Experts Jim Olson and Nadia Gaber Discuss the Water Crisis in Detroit and Flint
Water Activism: Detroit, Flint, and the Great Lakes took place on February 27th, 2020 at the Lenfest Center for the arts. Environmental lawyer Jim Olson, Founder and President of the Traverse City-based FLOW (For Love of Water), who argued and won the case Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation v Nestlé Waters North America Inc. joined in conversation with medical anthropologist Nadia Gaber, a member of We The People of Detroit Community Research Collective, and an advocate for access to clean water as a human right. The conversation was moderated by Catherine Fennell, Department of Anthropology.
Carol Becker, Dean of the School of the Arts opened the event, which was part of the Year of Water initiative. “Water has captured the imagination of the university and so also has the urgency to act on water related issues,” said dean Becker. The idea to dedicate this year to water began because of issues surrounding Lake Michigan and because of decades-long conversations between Jim Olsen and Dean Becker over the efforts to protect the great lakes and the hydrosphere. About which she said, “His [Olson] understanding of the fragility of our natural resources and the concept of the commons, coupled with the work of the activists, such as Nadia Gaber, inspired me to begin thinking about the urgency of water and issues of water equity.”
Fennel provided a quick context of the issues surrounding Lake Michigan and the Detroit region saying, “There is a lot to learn from that region with the degraded landscape in the late industrial phase and which is why we are talking about Detroit.”
Olson began with a presentation providing some background about his work, which began with academia and started with public trust cases involving Lake Superior. He lost those cases and was so disillusioned with the first few years of his practice of environmental law. But then Joseph Sax took him under his wing at the University of Michigan, which changed things for him. “It’s only because of his work that I stand here. I became a foot soldier and took on various environmental cases,” Olson said.
Olson works primarily with public trust doctrine, a doctrine he calls one of the most powerful tools we have in the 21st century. 23,000 homes were without water in the city of Detroit in 2019. “Water is held for the benefit of people and the public trust doctrine is the doctrine of sustainability. The great lakes provide ninety five percent of the freshwater needs of the United States,” said Olson.
Olson is the Founder and President of FLOW, which was formed after a nine year case with Nestle where he represented a group called Michigan's Citizens for Water Conservation.They brought a lawsuit to stop bottled water withdrawal from Lake Michigan. FLOW was formed with the help of film director Irena Salina who directed FLOW: For the Love of Water and she was gracious enough to let him use the name. “We look at solutions to problems that are systemic threats to the planet. Systemic threats like algae blooms, threats to diversions, oil pipelines in the Mackinac straits,” Olson said. FLOW aims to empower the people of Detroit while also looking at the impact of climate change on the great lakes. Their major argument is that water belongs to the public and hence is common property. They are trying to get rid of the limitations that protect the commons by expanding the rights of private property allowing to sell and divert water bodies as is in the case of oil. Olson argued that the public trust doctrine is irrepealable and water cannot be assigned to a person for private gain or profit, as everyone inherits the public trust doctrine.
Olson then spoke about the Michigan Citizens vs Nestle case. Nestle was pumping out 300 million gallons of water from high volume wells that led to a drop in flow in the spring water system. This was in addition to the plastic harm and the air pollution caused by the manufacturing of bottled water. It severely depleted water in the streams. Olson and his team finally won the case and the stream is back to normal.
According to the World Bank, some 2.2 billion people around the world do not have safely managed drinking water services, 4.2 billion people do not have safely managed sanitation services, and 3 billion lack basic handwashing facilities. The US needs $500 billion to rebuild public water infrastructure across the country. There is a serious need to rethink public water infrastructure as an arc of the water cycle in the US, and around the world. Along with a need to consider removing the inequity in public water usage using the Commons doctrine.
After Olson’s presentation, Nadia Gaber spoke of activism in Detroit, the epicentre of the water crisis. In and around Detroit, the suburbs are growing and the cities are shrinking. Population, jobs and housing is on the decline. The city and surrounding areas have been placed under emergency management, and the emergency managers are unelected, unaccountable representatives appointed by political officials. They can override city council, rewrite contracts, and violate union agreements. The black districts have been stripped of their political power systematically under the emergency management. In 2014, 33,000 households had their water shutoff, which is 1 in 5 residential accounts in the city. There are entire buildings with no water and sanitation. Water disparity varies from community to community in Michigan. And even now, 6 years later, shutoffs have continued, and the authorities have said it is not a public health hazard.
In Flint, public officials have been drawn on manslaughter charges with the argument being made that water is a human right and the people aren’t demanding free water but are asking to be charged an affordable rate. “Detroit is the first city that has regressed in terms of human rights regarding sanitation in the US,” said Gaber. In the summer of 2015, the People’s Water Board organized a walk between Detroit and Flint which was called the Water Justice Journey in protest of the shutoffs. “We walked for 7 days in the hot summer month, sleeping in churches at night.” The walk began at the Detroit river facing Ontario. The walk included town halls, rallies, prayers, and the water justice choir sang Motown songs turned into protest tunes.
The crisis isn’t just in Michigan. According to a study by Michigan State University it is estimated that 36 percent of Americans won’t be able to afford water by 2022. An estimate that is 3 times higher than it was three years ago.
We the People of Detroit Community Research Collective is a collaboration between community activists, academics, researchers, and designers. They are producing research that is with and for the citizens of Detroit. “The ongoing crisis in Detroit and Flint, offer dramatic cases of retrogression in realizing the human right to water and is particularly striking in a region that enjoys access to one-fifth of the world’s freshwater and in a country that has historically enjoyed near universal access to water and sanitation,” said Gaber. She reiterated that the human right to water in Flint and Detroit is not only a legal right but also an ethical one and the water shutoffs need to stop.
Gaber’s presentation was followed by a conversation moderated by Catherine Fennel, who asked the panelists their views on how to work with the existing public infrastructure in order to address the problem of affordability. To which Gaber responded, “We have to question when the city says we can’t pay for this (water). There is a reasonable solution in how the money is allocated, and it is morally the right thing to. People are not asking for free water.” Olson agreed and spoke about how Nestle pays nothing for the water itself and only pays an administrative fee. In addition, they do not share the profits. He made a case for structural affordability where people pay as they use. “People should have the right to access water. They get a certain amount for a low fee and are charged more if they use more, which will lead people to conserve water,” said Olson. He cited the example in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where such measures have been successful.
Fennel then led the conversation to how it is an education problem along with being a political problem and how that in turn leads to how people care about these problems. Gaber spoke about how everyone needs to protect water and this problem is more wide ranging than is thought. “People are really worried about Coronavirus, and the most fundamental principle of stopping the spread of the disease is handwashing. So when you have a city with 10,000 people go without water sanitation and hygiene, these diseases will travel.” According to surveys, it has been seen that even people who aren’t affected by the crisis want to see a good public water system.
A member of the audience asked how representational strategies help in creating awareness and change. Gaber was quick to point out that data and graphs help. But in Detroit the focus has been on performance and visual arts. She said, “The arts can be symbolically very effective.” Both Gaber and Olson, expressed their uncertainty on how the water crisis will pan out. But they agreed on one thing—there must be a cultural shift in how we think about water.
Read more from Nadia Gaber and Jim Olson
MAY 5, 2020
We asked Michigan-based water activists Nadia Gaber and Jim Olson what they are working on and what they are thinking about now. Gaber is a medical anthropologist and member of We the People of Detroit Community Research Collective.