrosion control plan in place
to stop this kind of problem.
So on the basis of the sampling that Virginia Tech conducted
in collaboration with Flint residents,
we estimate that the water in about 5,000 Flint homes
is over standards set by the World Health Organization
for lead in water.
It's a tragedy. It's outrageous.
And somebody needs to go to prison.
When you see your child's health
go down so drastically...
It affects you
because there's nothing you can do.
And we need help.
Basically, the bottom line is stop trying
to come up with ways to hide the lead.
[Dr. Hanna-Attisha] Lead exposure has these lifelong
cognitive and behavioral consequences
that you do not see right away.
So when pediatricians hear lead, they freak out.
Lead is one of the most damning things you can do to a child.
If they send it out to a lab,
but hopefully that's not gonna be the case for you.
[wincing]
[Dr. Hanna-Attisha] I needed to find out if that lead and water was getting
into the bodies of our children.
I right away contacted our research department,
and we found the exact same thing.
Our elevated blood lead levels were
in the exact same locations where the water lead levels
from the Virginia Tech group were increased.
So it implicated that it was the water as a source.
[ominous music]
I just had a physical gut reaction that this is so bad.
A new study is showing an increased level of lead
in young children.
For kids less than five years of age,
for all of Flint, there was an almost doubling
of the percentage of kids with elevated blood lead levels.
[ominous music]
I never in my life thought that in Michigan we would go
through something like this.
[Narrator] The results shock Flint
and then all of America.
Growing outrage in Flint, Michigan...
[reporters overlapping]
[Reporter] Federal, state, and local agencies
all reportedly had evidence the water was bad.
[Rachel Maddow] The people of Flint did not
bring this on themselves.
Through no fault of their own,
they were poisoned by their state's government...
That's what settles into the bottom.
The water will actually get clear when you let it sit
and all of it will settle to the bottom.
And then you shake it up,
and you get this out of the kitchen tap.
13,000 parts per billion lead.
I mean, hazardous waste is defined as
anything over 5,000 parts per billion.
So her children were literally taking a bath
in hazardous waste.
[Narrator] The river water is so corrosive,
it tears off the protective layer from inside
of Flint's lead pipes.
This sends toxic particles into the drinking water supply,
poisoning tens of thousands of people.
[ominous music]
That's what I'm saying, it's like sewage water.
Yeah, not very healthy looking, is it?
[Dr. Hanna-Attisha] Lead crosses your blood-brain barrier.
It's a neurotoxin, it causes irreversible brain damage.
So detecting it in children is too late.
It is that canary in the coal mine.
It's already too late.
We have just altered
the life course trajectory
of an entire generation of Flint children.
[orchestral music]
[Narrator] Despite his earlier claims
that Flint river water is safe, Governor Snyder is forced
to allow the city to use water from the Great Lakes once again.
Yesterday afternoon,
we had a technical advisory council meeting.
I'm in full support of a return
to the Great Lakes Water Authority.
And we believe based on the technical recommendations,
it will be better for the citizens of Flint
in terms of public safety, which is our paramount concern.
[applause]
[Melissa] The first response I feel is victory.
Victory, because you know what? We gave them the science.
We didn't stop fighting
and they had to make the change.
[Narrator] The people of Flint are assured
the water crisis is all but over.
While this is a victory, like, we need to still
ensure that we remain on message and remain in the fight
because this is that thing where it's like they going
to give you a little bone and then they're going to hope
you're going to be happy with that bone.
[Anthony] Now I see you have your water filter there
from Governor Snyder.
Do you know how to use it? - Let me open the box.
I still gotta pay a 200-something dollar
water bill this month.
[Woman] I don't know, I guess I'll have
to read the instructions.
And then you do have to buy replacements for these.
You can say you can't, you're not gonna drink it,
but if you haven't got any money,
can't buy no water, what are you gonna do?
[Reporter] Governor Snyder and his wife
now drinking filtered water from Flint...
[Reporter 2] for the next 30 days.
I don't want this to be viewed as a gimmick kind of thing.
This is something serious to me.
[ominous music]
[Narrator] Even though the river is no longer
being used, the drinking water in many Flint homes
continues to show high levels of lead.
[Joe Ragnone] A couple of weeks ago,
I saw a thing on TV about you should get your water tested.
The water levels that have been tested were now online.
So I went to Michigan.gov/Flintwater.
The very, very last one,
as I scrolled down, there was mine
at the bottom of the page.
My lead 5,447.
We didn't really have a lot of discoloration in the water.
So it was very surprising to find out
that my water is one of the worst than Flint.
"The Virginia Tech Department of Civil and Environmental
"Engineering has completed a lead analysis
"of your tap water samples.
"The first drawn was 7.2
and the next one was 1,051."
Oh gosh.
[Narrator] According to federal guidelines,
lead levels in drinking water over 15 parts per billion
are deemed dangerous.
The lead levels in this house are 70 times higher.
They explained that I was not supposed to,
you know, brush my teeth with it or anything like that.
You know, don't drink the water in here.
You know, it's water.
[indistinct chatter]
[Marc] So this is the second worst house
in terms of lead in the city of Flint.
In science, you learn from studying extremes,
like why is there a problem here?
So we're going to pull out her pipes.
Then I'll take the pipes home back to our lab.
We'll cut them open and try to see what went wrong.
Why is there so much lead?
[Anthony] Is there something about living
in a remote area that kind of helps you deal with all this?
No question. It's a refuge.
And it's also something that gives you more appreciation
for people than perhaps you had
when we lived in the cities.
And, you know, Virginia Tech's a land grant institution,
we have a very service oriented mission.
And I think that's one of the reasons they've tolerated me
as long as they have
because our motto's Ut Prosim,
and that means "that I may serve."
And to some extent,
all of the trouble I've gotten into
has exemplified that motto.
So these are the front pages with the residents,
and we really put ourselves out there.
The Washington Postarticle.
This is an example of a lead pipe from Flint.
This lead pipe would last probably
three to four thousand years.
It was legally required that if a customer wanted
to connect to the water main, they had to use lead
because it protected the city's interest.
It would not leak.
Thus lead's reputation as a great plumbing material,
except for the drawback that it poisons people
and causes fetal death and miscarriages.
You see that coming out there?
That's lead rust, that's enough lead to cause lead poisoning
in more than 3,000 children.
[ominous music]
[Narrator] Though Flint has the worst poverty rate
of any city in the United States,
residents continue to pay
the nation's highest water bills.
So I have to get in line in a minute here
and pay for my poison.
[indistinct chatter]
We grow up in America thinking that this is the land
of the free and the brave, and find out
that that's totally not true.
[Receptionist] $136.48.
[Christina] If the state finds out that you have kids
in your home and you don't pay your water bill,
then they start harassing you
because you don't have running water in the home.
They're doing anything and everything
to make it the citizen's fault
and even using your own children against you.
So out of fear, we pay for it.
[Narrator] Volunteers try to fill the gap
in the governor's response to the crisis.
As a nonprofit organization, that's where we come in.
You know, it's our job and our duty
to come up here and help 'em.
No matter what color, race,
or whatever you is, we're going to come up here.
And we still got water that we collected,
that we haven't even brought up here yet.
[Woman] What a wonderful time of year
to be in Michigan with our friends and families.
We're fortunate to live in
such a wonderful state and nation.
We're thankful for our family and friends,
our health, and so much more.
Happy holidays, Michigan.
[Narrator] Two weeks after his Christmas message,
Governor Snyder finally agrees to provide
one case of bottled water a day to each Flint family.
Is there any way that we can get more than one?
My daughter had a rash on the back of her neck.
My youngest daughter,
she's two years old.
She's just, she's been sick,
and we've been taking her to the hospital.
Thank you. Oh, yeah I think I got it.
I think we shouldn't have to go to them to pick it up.
What about the people who don't have transportation?
You know, they have to get on a bus,
come down here, pick up water.
It's snowing. [laughs]
They have a sign out that says one per household,
one per day.
If you have six children and you're only giving out
one case of 24, how's that helping?
Especially if you're making formula.
- Thank you. - You have a great day.
You too. Come on buddy.
[Florlisa] I have never gotten more
than one case of water from this location ever.
The camera does make a lot of difference.
