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