Last month, the ACLU of Michigan, along with a coalition of legal advocacy organizations, filed a petition with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) asking the state agency for a declaratory ruling suspending water shutoffs in that city “to avoid a public health emergency.”
But while Detroit city officials cite what advocates say is a misreading of state law to justify denying water to poor people who can’t afford their bills, Philadelphia is implementing an income-based water affordability plan that charges as little as $12 a month. Philadelphia’s new plan was put together in part by the same expert who put forth a similar proposal that was approved, but not implemented, by Detroit’s city council back in 2005.
Detroit may not be alone in denying water service to its poorest residents, but the city is well behind the leading efforts to assure access to water regardless of income. In June, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration announced a temporary moratorium on water shutoffs while the city devises an affordability plan. Baltimore announced an informal ban on shutoffs in 2017. The state is struggling to make good on its promise, but in 2012 California passed a law recognizing that access to water is a human right.
“It seems like it’s just a lot of officials trying to muddy the waters there. That's made it really difficult, and I think that's one of the reasons why Detroit still has an ongoing water shutoff crisis,” Mary Grant, the Public Water for All Campaign director for Food & Water Watch, told Daily Kos. Last August, Food & Water Watch did an analysis of data provided to Daily Kos under the Freedom of Information Act. According to that analysis, possibly as many as 250,000 individuals had water service taken away, at least temporarily, from 2014-2017.
According to a paper by the former deputy director of Detroit’s Health Department, George Gaines, “There exists a positive causal relationship in shut off water and waterborne disease.” Gaines’ report, which looks at 216-2017 data from Michigan Community Health and the Detroit Department of Health, found notable spikes in three diseases known to be related to the kind of sanitation problems that result when people are unable to access clean water.
According to the ACLU’s press release announcing the petition, the potential for disease epidemics and mass contagion aren’t the only health problems facing Detroiters who have had their water service taken away.
The petition also cites health issues that the ACLU says are happening right now, including “low infant weight resulting from inability to prepare baby formula; … illnesses resulting from consumption of rain water from barrels; diabetics who suffer complications because of the inability to prepare meals with clean water; chronic urinary tract infections among women and children; upper respiratory illnesses,” and other health issues.
“What's happening in Detroit is such a quiet crisis,” ACLU of Michigan staff attorney Bonsitu Kitaba-Gavaglio told Daily Kos. “It's not making national, international news but it is affecting hundreds, if not thousands, of Detroiters who are struggling silently.”
Detroiters like Fayette Coleman, who lived without water for three years. She died last April of diseases that may have been exacerbated by having no water.
For its part, the Detroit Water and Sewer Department (DWSD) has been vigorously defending its positions and practices. In an April interview with The Detroit News, DWSD director Gary Brown said that 5,600 residential customers were at risk of shutoff at that time—about one third of the 17,000 who faced shutoffs in the previous year.
In an Aug. 15 email to Daily Kos, the department said that “Today, more than 50 percent of the households who receive a notice of a scheduled service interruption due to nonpayment either pay their bill, enroll in a payment arrangement or pre-qualify for the Water Residential Assistance Program (WRAP).”
Those assurances don’t mean much to Sylvia Orduňo, an activist with the Detroit People’s Water Board and the Michigan Poor People’s Campaign. “Once your water is shut off, there basically is no recourse for you to get your water turned on,” she said. In addition, the city’s water assistance programs require even the city’s poorest individuals to pay off past due balances in addition to keeping up with at least a portion of their current bills. Philadelphia’s Tiered Assistance Program (TAP) doesn’t require people receiving assistance to pay past-due amounts, and even has a process for forgiving past-due balances.
Detroit’s water department, and Democratic Mayor Mike Duggan’s office, claim that Michigan law forbids the city from creating a plan like Philadelphia’s. Mary Grant from Food & Water Watch isn’t the only one who doesn’t agree with that assessment.
“It's our understanding that that is not a total accurate interpretation of the law and that if there was real intention to or willingness to create an affordability plan, there is a way to do that without violating any state laws,” the ACLU’s Kitaba-Gaviglio told Daily Kos.
Kitaba-Gaviglio added that the coalition hopes their petition will help other cities, including Flint. Change also needs to happen on the federal level. Grant from Food & Water Watch told Daily Kos that federal funding for water systems has fallen 74% while factors ranging from the age of many water systems to climate change have radically increased costs. In February, Rep. Brenda Lawrence of Detroit was among the legislators who introduced the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability (WATER) Act, which among other things dedicates $35 billion for water system improvements nationwide.
That “positive force for change” needs to come soon, and not just for Michigan. According to a 2017 study by Michigan State University, in just three years up to 36% of U.S. households won’t be able to afford water and will be reduced to the kind of coping strategies that people struggling in Detroit and Flint know all too well—from borrowing water from neighbors’ water hoses to risking diseases from rain barrels, to simply doing without.