Poison on Tap (A Bridge Magazine Analysis): How Government Failed Flint, and the Heroes Who Fought Back

The most valuable and illuminating account yet of the Flint water crisis.

It took more than a year for the truth to finally, painfully emerge – that Flint, Mich., residents had been drinking lead-poisoned water despite months of complaints about foul smells, discoloration and, worse, ill children.

Based on the award-winning journalism of Bridge Magazine, Poison on Tap provides a riveting, authoritative, in-depth account of the government blunders, mendacity and arrogance that produced the water crisis in Flint:

• How state-appointed emergency managers put cost-cutting ahead of public safety.

• How state experts misinterpreted basic safeguards, while federal regulators dithered for months about warning the public.

• How a governor missed the many red flags. And how a series of heroes refused to accept the pat dismissals of government agencies, needling and fighting until their voices were heard.

Poison on Tap is a compelling case study in how government at all levels can go very wrong – and yet shows the power of the human spirit to overcome.

“Sometimes truth is stranger and scarier than fiction—such is the case with the Flint Water Crisis. Bridge Magazine staff painstakingly document one of the most significant cases of environmental injustice in U.S. history.” —Marc Edwards, Virginia Tech professor whose work helped prove that the regulators were wrong