Um, big time.
So thank you.
Hi. How are you doing?
I'm Nayyirah, and I'm a volunteer
at Michigan Faith and Action.
And we're here to see if need any water.
You know, you can't boil the water.
I just found that out, I just been cooking
my oatmeal and my grits, and my spaghetti.
Lead is not like bacteria like E. Coli,
it's metal, so boiling is actually making it worse,
it's making it stronger in the water.
So here's some health information about it.
So with everything going on with the water,
this needs to be changed
every two to three weeks.
- Oh, really? - Yeah.
Nobody told me that.
This is why we've been going door to door.
This used to be my dining room. Some of this is for my family
and some of this is for the elderly that I deliver
to every two weeks to make sure they have water.
[Nayyirah] We're doing the state's job for them.
They should be going door to door.
They should be like, talking to people
and really like, assessing, like, this is the damage.
Hi. How are you?
So do you have bottled water?
[Woman] I have one, yeah.
I stopped and picked up.
So when's the last time
you changed your filter? - Um...
You're supposed to change it every two weeks.
Every... oh, really? Every two weeks? Okay.
- Okay. - [Snyder] I don't want to
discourage people from being helpful
in contributing to this crisis
because it's great to see the volunteer efforts,
the outpouring of efforts.
And again, I encourage people to go to helpforflint.com
and look at financial contributions
because again, much water is coming in.
Hopefully we'll get the water issue addressed.
And I do appreciate people paying their bill.
There's a sewer portion of this bill
that people are using that function.
[Reporter] Governor, have you actually
been into a Flint home yet?
Have you been into one Flint home yet, Governor?
[Aide] Last question.
Governor's Snyder, you insist that the water here
in Flint is safe to drink, to bathe, and shower in.
I wonder why the people of Flint should trust you.
Filtered water has been determined to be safe
for people to drink, except for children through six
and for pregnant women. - One house last month
tested 22,000 parts per billion lead.
Is it safe for them to use a filter and drink that water?
That would be a particle, and if it's 22,000,
that's a really big particle.
[Narrator] It turns out there was a problem
with the water filters Governor Snyder says
will keep people safe.
Many residents just can't get them to work.
It fell off a couple of weeks after.
And it won't go back up.
I don't know how to do it.
[Harrington] Thanks for coming, I know it was a rough drive.
I think we've got about 55 faucets we want
to get done today.
[Narrator] Members of Harold Harrington's
plumbers union volunteer to do something about it.
[indistinct chatter]
[Harrington] The Red Cross called me beacuse
they got these filters being delivered from the state.
And a lot of residents could not install these filters.
So we started doing that.
He needs two filters installed. He had a stroke.
He's unable, his hands are a little wiggly or whatever.
I'm going to go make sure they take the test kits
with them and everything else.
[Man] Okay. Okay.
[Narrator] However, the lead levels
in many homes are so high, the filters being handed out
by the state aren't guaranteed to work.
The Environmental Protection Agency
issues a public health warning.
The EPA has issued an opinion that says
that the toxins are too high
for the filters to be effective.
They should have known, all these scientists?
[crowd murmurs]
You should have known that
these filters would not... you should have tested.
[Jessica] All of my girls, all girls, are born with
all the eggs they're ever gonna have reproductive-wise.
[cooing back and forth]
Lead becomes a part of your bones,
it becomes a part of your tissues,
it becomes a part of your reproductive system.
I have no idea if this is going to cause them
to have problems when they're older.
[Anthony] When did you first realize
there was a problem with the water?
My daughter ended up getting sick.
It was just like bam, out of control.
Like from day to night, she came downstairs,
she looked like a different child.
[baby squeals]
Okay! [sighs]
Water.
Gonna bathe your little leggies.
[Jessica] The other horrible end of that also,
medical communities are going to be studying our children,
seeing the effects of these chemicals
and these heavy metals have on their bodies,
which makes me absolutely nauseous
'cause I did not volunteer my children
to be a part of a medical study.
I did not.
And if you take your child to a pediatrician
and you tell them about this,
all they can do is shake their head and just say,
well, you just have to wait and see if they have any reactions.
[ominous music]
Okay.
So I figured macaroni and cheese with hot dogs?
[dogs barking]
Okay, actually, dogs.
Bye, honey.
Thank you for, well, somebody answering me.
Come on, person. Thank you.
We are holding a informational meeting
for the class action lawsuits.
The state who did this to us needs to pay
for people's medical expenses.
Not everybody has medical access,
medical insurance, or the money
to pay for these expenses.
Plus these kids and these adults are going
to need medical care for the rest of their lives.
So somebody needs to pay that bill.
Oh my, that's a lot of traffic.
Wonder if that's for us.
[indistinct chatter]
[Melissa] It's broken into three lawsuits now.
So there's gonna be three different judges.
So it's in the county court of claims,
as well as the state and federal.
Unfortunately, we are at capacity
in this particular room,
and we cannot have more people come in.
[Melissa] Take a notebook and start writing down
everything you can think of that's changed
or different since April 25th, 2014.
Every doctor's appointment, every rash.
Cause it'll make it a lot easier and faster
to get your information together.
[Trachelle Young] Good evening, everyone.
- [Audience] Good evening. - [Trachelle] All right.
I want the sound to reflect the volume
of people that are in his room,
because it is absolutely amazing to us to have
this type of turnout for this event.
[applause]
There's more people here, which is good.
That means it's more people not drinking the water
and more people finding out about their health
and finding out what their rights are.
Most of you know me, my name is attorney Trachelle Young.
I was born and raised right here in Flint, I live in Flint.
My office is about two miles up the road
on the corner of Saginaw and Baker.
You know, the state has provided filters
and the replacement cartridges.
And as far as we're concerned,
that's the least the state can do.
[applause]
[Trachelle] It's not about just getting money.
We do want to get some compensation for our clients
that have been injured.
We believe they deserve to be compensated,
not just for their personal injury,
but for their property loss,
for the emotional and mental stress that they've had
to deal with, you know, for providing and wondering
about the welfare of their children.
So we have formed a dynamic team.
We have been very active and on the move.
We have already filed multiple pieces of litigation.
So I'm going to go to the back of the room.
Do you yourself feel that we should have all of
the City of Flint's pipes replaced?
We don't trust what they're saying
and we want the pipes replaced, period.
[applause]
[Narrator] In response, Flint's new mayor pledges
to replace every lead pipe in the city,
though she has only a fraction of the money needed.
[Anthony] Mayor Weaver, how do you feel
seeing the first lead line coming out today?
This is a day that we've been waiting for
for a very, very long time.
So, you know, the sun is shining on us
and we couldn't ask for a better day for, you know,
a wonderful event like this.
We need you to move this way.
Well, good afternoon, everybody
and thank you for coming out today.
This is a great day for the city of Flint.
And it's a day that we have been waiting for.
My mission is to totally get the lead out of Flint.
We need to be focused on a complete renewal
of Flint's water system because
we owe our residents something.
This is our start.
[Worker] Done.
[applause]
Into the future we go.
[applause]
[Man] Good job, my man.
Mayor Weaver, extremely happy to oversee this first job,
acknowledged from the podium that there's only money
at the moment to do about another 230 of these.
She would like to do about 15,000
and the money won't be available
to even start really doing that until October of 2016.
So we're looking at October of 2017
before the city of Flint is really beyond this crisis
that's afflicted them for almost two years now, Kate.
[sad, ominous music]
[Anthony] You have to walk?
[Man] Yeah, walk or chase the bus.
I prefer that they were delivered to everybody's house
instead of people have to go pick it up themselves.
[sad, ominous music]
[Sandra Greene] That's my grandson.
He's the youngest.
This is what I got him playing in right here.
This is what he's playing in and don't know it.
Sliding on lead.
I mean, giving him a mental disability, right there.
This is what we have to go through every day.
Just for one person to shower.
There ain't nowhere in the world
one case of water would do.
[water bottles clattering]
One week.
This been going on for over a year.
And this just one week!
And how long is this going to be in our body
before we might die?
You know, if it's irreversible, how long do we have?
To be honest, we just started not bathing in it.
After we heard about the Legionnaire,
that scam like, oh no,
I do not trust any of them.
