A clear need for Flint residents is simply having access to credible and trustworthy information about the city’s water system. A resident-led council is hoping a newly launched website will provide those resources in a way that’s easy to navigate and encourages more people to engage with their work.
The Flint Water System Advisory Council (FWSAC) began meeting in 2021. It includes eight people — six residents and two people who are on the council for their engineering expertise and longtime work on water issues in Flint — who were appointed by the Mayor and approved by the City Council. The group was formed after changes to Michigan’s Lead and Copper Rule in the federal Safe Water Drinking Act required water systems with more than 50,000 customers to establish advisory councils. The council operates independently, abides by Michigan’s Open Meetings Act, and exists to help create communication channels between residents and Flint’s water infrastructure and those who maintain it.
“One of the things we learned from the Flint water crisis is that we didn’t have very good communication going on between people managing our water system and residents,” said Benjamin Pauli, associate professor of social science at Kettering University and chair of the FWSAC, noting that the Council wants to provide information about lead and water but also inform residents and create resources for other issues related to water quality, service, and infrastructure. “If you read the language of the rule, it’s very lead-focused. But it does leave an opening for these councils to address other kinds of water concerns as well. When we had our very first meeting back in 2021, the council members decided that if we were only to focus on lead, the scope of this work would be really narrow and not function effectively because we know that people in Flint have a variety of other concerns about water quality, affordability, and the stability of our infrastructure, so we’ve adopted that broader focus.”
Although the FWSAC has received some support from City Hall for things like printing and posting meeting notices for the public and other coordination, the Council operates separately, sets its own agenda, and manages its own logistics. A professional facilitation company funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also provided some support during 2024, until the EPA canceled that company’s contract this year. The federal rule only requires councils to meet once per year, but FWSAC has been determined to meet more frequently. Initially, they met monthly but have since shifted to a quarterly schedule. They try to shape the direction of their work to mirror what they hear from residents, so participation from the public is crucial to their goals.
“We’ve tried to create a council that is tailored to the kinds of water questions and concerns and needs that Flint residents have,” Pauli said. “Over the years, we’ve gotten feedback from people who have attended our meetings and voiced their opinions about how the council should operate. We really try to take those opinions into consideration and act on them to the best of our ability.”
Since its formation, the FWSAC has compiled an extensive collection of resources for the public that are now available under the ‘Resources’ section on the website. Those include water quality reports and other governmental documents from city, state, and federal government agencies, how-to guides for installing and using water filters, contact information for various water-related departments in the city and state government, and more. There are also recordings, agendas, minutes, and other information from previous meetings. Some of those meetings include presentations and information from various experts the FWSAC has brought in to speak, answer resident questions directly, and share more about the work of various departments or functions within the city’s water system.
There is also an FAQ page, a community discussion page about topics like how to improve the city’s water systems, and a contact form where questions can be submitted directly to the council. Upcoming meetings will also be posted on the site as they are scheduled. The FWSAC plans to have one more meeting in 2025. Mainly, Pauli is just hoping the site helps encourage more participation in meetings, awareness of the work being done, and that the council’s mission is to serve residents and get answers to questions.
“I still encounter people, even at City Hall, who don’t even know the council exists, much less what it does,” Pauli said. “We wanted to be able to create a resource that, first and foremost, would inform people as to what the council is, who is on it, and just raise awareness of the council itself, and that includes not only our present work, but the archive of our past work too.”
In addition to Pauli, other residents on the FWSAC are Jaron Houston, Gina Jenkins-Harrington, Sherri Hartwell Miller, Dr. Lawrence Reynolds, MD, and Nayyirah Shariff. The non-residents on the council for their engineering expertise are Nancy Love and Shawn McElmurry. They can be contacted at wsac@cityofflint.com.
“We’ve tried to capture important issues around water that we’ve been talking about a lot at our meetings and that we’ve spoken with other members of the community about,” Pauli said. “And the idea was just to try to crystallize as succinctly and clearly as possible what those issues are and what is at stake in those issues, and what kinds of choices we will need to make or consider about those issues moving forward. We’re not necessarily trying to take a position one way. Or another on (those issues), it’s more about trying to create a common reference point that can serve as a resource to people who want to better understand what kinds of choices we’re facing around water as a community.”
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