I usually don’t talk about the very end of films in my reviews, and especially not within the first paragraph. However, Lead and Copper makes such a point to emphasize that the Flint, Michigan water crisis was not an anomaly in the United States that I had to bring this up: 308 county water systems in America are listed in the finale of this documentary as having lead levels which should legally trigger a federal response (15 parts per billion). It took 4 years to replace 90% of the lead pipes in Flint, and a few more years to switch the water supply to a trustworthy source. That situation — with its “emergency managers” installed by the governor — certainly isn’t indicative of every county’s individual predicament, but it serves as a warning.
Close to a year after Rick Snyder took office as governor of Michigan in 2011, the city of Flint declared a state of financial emergency. Snyder’s response was to appoint the first of an eventual four unelected emergency managers, who essentially took the place of the mayor. In March of 2012, a new pipeline was announced which would establish the polluted Flint River as Flint’s new water source, and when this change was made a year later, Flint’s water services from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department were terminated.
This was done under the guise of saving money for the citizens of Flint, whose water bills were admittedly high. It now seems clear that no amount of money could make up for the damage from the years of lead poisoning which were to come. It’s also clear that all kinds of other corners were cut in the name of cutting costs. By not adding a corrosion inhibitor (to make sure lead from the city’s old pipes did not flake off into the already-polluted water supply), Flint was estimated to be saving $140 per day. The state and local government were literally asking their citizens to put a price on their health and that of their children.
Lead and Copper acts as a nifty timeline of events, and also a broader view of the United States’ contemporary issues with contaminated water in poor and majority-minority communities. The extent of the problem in Washington, D.C. alone is astonishing. In all the film’s ambition, it does sometimes lose sight of Snyder and his cronies’ roles in all of this. This pipeline was about greed and power, pure and simple. The film spends a lot of time talking about how much Snyder knew and when he knew it when the proof is already in the pudding. I would have liked to learn more about the specifics of the scheme itself and the motivations behind it. It seems as though we will keep repeating these cycles of willful mismanagement unless we expose the absolute worst parts of the psyches which create them. What we have here is a reactive film. It’s undoubtedly a strong reaction, and one I absolutely agree with. I just wish there had been a tad more time spent showing the man behind the curtain for the fraud he is.
Regardless, very little feels more important than telling the stories of the people affected by this disaster, and that’s where Lead and Copper excels. I hope director William Hart keeps finding the humanity in stories like this, and keeps speaking truth to power. Such is the water of life.| George Napper
Lead and Copper is available now via various digital rental and VOD services, and will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on November 26. Find out more about the film at leadandcopperfilm.com.