I really don't.
[Narrator] Governor Snyder now reveals
a devastating new health crisis
that has been kept secret for more than a year.
Thank you for coming today.
I'm going to share information that hasn't
really been put out to the public.
Over the course of 2014 and 2015,
we saw a spike in Legionnaires' disease.
I believe the numbers for the preceding years before 2014,
we had six cases,
11 cases, 13 cases,
and eight cases.
In 2014, we had 45 cases.
Took that one and...
That one.
[Suzan] It was just the muscle soreness, respiratory.
I've had pneumonia before.
It didn't feel like the pneumonia I had before,
but I could tell my respiratory system
was just seriously compromised.
- She was real weak. - Very weak.
She couldn't hardly get off the couch
much less go to work.
[crying]
[ominous music]
I need an axe to cut through the ice.
That's the Flint treatment plant,
and the intake's right there.
That's like Chernobyl or something.
This is like the next best thing to a time machine
is recreate the outbreak in the laboratory
under very well-controlled conditions.
We simulate the distribution, we simulate the houses
and we see how the Legionella grows.
And what triggered that outbreak that caused the deaths.
And we're really close.
[Narrator] Marc Edwards and his team at Virginia Tech
conclude that the outbreak of Legionnaires' disease
was caused by the switch to the Flint River.
[Owen Strom] So I get Flint River water shipped to me
and then I treat it the same way
that you would at like, the water treatment process.
And you can see there's a noticeable color difference
even after treatment.
[Marc] The trigger was Flint River water
with no corrosion inhibitor plus iron,
which is a nutrient
that Legionella needs to grow.
Those little tiny microscopic drops of water
can contain Legionella in it.
From Flint, you can see a substantial amount
more colonies.
Most of the time what it's going to manifest as
is as a pneumonia, this pneumonia would not...
you would not be able to tell what the bacteria was.
It could look like any other pneumonia...
cough, shortness of breath, headache.
And that's all I had unless
there's any questions, thank you.
[Narrator] Because the outbreak was kept secret,
doctors misdiagnosed dozens of cases as simple pneumonia.
They knew in March of 2015 that there was Legionnaires,
spikes of Legionnaires' cases in Flint,
but they had never told anybody.
If they had told us, you know, we would have, you know,
the doctors would have known to check for that.
But they didn't, they just said they were gonna contribute it
to a form of pneumonia.
And that, you know, they were going
to give me some medication and, you know,
to go back in two weeks.
Nobody told the Flint residents.
It's just like the lead.
They didn't tell us about that either
and other people knew about that.
[Marc] We're in a post-truth world.
And that's what this whole story is about
is who betrayed whom.
Everyone's betraying everyone. Who can you trust?
There's some folks telling the truth.
There's some folks lying.
And to me, this defines a dark age.
We live in a dark age.
It's defined by not knowing who you can trust
in a society that runs on trust.
[ominous music]
[Protestors] No justice, no peace!
- No justice, no peace! - No peace!
[Narrator] With fear of the water mounting,
community leaders demand all of Flint's pipes be replaced
and the governor be held to account.
- No justice, no peace! - No peace!
[chanting continues]
We're sick, we're tired, we're broke, we're fed up.
But at the end of this march,
we will all know we are not victims, we are fighters.
[cheering]
- Protect me. - Protect me.
- Never neglect me. - Never neglect me.
[cheering]
This is a crime scene.
[cheering]
Somebody lied. Somebody covered it up.
- Clean water. - Clean water.
- Now. - Now.
Flint lives matter!
What do we want? Fresh water.
- When do we want it? - Now!
[chanting continues]
Save our water! Arrest Governor Snyder!
[Snyder Impersonator] Clean water for me.
Poison for you.
[Protestor] Snyder's got to go.
[All] Save our water. Arrest Governor Snyder.
[crowd cheers]
[ominous music]
[Smith] Here we are in Flint, Michigan.
Sunrise in 2016, and our water defense mission today
is to get baseline Flint River readings,
for the full gamut of potential chemicals
of concern from not just lead but all dangerous heavy metals.
So here we go.
[Narrator] Scott Smith from the activist group,
Water Defense arrives in town to do additional testing.
[Scott] We're going to let this sit in the water
for 30 minutes.
[Narrator] He raises the possibility
of new dangers from the water.
It looks like it's shallow here,
maybe four feet from that.
So hopefully the anchor is catching some sediment
on the bottom.
You got the hiccups?
[deep breath]
[deep exhale]
Here's the agenda for today.
We have refreshments, coffee, and bagels over there.
[Woman] Yes.
[Scott] NBC wants to do a quick interview with me
before we get going, so...
- We'll say... - I would say
no more than 10 minutes.
When do you guys have to leave?
Cause I think you should capture the community
and there's gonna be a lot of intense discussion here.
All right, if you can just say your name for me, please.
Scott Smith, chief technology officer and investigator
for Water Defense.
And the particular lead that the... the agencies
admitted is a problem, when that comes in a shower
that can aerosolize
and go into the air.
And some of these symptoms,
the rashes and what people are describing can come
from inhaling particulate lead.
We need to really focus on the showers
and what people are inhaling.
And we plan to launch air testing in bathrooms tomorrow,
which has not been done.
So Scott is with Water Defense.
Scott comes at this, not as a novice,
he's done this kind of work all over the country.
- [Woman] Good! - And he's done
some international work.
He has a master's degree from Harvard.
So Scott, you got the floor.
[applause]
I decided not to do a power point because I want this
to be a dialogue with questions.
Our goal is to arm this community with your ability
to do your own testing, and you can be the judge.
- [Woman] Thank you. - Before we open up,
Albert Einstein, I keep saying this
over and over again everyday,
he said 90% of solving a problem is diagnosing it.
Well, I think we know there's a preponderance
of people getting sick in bathtubs and showers.
I will always tell you what I don't know,
and I will do everything in my power
to get the scientific data to let you know.
- Yes. - I was wondering,
lately, my levels of lead have went up.
Most likely that's particulate lead, and I would like
to meet with you, I'd like to come test your house tomorrow.
Was your lead tested in your home?
It was, and they got me on an anxiety pill now.
Cause I'm on high blood pressure.
It's just enough to make you just fall over.
I came out of the General Motors,
so I don't qualify for nothing,
but if I had money, I would leave Flint.
You know? So where's that leave me?
You deserve the truth and you deserve
immediate remedies to help your health.
- Thank you. - What you don't deserve
is being told, this is not coming
from bathwater, shower water.
[Woman] Right. Thank you.
- So this... - Really?
This is what ran today.
"Group fears bathing risks in Flint water."
- Hold on, y'all. - And that is a Water Defense.
This is my 62nd disaster since BP.
There is no other disaster that even remotely compares
to this due to the complexity and all the variables.
The real crisis is just beginning,
especially if you're a Flint resident that has lung cancer,
Legionnaires' disease, a child, an elderly person that now
has serious, serious issues with lead.
- What's your name? - Jaelyn.
My son takes a bath. No problem with him.
So I don't know, it's different strokes for different folks.
Have you ever had rashes from showers before in your life?
- No. - When they tested the tub,
was it cold water, warm water, a mix?
Cold water.
You don't take a shower in cold water...
- Right. - But the stated
- DEQ is, is takin... - Testing cold water.
Of cold water.
But I just have to look at the camera,
cause I... it's hard to believe what I'm hearing here.
You'll have to just excuse my mess.
That's okay.
- You went fishing? - Mm-mmm!
Well, I'm actually fishing for contamination
to see what's making your mother's rashes
and sister's hair fall out and all that fun stuff.
This is the first air test we have done in Flint.
- Wow. - We're going to do
actual air testing, and that air test will mimic
what you're breathing into your lungs and inhaling.
[Man] I've never tested anything in Flint.
No water.
I've done lead paint in houses, but not this.
Here we're looking for lead possibly,
and organics in the air.
Every time I get into the water, I break out.
I keep telling my doctor,
all they keeps saying is allergic reaction to something.
And I'm like, yes, the water.
This is the Water Defense water bug.
We're gonna put this so it's exposed to the water
- for 30 minutes. - Okay.
Instead of putting my skin there for 30 minutes
and then slicing off my skin and sending it to the lab,
- I'm going to use this. - Right.
And then we're going to measure the actual air.
Water Defense bathroom, shower air testing,
underway, Flint water crisis.
I just appreciate it because I really don't trust
the EPA, the DEQ.
I don't trust none of them.
They just made it hard to trust anyone in Flint.
For me.
[water running]
We're good.
What happens next is we write up the chain of custody,
I send the cooler off,
and I'll have those results in three to five days.
[ominous music]
Do you want to hold... okay, do you have to talk through...
Hello? Oh, that's not it. [feedback]
I got a good one. "As for owing me.
"I will take what I need from the state
and give you nothing but piss and vinegar for taxes."
[Volunteer] Piss and Vinegar.
[Melissa] When I sat down with Marc Edwards,
he kept saying that filtered tap water was as good
if not better than bottled water.
Oh my God. [sighs]
So I went, we sat down and had dinner,
and we got into a huge like screaming match because
I said, please don't do this. I said, won't you come out
door to door and talk to the people
who are sick and dying, and it ain't from lead.
He told me, stop mooching off the government.
You guys need to learn to get used
to what you've got and that's it.
- Who said that to you? - Edwards
He's a libertarian honey, so that's, I mean, he's not...
- Really? Marc is? - Yes, yes.
So they all seem like they... there's not any...
-[Narrator] To the dismay of many in Flint,
Professor Marc Edwards has become a close advisor
to Governor Snyder.
So it might be it's a little bit better,
or it might be not, you know, we'll have to see, right?
And if the second draw is better, you know,
that's still very good news.
[Narrator] Edwards is advising the governor
there was a cheaper alternative to replacing
all of Flint's pipes.
By adding phosphate to the water,
a protective layer will form on damaged pipes,
reducing the chance lead particles will dislodge.
[Snyder] What I'm doing is following the protocol
we're getting from the experts, including Professor Edwards.
There's no specific date that we'll say the water
is safe to turn back on, that will only be based on
scientific evidence validated by third parties.
[Andrew] So Governor Snyder, a lot of people in Flint,
as you know, say he should be in jail.
So if anyone in Flint, frankly, feels like
this was done to them because Governor Snyder wanted
to save a few dollars, I can't fault that.
I mean, if I had been in their shoes,
I would probably believe the same thing.
But the victims of Flint will say
all they've received is a few bottles of water.
Well, a few million bottles of water, but again,
let's put this in perspective.
You know, there's no magic pot of money
that is going to appear.
That is why I've defended the hard decisions
that the Governor has had to make.
[Trachelle] We wanna represent your concerns,
your cares, your injuries...
[Marc] If there is to be a check given out,
it will come through the lawsuits.
Because in this country, as you know,
the way many people say sorry
is through the legal system, for right or wrong.
[Andrew] See, I can imagine Melissa listening
to what you've just said and commenting that you've
turned against the residency,
you're now on Governor Snyder's side.
I would tell her you got to take the good with the bad.
This is who I am.
And I'm sorry you don't like what I'm saying,
but it's the truth as I see it.
[Announcer] This is "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah."
Please welcome Marc Edwards.
[music playing] [audience cheers]
- Welcome to the show. - Thank you for having me.
You were one of the people who helped uncover the problems
in Flint and then you were asked to help
with the problem afterwards, which is a strange thing,
but what can be done to help at this stage?
In Flint, Michigan, it's now become the best monitored
and one of the best run systems in the country.
And so as a result, the water is comparable,
now, to other cities in the United States.
[ominous music]
Well, this is from the EPA.
"Everyone can wash your hands,
bathe and shower with unfiltered water."
They're saying lead and copper won't affect you
in the bath, but I'm hearing otherwise now.
Plus the other chemicals that are in the water,
direct contradiction.
Let's go.
I'm after particulate lead going into the air.
Will you get that from cold water?
We don't know, we might.
Flint water crisis, 2016,
Water Defense, air testing,
Harold Harrington home to see
what chemicals are being inhaled directly into the lungs.
[ominous music]
[Mark Ruffalo] It's scary, I mean,
when they make it impossible
for you to understand what's happened to you.
They also make it impossible for you
to do anything, to help yourself.
Thank you.
[indistinct chatter]
[Woman] Good morning, everybody.
Good morning, I'm Harold Harrington.
I'm not going to rest until there's safe drinking water
for everybody in Flint.
But I think we need the testing from Water Defense
and Marc Ruffallo, Scott Smith,
to verify that, because I'm not sure
now with what I know is in my water,
that the only thing wrong with this water
is lead and copper.
I'm not gonna get fooled again.
Thank you.
[applause]
Both Harrington and his wife are bathing in
900 parts per billion,
1,4-dichlorobenzene.
These levels are unacceptable.
These chemicals, believe it or not,
chloroform goes through your skin.
They're more dangerous than bathing in lead. Yes?
It's absolutely incomprehensible to me on how anybody
with any responsibility could make any kind
of statement that this water is safe to bathe and shower in.
Hi, I am Mark Ruffalo.
[sighs]
Now what's happened here
is a crisis of credibility from the government.
It's no different than the negligence that happened
in Louisiana in Katrina.
When certain government officials decided that it
was better not to fix the dikes and those dikes failed,
and those people's lives were impacted negatively.
The fact that we have to go back to a Congress
that everyone knows won't do a damn thing and beg them
for money so our mothers could take care
of their children is an outrage.
Water Defense is here, we're doing testing.
You'll only find in water what you look for.
You've got a lot more contaminants in this water
than what you're being told about.
You gotta keep fighting.
I'm telling you, you gotta fight.
That's the only way to make change.
Thank you.
[applause]
I'm part of a long legacy of actors and artists
who become socially aware, socially conscious,
and push for social justice,
going all the way back to Jesus.
[Woman] I'm feeling good after that press conference,
we're now looking at around a 1:10 PM arrival.
[Anthony] So Marc, how did you become interested
in this situation in Flint in the first place?
Well, I've been doing a lot of work in the water space
for the past five years, I started a group
called WaterDefense.org.
We weren't getting a clear picture
of what was happening with our water.
And what we came across as really elevated levels
of chloroform.
People are bathing in this.
It seeps into the skin very easily.
It's been known to be cancerous.
Bathing in the water is, should not be done.
[Woman] All right, everyone, we're over here at UA Local 370,
the plumbers and and pipe fitter's union.
And we are ready to deboard the bus.
Come on down.
[indistinct chatter]
State health experts and the EPA
say current scientific evidence shows it's safe
for adults and children to shower or bathe in the water
in Flint, but an outside group conducting
its own testing says their results show otherwise.
Bathing in chloroform is much more dangerous
than lead because it goes through your skin,
it goes in the air and you breathe them into your lungs.
[ominous music]
[sentimental music]
Yes!
I'm going to see the president today.
You got to get dressed, you can't wear what
you've got on, buddy.
I know.
[gasps] A rabbit! A rabbit!
[sentimental music]
Let me just take it off.
Hopefully I get to speak with him
so I can let him know how I feel about Governor Snyder.
[Protestors] Flint Lives Matter!
[crowd cheers]
Hello, Flint.
[cheering]
I will not rest, and I'm gonna make sure
that the leaders at every level of government don't rest
until every drop of water that flows
to your homes is safe to drink,
and safe to cook with, and safe to bathe in
because that's part of the basic responsibilities
of a government in the United States of America.
This myth that government's always the enemy.
Now, that attitude is as corrosive to our democracy
as the stuff that resulted in lead in your water.
We especially under invest when the communities
that are put at risk are poor
or don't have a lot of political clout.
And so are not as often heard in the corridors of power.
[Narrator] Despite President Obama's visit,
it will be almost a year before the White House
and Congress agree on a relief package for Flint.
It is insufficient to replace all the lead pipes in Flint
and does little to address the future problems
of a generation of children with lead poisoning.
Remember last week?
You remember?
Say hi. We're gonna go see the president.
Yay!
That was during the roundtable before it started.
I told him I was three months older than him,
and that's where he started laughing.
He told me I looked pretty good for my age.
That was one of the lighter moments.
I was actually fortunate enough,
I got to sit right beside him.
He had a toast with the residents,
with the Flint water, but I declined to drink
the toast with the filtered water.
I was pushing to get federal money
in here to fix the problem.
Not drink filtered water
and make it seem like everything's okay.
I'm all right.
I'm going to get a glass of water right here.
- [crowd murmurs angrily] - It'll be filtered.
Hold on, I'm going to talk about that in a second.
Settle down, everybody.
President Obama visited, and then after that,
I kind of pulled myself back away from politics
because I was just disgusted by everything.
And I just felt that, wow, we're on the ground,
we're by ourselves.
- [murmurs continue] - Here we go.
[Jessica] One of the things that made me feel like a rock
just dropped in my stomach
was when I seen him take a sip of water.
I really did need a glass of water.
This is not a stunt.
Now I'm going to talk about this.
Everybody settle down. This is a feisty crowd.
What the fuck?
Yeah, I was there. You took a sip.
Go bathe, I bet Obama didn't stay here for two weeks
and take a shower everyday.
That on YouTube?
I saw that on TV and I just like, man, it just kinda,
it kinda messed up my, my whole perspective of the world.
Cause I'm thinking, you know, we there,
you know, we got one in the White House.
People are dying, you know what I'm saying?
End of the day, people are dying.
I've had some health scares myself
stemmed back to the water.
[Mama Sol] I normally come back a lot during
Black History Month to go to schools and stuff
because I did make an announcement
that I was moving.
[Narrator] Mama Sol has moved away
from Flint because of health concerns
for herself and her son.
I miss Flint a lot.
I don't miss the weather, but I miss Flint.
I enjoy working and bringing hope
to my people here at home.
[B-Ray]Everything hip hop should be is in your music.
And now you coming with some new stuff?
New single that I released today.
I'm really excited about this single.
It's just an inspiring song.
You know, reminding the kids of Flint,
don't give up your crown.
Don't give up to your throne.
You know, it might get rough.
It might seem dark, but don't quit.
♪ I'm from where there's lead in the water ♪
♪ I ain't asleep or dumb ♪
♪ Rather break the ruler or make some moves ♪
♪ So my bloodline is running, sucka, you can't fool her ♪
♪ Who do you suppose we should sell our souls ♪
♪ Society strokes egos, steps on toes of the great ♪
♪ On a pedestal they put saints ♪
♪ Cause that's the name Malcolm, Martin ♪
♪ And Fred Hampton, huh ♪
♪ You don't see what's happening here, bruh? ♪
♪ Don't give up your crown ♪
♪ Don't give up your throne, king ♪
♪ 'Cuz our time is now ♪
♪ So let it be known, queen ♪
- How are you? - Good, how're you?
- Been a long time. - I know!
It's so good to see you all.
Whoa, look at Willow!
[Mama Sol] It's still emotional for me coming back home.
I gotta go do this quick sound check
so that y'all can sit down.
Another strong woman from Flint.
[crowd cheers]
What's up, Flint? Huh?
The darker the night, the brighter the star.
The harder the fight, the stronger we are.
♪ While your people keep on dying ♪
Look, Flint, I love y'all so much, man...
[Mama Sol] I really worry about people here
because it's not on the news anymore.
That's the thing that scares me the most is that people have
kinda acted like it's okay now.
Because they saw a few pipes be replaced
between the sidewalk and the street.
Scary.
[ominous music]
So right now we're writing up the chain of custody
for all these samples.
All the different samples I've taken for the day
and the official chain of custody.
And then we're going to, I'm going to show you
how we seal this up with ice, package it properly.
This is what I do meticulously to build this.
And the chain of custody and this documentation is key
to supporting the community in any court actions.
This certified lab I use is really where the science is.
[Anthony] What about those people who say, well,
you don't have a scientific qualification?
That's my favorite question.
I... I work with a lot of scientists
and a scientist is one
who accumulates knowledge in a systematic way.
I would argue that the false narratives
from the state who are paying the other quote
"PhD scientists" are being told their narrative.
So they're not really accumulating knowledge
in a systematic way, that... that questions
whether or not they're scientists.
And second of all, I have six...
I'm a named inventor on six patents
and 14 patents pending.
Now a lot of the PhDs I work with, they will say,
well, wow, that really makes you a scientist, Scott.
We don't have patents to our name.
[humming indsistinctly]
[Anthony] You just press the space bar there.
This is the Water Defense water bug.
And you can see those were instant.
This is gonna be the first air sample
we've ever taken during the Flint water crisis.
I just appreciate it cause I really don't trust the EPA,
the DEQ, I don't trust none of them.
I'm gonna put this up, expose it to the water
for 30 minutes instead of putting my skin there
for 30 minutes and then slicing off my skin
and sending it to the lab...
To me, the clip you just played
really shows what a new dark age looks like
when science becomes untrustworthy
and we lose the support of the public
and we're back to an era of pseudoscience
and mythology and untruth.
I haven't seen a water heater with the screwdriver thing,
so this could get real interesting.
Okay.
- Ooh, and it's hot. - Yeah, it's really hot.
- Oh, shit. - Watch it so
you don't get your pants wet.
Would you hold this for me, if you don't mind?
If you could slow down that video I just saw,
the sample from the bottom of the water here.
What you will see is a metallic hose bib there,
which is the point of sample collection.
And these are notorious for having very high lead
in them because they are not designed to dispense water
fit for human consumption.
The other incredible mistake he's made
is you might've seen the water shoot
out of the bottle, go up and hit the hose bib,
allowing the water to collect dust from outside the hose bib,
which then falls back into the bottle again.
- Take no showers or no baths. - It's gotta be coming
- from the hot water. - Okay.
[Marc] These people in Flint have been exploited
on so many levels.
And who's paying the price for this?
It's these kids.
- [Elijah] 'Kay. - [Tammy] All right.
[ominous music]
We've had so many different diagnoses.
But those spots turned into white spots.
Wow, and what did the doctor say?
The first diagnosis? A fungus infection.
Then it was athlete's foot,
then it was a bacteria infection.
Don't disturb him. The pictures say it all.
[Elijah] My brother Demetrius,
he can't think that good.
Now you have to go through life...
you have to keep moving on.
[water running]
Mike, that's a little bit different than what you had
- in the first shower, right? - Yeah.
Well, I got that blue pump on, that other one went down.
I think it got too much moisture.
As soon as I get the results, you'll get an email.
- Thank you. - You'll get 'em
within minutes of me having them no matter what.
- I appreciate it. - Thank you so much.
- Good luck with everything. - All right. Thank you.
You have the EPA, and you have Mr. Smith.
The EPA has let us down so many times,
so, and they keep coming up with different figures,
different numbers.
So, you know, we're not, we don't trust it.
I'll take the numbers that Mr. Smith has
and I'll run with it.
And so this is the pump, the hose that the pump goes on.
I'll just hang the shower hose up here.
Once you get in there, you wanna make sure
that you're doing it with your best foot.
And the water comes right out.
And the more you pump it,
the more pressure builds in it.
I tell my boys, I'm gonna extend a longer hose.
So someone can be out here pumping.
[laughing]
That's too much to go through.
I'd rather take a chance on this than take the tap water.
I say two to three hours.
Everybody is done showering,
you know, considering we have to put water on,
on the stove to heat them up.
So about three hours max.
Three to four, three to four.
Yes, may I have a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit sandwich,
substitute egg white and white cheddar.
Sure.
And may I have a large Diet Coke, please?
Okay, did you want the meal or just the biscuit?
Just the biscuit, yep.
Thank you.
[Marc] They're just digging in like a tick on a dog.
And I never seen anything like it.
I'm more used to battling government agencies.
I get angry when people are being victimized
and I feel a part of my job is to defend the public welfare.
There's a conflict of interest here
that isn't being discussed.
At Opflex Environmental Technologies, we're excited
about our future.
This is an Oplex environmental indicator
where we can fingerprint exactly what the oil is.
And we are going to take this to a lab
and have it fingerprinted to find out
what the contamination is specifically...
He had tried to push this product
for oil spill clean ups,
and frankly, it didn't work very well.
[Scott] A cruise ship has olive oil, has lubricant oil
even if the bunker oil doesn't leak.
And this is what we did in the Gulf of Mexico.
Clear water's being repelled dripping out,
and there you have your olive oil.
[Marc] So, you know, when his sponge business
didn't work out, the logical extension
was to take that product
and start throwing it into bathtubs and showers.
So, here we go.
[Marc] He's using Flint as his test field
and came into Flint after the water disaster was declared
and circumvent normal product development
and safety testing and proving that the product works
and just trying to sell it to people.
We're going to take four tentacles from the top...
[Marc] So we've started monitoring,
documenting all these false health claims
and all the inept and illegal sampling that they're doing
and trying to get the message out that
these folks are dangerous.
You're gonna tell us no matter what they say.
[Marc] And the fact they're exploiting residents
in Flint, their fears...
[Scott] We will do anything to bring you
good luck with everything.
It's just a sickening.
Well, we'll be downstairs, and then we'll just
- catch you when you come in. - Yup. Yup.
I'm going to bring some stuff in
and then of course, we're gonna get
the water unloaded to take it downstairs too,
so I'll see you in a minute.
[indistinct chatter]
Of course, those water tests were thousands of dollars
and we just, we're just happy that Water Defense,
we were lucky enough that Water Defense paid for it
and that I had a stack of paper,
actually, and handed it it to my doctor
who looked at it and went, oh my God.
And welcome to the seventh ward community meeting.
And we don't want to limit discussion because...
I can't do Wednesday night or Thursday night
cause I'm going to go testify in front of Congress.
It was so bad...
Oh, I'm sure it did, but he's losing his shit.
Thursday, the 16th, I'm leaving out Wednesday night.
- Okay. - Okay.
[ominous music]
[indistinct chatter]
[Narrator] Two years after the water crisis began,
residents continued to pin their hopes on the legal system
to get compensation.
[Young] It's a very somber feeling
because the legal system is a very slow moving system.
And you know, we have community meetings
to keep our clients informed and updated.
And a lot of times we have to tell them we're still
in the midst of answering motions and responding
to motions to dismiss that the defendants have filed.
And it's what we believe is just a delay tactic.
[Wakes] I would see paperwork from the class action.
And I had a question before I signed it.
I had a miscarriage throughout this crisis
and lost twins and they gave me a blood transfusion.
I believe that the lead was the cause of my miscarriage.
So we need you to bring your medical records
so that we can have an expert evaluate to see.
Have you had any other children?
My son is seven.
He's been kicked out of school 56 times.
- 56 times? - 56 Times this year.
And he needs special education services now.
He has nightmares. He sleepwalks.
And it's like they knowingly knew that
that water was poison and let us drink it.
As of today's date, they have not done anywhere
what they need to do.
They have not dug up these pipes.
They have not provided us safe drinking water.
And we don't believe the water you're bathing in is safe.
- [Wakes] No, it's not. - [Young] But tonight,
you're going to hear from some experts
who are going to provide you with information
that you need to decide for yourself.
[Wakes] I need a pen.
The middlemost gentlemen in the back?
The government immunity.
How can this guy say that just because
they're the government they're not liable for killing us?
Yes!
[applause]
I've been so sick, but you know,
I have to get her from school. I have no option.
That's the way we have to do it right now.
Here's the Michigan School for the Deaf to the left.
It's a state-run school.
And I sit here, usually, and wait till they come out.
It's almost like we've been displaced
not only from our home, but from our lives.
You know, it's like everything's stopped
until this problem's over with.
You know? It's hard.
Oh, there she is.
- Aah! - Yeah.
Oh, stop. We've gotta watch.
- Hey, stay over here. - I know!
[Taylor] Mom...
[Florlisa] For what?
[Florlisa] Don't. Don't get in my purse.
You wanna be grounded? A whole month.
Get my purse, and you get grounded a month.
- Hey! Mom! - [laughs]
[ominous music]
[Florlisa] I seen that video with Scott Smith
talking about the bacteria.
So I called Scott Smith up and invited him
over to my house to do some testing.
I don't want you going in there right now
because of what's going on, Taylor.
[Florlisa] I need my mask.
What?
I know you do, but that's not gonna happen today.
Are you gonna listen to me or do I have to stay out here?
[Florlisa] I know the kids and everything...
Are you gonna wait and stay out of here
or do I have to wait?
[Florlisa] they can't, you know,
be exposed to it either.
I want you to stay in the car.
You don't have a mask to go inside, no.
[Florlisa] I'm not gonna take that chance.
Get in the car. Now.
[Narrator] Florlisa Fowler
has now abandoned her home
and is living in temporary accommodation outside of town.
[Florlisa] It's not worth our lives,
but we want to come home.
[knock at door]
- [Taylor] Please. - [Florlisa] Get back in the car.
Oh, goodness.
[ominous music]
[Taylor] I'm not choking.
[inhaler hisses]
[ominous music]
[Marc] You hate to go nuclear on people,
but when they refuse to listen to reason
or they're unscientific, you have no choice, so...
[Foley] Flint's News Talk 1470 WFNT.
Dan Foley here with you.
And joining now, as promised, Dr. Marc Edwards.
[Marc] Kids are getting hurt.
Mothers have called me and said they're afraid
of letting their kids bathe
or shower or wash their hands,
scared off from normal hygiene
by the claims of these pseudoscientists.
[Reporter] Edwards points to a recent spike
in gastrointestinal illnesses reported recently
by the Genesee County Health Department.
[Reporter 2] Edwards says he has a problem
with how samples were collected.
Right now, EPA across every American city
gathers its samples the same way
through one point of distribution of cold water.
Water Defense gathers its samples
from water heaters and hot showers.
[Marc] Are you prepared to accept the liability
and the consequences that your words will have?
Your false, irresponsible, unscientific statements.
We exposed a Hollywood fraud.
It turns out that it's a little bit...
it's a little bit tricky because people, again,
have this presumption of, oh, this is the good guy.
Just like the government agencies were good guys,
supposedly, when they weren't.
[Interviewer] So you're talking about Mark Ruffalo?
Yeah, Mark Ruffalo, this is his group.
No one would be listening to Scott Smith
and buying into his stupid pseudoscience
unless Mark Ruffalo was behind it.
Mark Ruffalo's in the pictures with these stupid sponges.
Mark, it's a pleasure to have you back.
So what is it that brought the two of you together?
Water Defenses was looking for some kind
of testing method that was really thorough and subtle.
And I saw him and I said, this guy really knows what he's doing.
And he's got a disruptive breakthrough technology.
And we have a platform to introduce him to the world.
And Scott was brought on as our chief scientist.
[Marc] Mark Ruffalo was re-tweeting Scott's messages
about lead in homes that have no lead in Flint.
So, in the end, you have to attack the man
behind the curtain.
And I know nothing about this person except...
of all the scientists in the world
that you could hire to expose water problems,
why did you hire this pseudoscientific fraud
who has no science degree and call him a chief scientist?
It's beyond comprehension to me.
What was your reaction when there were some professors
who had took issue with some comments that you had made?
But do you have a response? I wanted to ask you directly.
The important thing to remember is, is those people
are really sick there, and, uh...
and that we should focus on them.
Not people getting, uh...
feeling like the information
that's coming out of there, which are just test results.
And that's a conversation we should be having,
not whether or not my organization is scientists.
Because we're... we're admitted...
we're citizen scientists, you know?
And so all we're doing is giving people information,
and there's nothing wrong with that.
And the more information people have,
the better off they are.
And to say that giving information
to the people is somehow scaring them?
That's not what I'm hearing from the community.
Ask the community. They'll tell you.
I'm worried about chloroform. I'm worried about acetone.
I'm worried about all these other chemicals
they don't want to talk about.
[Organizer] I've worked with an independent water expert
and his name is Scott Smith.
[crowd cheers]
Scott Smith, who tested our house a couple of times,
says we have some of the highest levels of chloroform in our house.
Scott Smith has also tested my water.
I have 97 pages.
This is everything that is in my water
from lead to other heavy contaminants
and bacterias.
Carbon tetrachloride.
Some of this stuff I have to Google and look up
because I don't even know how to pronounce some
of this stuff that's in my water.
They even got volatile organic compounds,
which I doesn't know what that means,
but I'm glad I got the paperwork on everything.
[ominous music]
Well, maybe they just wanted me there early.
I don't know. They told me at 10:00 a.m.
[Narrator] Professor Edwards is back in Flint.
This time to testify in court.
[Marc] I mean, you can't make this shit up.
This is like Bonfire of the Vanities,
21st century version.
And so I'm the enemy.
I've been branded a traitor. That's the scientist's curse.
If you tell people the truth, folks are gonna get mad at you.
[Interviewer] I mean, but some of the residents,
they welcomed you as a hero back in August 2015,
and now they say, well, you're appearing to defend the state.
I've just been defending and speaking the truth from the start.
And when speaking the truth was in their interest,
of course, that was when we were heroes.
Unfortunately, we're the ones saying the things
that they don't want to hear now.
The truth, the data are showing
that the water's getting better and there's other groups
claiming the water's getting worse every day,
that people are dying from the water,
that nothing that this relief effort has done
has made a difference at all.
[Court Official] All rise, please.
[Narrator] Governor Snyder's top health official,
Dr. Eden Wells, has been charged
with involuntary manslaughter for allegedly covering up
the outbreak of Legionnaires' disease.
Edwards is testifying in her defense.
Did you have any knowledge as we sit here today,
that sputum samples that the Michigan Department
of Health and Human Services were destroyed
in March of 2015?
No.
Do you have any knowledge about
how many sputum samples they currently have?
They sent us all the ones they claim to have.
Well, "claim" is kind of an ambiguous term.
Do you think they're lying to you?
[ominous music]
[Interviewer] What do you think about the cost of this case?
[Palladino] It's cost millions of dollars already,
and who's paying for it? We are.
We're paying for representing against us.
I don't understand that at all.
How are we, the people of the state of Michigan,
being charged for a mistake from the state of Michigan
or whoever caused this problem?
It's ridiculous.
[ominous music]
[Narrator] Over $30 million of public funds have been spent
both prosecuting and defending
the government officials involved.
Professor Edwards has now started his own legal action.
[ominous music]
[Radio Host] We're going to go in right now
on Virginia Tech's Marc Edwards.
The same Marc Edwards that was once held
as environmental savior of Flint by revealing that folks in Flint
were being lied to about the quality of their water.
And now Marc Edwards is trying to silence
the activist community in Flint
by filing litigation against them.
[Melissa] We thought it was a joke.
And then when I sent it off to an attorney,
he said, "No, it's not."
He said, "But wow."
[Interviewer] A University professor
is suing a Flint resident for $3 million.
It's horrible.
I never in a million years thought
that what happened could happen.
An anonymous letter was sent
saying horrible things about me.
There was a Flint resident
whose metadata was on the document.
[Interviewer] You're talking about Melissa Mays.
[Marc] Melissa Mays.
Why hit the litigation button?
Did you have to go down that route?
Yes, no, I-I had no choice.
You got to realize that this letter
was being used to destroy us.
This letter was taken to professional conferences,
interrupting my student's presentation,
handed out to participants.
Virginia Tech is unethical.
[Melissa] He personally told me when we first started working together,
in July, August, 2015, I was a hero
and I did the right things by speaking out
and speaking the truth.
[Marc] Yeah, Melissa was just incredible.
She was always there front and center, truly heroic.
[Melissa] I had never stopped doing that
and talking about what it's like to live here,
telling people, this is what we're going through
and now he's suing me for it.
I'm sad whenever anyone goes post-truth.
It's part of what contributes
to this horrific loss of trust that we're living with.
And not just in America, across the Western democracies.
And people have to be held accountable.
What if we lose? We'll have nothing.
We will have no home. We will have, not my kids.
[ominous music]
[Narrator] Six days after Melissa Mays
is sued by Marc Edwards,
there is another unexpected twist.
Scott Smith suddenly switches sides.
He comes to Flint to make a public apology.
[Dan] I imagine this is shocking for some people
on the heels of a special blog post
with some lessons he learned in Flint
and clarifying the facts.
Scott Smith, special guest in studio with us,
set the record straight about certain aspects of his work.
[Scott] Obviously, you know, made some mistakes.
I am fully accountable for all the mistakes.
That's why I did this.
So never did I ever intend to cause panic or fear.
For those people that I caused panic or fear, I deeply apologize.
Obviously I am not a water expert scientist
by any means whatsoever, but I do think out of the box.
[Narrator] Smith says his own research in Flint was faulty
and that the chemical levels he found in Flint's water
were normal and not dangerous.
He says Professor Edwards was right all along.
[Resident] I don't think that there's any way
that I would believe a scientist saying
that this Flint water is safe.
[Child] The waterline right there.
More water, Mom!
[Interviewer] Scott Smith says, "Look, I'm sorry
if I caused you distress."
What do you feel when you hear his apology?
All of a sudden his tune has changed around to,
"Oh, I didn't do this right," or whatever it may be.
I really don't have any words for Scott Smith
as of right now.
- Hey, Scott, how you doing? - Good morning.
Good to see you. I'm so happy
you're filming this. You have no idea.
There's national media interest
been reaching out to me since all this.
I declined everything 'cause I wanted it
to happen in Flint, and nothing better with you.
So, Scott, give me your name and title.
Scott C. Smith, formerly the chief investigator for Water Defense.
And what are you now, Scott?
Now I am the owner or CEO of AquaFlux Holdings, LLC.
So this is a bit of an about turn,
because when I interviewed you at the Hampton Inn,
when you were bringing in those samples where I remember
you saying to me, "This is the real lab.
This is where the science is done."
Were you wrong?
I was... right and wrong.
But I was entirely wrong about Dr. Edwards.
But did you fear that you were gonna face legal action unless you went...
No, no. There's no arrangement.
He was not threatening to sue me at all.
If anything, I decided that it's time to...
in talking to my personal attorney,
you know, the best, the best retraction
or correction you can get, admit where you made mistakes.
But why didn't you correct Mark Ruffalo at the time
and say, "I'm not a chief scientist.
I have no scientific qualifications"?
We changed that. I forget what year we changed it.
That was early on.
I don't know what video... I'd have to look at...
There's so many videos out there.
I'd have to look at the right videos.
At the time, Water Defense, you know,
that's what they wanted to call me.
Bu the point is, is the people like Nakiya Wakes
saw you as a scientist.
So when you came in and you did those tests,
they believed that you were an expert.
You're asking a question with your opinion.
- I'm not gonna respond to that. - But that's...
You're telling me how people viewed me and that's hearsay.
I'm not gonna allow anybody
to spin this against me ever again.
With all due respect, you have an agenda here.
But I'm just repeating what the residents have said to me.
I never promoted myself as an expert.
I promoted... Never. Ever.
So the water bug tests, were they legitimate?
Do you stand by those as a way of determining
whether people's water was safe or not?
You know, testing being... What's your definition of legitimate?
The testing with all...
Your definition of illegitimate...
This is a gotcha moment. You know what?
I volunteered to do these interviews.
If this... Is this where we're going?
Thank God I got that other camera.
So you don't think that a water bug
picking up other stuff that's on the bottom of the bathtub,
there's any problem with that?
You know, you have to do a variety of tests.
I mean, you know, there possibly could be.
It's just, it was... it was a research method at the time
that we used, you know?
So it was... it was to see what the results were.
You know, obviously it's gonna...
it's gonna detect the presence of other chemicals.
And then when you take it, when, you know...
And we've... we've changed that and we've adapted.
So you're saying to me here, on camera,
that the water bug is not a legitimate test.
I'm not saying that at all. Don't put words in my mouth.
And watch out for defamation if you say that.
[ominous music]
Here we are in Flint.
So LeeAnne's house is pretty much
kind of ground zero for lead.
Lead samples that came back from her house in 2015
were toxic waste levels of lead.
Should we go in? Are they waiting for us in here?
- Rolling here. - Okay.
Can I be marker? Can you see me?
- Higher? - Yeah. Good.
I guess the first thing that comes to mind
when I watch some of the footage
and saw some of your story, why are you still here?
Because this is our community.
My husband was born and raised here.
This is where we've purchased our home.
This is where our friends and family are.
I can tell you, it takes me 20 gallons of bottled water...
the actual gallons... to bathe my seven-year-olds.
- And we have a... - You do that how?
You take it and heat it up on the stove.
You heat water in pots on a stove?
- Yes. - And pour it into a bathtub?
Yes.
This is a very interesting area. Why is all this boarded up? It's all abandoned?
[Interviewer] Florlisa can talk to you about this, Alec.
Her house was worth $60,000.
It is now worth about $6,000.
- [Taylor] Hi! - How are you?
You're still going to Michigan School for the Deaf?
- Yeah. - Yeah. Great, fantastic.
We're gonna talk to your mom.
You guys stay warm and we'll be back.
I saw a cut of the film for you and your family.
Your bills are over $600 a month.
Mine was this past month, $640.
How much water were you using?
The water is now shut off because we're not even able to be in the house.
And there's no way you could sell your home.
Who's gonna buy a home where you can't use the water?
- Who's helping you? - Nobody.
- This is your neighbor? - Yes, this is Mrs. Evans.
Mrs. Evans is over here yelling at us.
- Is the coffee still there? - Don't you need it?
- That's my son. He's deceased. - What happened to him?
Seven guys jumped on him and beat him to death.
[Baldwin] Where, here in Michigan?
Yes. About two streets over.
[Baldwin] No.
When did that happen? How long ago?
- Oh, in '97. - I'm so sorry.
- Did they catch 'em? - [Zetan] No.
So this is for Taylor.
What have they told you about the quality of water
and the filtration of the water at your school?
[Zetan] These chairs belonged to my grandmother.
Oh, my goodness.
- [Zetan] Yup. - You love your family.
I can tell.
You stayed. You're here.
Did you ever think about leaving?
- No. - Never?
- I'm too old. - You are?
I'm 80 years old.
You've lived in this house for how long?
Since 1963.
So you raised your kids in this house?
Yes. We don't use this water.
- Right. - You know?
They wanna charge you for the water,
whether you use it or not.
We just want to come home.
- Are you the mayor? - I am.
So their neighbor... let me just tell you this quick story.
Their neighbor, Mrs. Evans,
an African American woman from Mississippi.
- Is she little? - Yes. Zetan?
- Zetan? I know her! - Yeah, her.
She just had us over her house for coffee and cake.
Oh, wow. You know what?
I am her granddaughter's godmother.
[Baldwin] No! Let me just ask you this.
Do you think that they let happen to Flint what happened
because Flint is poor or Flint is African American
since all of the white flight after the jobs left or both?
- I think it's both. - You do?
I think it's an issue of race and it was an issue of class.
I believe it was both of those factors coming together.
Because I do believe that, had this been
a different community, a more affluent community,
if it did happen, it sure would have gotten fixed.
We wouldn't have had to go a year and a half, you know,
holding up jugs of brown water,
people complaining about their hair,
people complaining about skin rashes,
having people die of Legionnaires'.
We didn't know this initially.
But then as the doctors started looking and researching,
they said, "Wow! The amount of miscarriages
"and stillbirths went up in the city of Flint
during that time."
The cases of pneumonia went up.
Well, where they really pneumonia,
or were they Legionnaires'? We don't know.
And they're going to be finding these kinds of things out.
We have to look at what's going on in the school system,
as far as mental health and the need for mental health,
with the juvenile justice system, special education.
Will there be an increase in foster care and adoption?
For years, people are going to be anxious.
They're going to be scared.
- Demoralized. - Oh, yeah, exactly.
- All of those things. - They feel like nobody cares.
Like nobody cares.
[ominous music]
We need to go over the performance.
This is what's gonna happen.
We're gonna enter, lay down.
Very quietly.
Nakiya is gonna give her speech.
Then Nakiya is gonna lay down.
Get up, and silently leave.
Think about our daughters.
Think about our bodies and really harness that emotion.
Yup.
[Desiree] Pull up to the gate.
[ominous music]
We are here today because mothers
and women across Flint have been harmed.
This area is a crime scene.
We have lost children.
[Narrator] The true toll of the Flint water disaster
is still being tallied.
This crisis has took both of my newborn children.
[Narrator] Scientists estimate that as many as 50 people
may have died from Legionnaires' disease in Flint,
making it the worst outbreak in U.S. history.
Governor Snyder, we've been asking
for an interview with your office
for this film that we're making, and we've been refused.
I wonder if you could explain to me why that is.
I'm not aware of that,
and I'd be happy to have people take it offline with you.
[Reporter] Among those charged, former Governor Rick Snyder.
He pleaded not guilty this morning to two charges
of willful neglect of duty.
Each count carries up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine.
Scratch the rough skin on the baby elephant.
[Narrator] According to the Michigan Department of Education,
reading scores in Flint have fallen by 50%.
Feel the fluffy yellow ducklings.
[Narrator] Residents say they still don't trust their water.
I do not use the water.
Right now, I'm still very unsure of what's going on
with the water situation here in Flint.
I don't believe nothing they say.
None of those politicians. None of 'em.
So we have formed a dynamic team.
We have been very active and on the move.
[Reporter] It is deadline day.
The last day for folks to either opt in or opt out
of the multi-million dollar settlement.
When I heard them say yesterday that this was fair,
reasonable, and adequate, I said, it's, it's, it's unfair,
it's unreasonable, and it's inadequate.
Here we go again.
Innocent victims that had no power
were subjected to this poison.
The settlement should have been
the people that were victimized will be taken care of...
watch this... the rest of their lives!
[crowd cheers]
It's horrifying.
And it's disappointing.
Very disappointing.
[Narrator] Marc Edwards had his lawsuit
against Melissa Mays dismissed.
The judge ruled that the accusations made about him
are protected by the constitutional right
to free speech.
Scott Smith has parted ways with Water Defense,
but is still selling his foam technology.
If you want to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus,
one company says it may have the answer.
[Reporter] Viral Kryptonite has created
this sponge-like material
that it says could absorb and destroy the virus.
We can produce a million sponges a day right now.
You're far more likely to kill that virus.
[ominous music]
[Official] You are trespassing. You are in violation.
The police are on their way.
Charges will be pressed against you
for trespassing on property
that is protected under Homeland Security.
Police is on their way.
You are trespassing on property
that is protected under Homeland Security.
The police department is on their way.
[police siren wailing]
[ominous music]
[Mama Sol's music plays]
♪ Now I can't say that I've always walked no straight and narrow ♪
♪ But I did name my kid after an Egyptian pharoah ♪
♪ Yeah, and I can't say life for me ♪
♪ Just been some sort of walk in the park, nah ♪
♪ But like a spark in the dark or a dart to the heart ♪
♪ I bring light and love, I put nothing above ♪
♪ My God, my scars ♪
♪ Are reminders of the pain I've surpassed ♪
♪ It's amazing how we forget so fast ♪
♪ The blood in our veins contains the DNA ♪
♪ Of the ancient ones ♪
♪ Disappointing how complacent we've become ♪
♪ I meditate with a rising sun ♪
♪ Burn sage and pray on a path of the Panthers ♪
♪ Prepare to proper land in a pit ♪
♪ I'm very aware we are at war more than ever before ♪
♪ I feel the force of an entire ancestral energies empire ♪
♪ Implying we strike back ♪
♪ We're under attack from so many angles ♪
♪ How can you pose for a pic with your family ♪
♪ And smile when behind you a dead body dangles ♪
♪ Think about that ♪
♪ Don't give up your crown ♪
♪ Don't give up your throne, kid ♪
♪ 'Cause our time is now ♪
♪ So let it be known, queen ♪
♪ Sun, moon, and stars ♪
♪ I'm sending to God ♪
♪ They know who we are ♪
♪ See it was by design for us to be on welfare ♪
♪ Live in projects with no health care ♪
♪ Very little direction ♪
♪ But we'll heat that pot and with the Pyrex come ♪
♪ Feeling high water here, collect them crumbs ♪
♪ Puff Newports and neglect our lungs ♪
♪ Sip more liquor till depression comes ♪
♪ Sinking in think I sink or swim ♪
♪ I'm from where there's lead in the water ♪
♪ I ain't asleep or dumb ♪
♪ Rather break the ruler or make some moves ♪
♪ So my bloodline is royal, sucka, you can't fool her ♪
♪ Who are you to suppose we should sell our souls ♪
♪ Society strokes egos... ♪