1. Now What? Addressing Public Health & The Drinking Water Crisis: Race, Rates and Infrastructure
Peter J. Hammer
Professor of Law and Director
Damon J Keith Center for Civil Rights
Wayne State University Law School
All About Water
March 19, 2018

3. Infrastructure Through the Water Access and Health Lens – Meeting Goals:
Bring together funders, policy organizations and on-the-ground practitioners for a day of learning and relationship-building to inform local, state, regional, and national advocacy efforts to improve water safety, access, and efficiency of water infrastructure.
Develop specific, shared actions that participants can take to move water affordability and health decisions after the meeting.

4. First provocative claim . . . .
The changes necessary to improve water safety, access, and efficiency of water infrastructure and to move water affordability and health decisions are similar to the changes necessary to address structural racism and advance racial equity
Public health provides a frame that can advance racial equity
Racial equity provides a frame that can advance public health

5. First provocative claim . . . .
Understanding structural racism functions as a social MRI diagnosing the root causes of un-clean, un-safe and un-affordable water in urban areas
BUT: We need a more common analysis to forge a collaborative movement
Focus on Race, Rates and Infrastructure
Key Question: What determines the social and economic determinants of health?

6. What determines health?
Biomedical
Public Health
Social & Economic Determinants (environment)
Racial Equity & Justice
(transforming infrastructure)

7. Second provocative claim . . .
Spatial-Structural Racism lies at the heart of endemic water unaffordability and quality problems
Strategic Racism lies at the heart of the Flint Water Crisis, the Detroit-Flint Water Shutoffs, the theft of the DWSD and the creation of GLWA
Strategic racism => manipulation of the forces of express, unconscious and/or structural racism for public or private gain (regardless of racial animus)
Structural racism creates the vulnerability
Strategic racism exploits the vulnerability
Clean, safe affordable water is not possible without the conscious and intentional pursuit of racial equity

8. Structuralized Racialization (Verb)
Intentional
(Express)
Structural
White
Supremacy
(Privilege)
Implicit
Bias

9. What determines where we live?
What if people were gas molecules?
What social, economic and political forces shape demographic patterns?
Importance of spatial perspectives
The spatialization of race
The racialization of space
The past did not go anywhere (archeology of racism)
Relationship between race, rates and infrastructure

10. America’s untold histories . . . .

11. Address structural racism and health through the same frame
Mapping Opportunity
Michigan Roundtable-Kirwan Institute Opportunity Mapping (2008)
Defining Opportunity
Housing
Employment
Schooling
Health
Transportation
Food security
Living environment

12. Segregation wealth & opportunity

13. Spatial Racism in S.E. Michigan

14. Impacts every social policy issue
Environmental justice
Water quality
Public Transportation
Access to health care
Physical safety
Quality of schools
Job opportunities
Childhood asthma
Municipal distress
Social services
Water rates
Childhood obesity
Emergency Management
Infant mortality
Water shutoffs
Tax foreclosures
Life expectancy
Mass incarceration

15. Social reproduction of Spatial-Structural Racism
1920’s-1950’s segregated space inside cities
Detroit: Black Bottom and Paradise Valley
Flint: Floral Park and St. John Street
1960’s-1970’s transition
Containment breached at the edges
Racialized panic and “blockbusting”
Escalating white flight
1980’s-present segregated space reproduced at the regional level
Entire cities like Detroit and Flint function as racialized space surrounded by wealthy suburbs
What does this mean for water infrastructure?

27. Spatial Racism in S.E. Michigan

28. Segregated differences in job loss Flint-Genesee County 1998-2013

29. Race, rates and Infrastructure

30. Race, rates and infrastructure
Municipal distress in cities like Detroit and Flint are grounded in a history of spatial-structural racism
Spatial-structural racism lies at the heart of water quality issues and water un-affordability in Flint and Detroit
Strategic racism and Emergency Management lie at the heart of the Flint Water Crises, water shutoffs, the theft of DWSD and the creation of the GLWA
Only the intentional use of a racial equity frame can lead to sustainable change

31. Spatial-Structural racism causes municipal distress
Spatial-Structural Racism is the root cause of Detroit’s & Flint’s municipal distress mediated by
Collapse of property market and property tax revenue
Regional division, deindustrialization and the collapse of manufacturing tax base and income tax revenue
Declining state revenue sharing
Proper response: increased revenue sharing and address root causes of racial inequity
Actual Response: Emergency Management (austerity not resources)
Municipal distress as archeological evidence of structural racism
Structural racism created the vulnerability – Strategic racism exploits the vulnerability

32. Spatial-Structural racism causes water affordability and quality crisis
Detroit and Flint water systems are old, poorly maintained and built for cities with two to three times the population
Legacy of white flight and spatial racism
Cities can get caught in a rate death-spiral, where high fixed costs are spread over fewer and fewer payers
Present system is unjust and unsustainable
Proper response: regional water affordability plans
Actual response: water shutoffs
Failed infrastructure as archeological evidence of structural racism

33. Strategic racism caused the Flint Water Crisis
Emergency Manager displaced democracy and KWA gamed political processes to gain approval for their pipeline
KWA manipulated bond finance rules to raise money for the pipeline, but no external money was raised to upgrade the water treatment plant
The water started flowing before all necessary upgrades were made
The city was poisoned and the complaints of residents were ignored

34. Strategic racism created GLWA . . .
What does the real DWSD ledger look like?
What is value of DWSD as an asset?
How much wealth did DWSD create in the suburbs?
Note: DWSD was limited to cost recovery in its wholesale rates
Why no Grander Bargain? Bankruptcy lets you break and renegotiate contracts. Why not?
Break existing regional water contracts
Renegotiate water contracts to increase revenue and reflect national water rates
Create sustainable regional revenue sharing structure

35. Strategic racism created GLWA . . .
Instead of a “Grander Bargain,” Emergency Manager used bankruptcy to spin off DWSD into GLWA
Remove management and control from Detroit
GLWA created without just compensation for Detroit
GLWA leaves Detroit a rate base and aged infrastructure that is unsustainable
Missed opportunity for a regional revenue sharing system anchored in notions of equity

36. Where do we go from here?
A racial equity analysis is essential to evaluating the nature of the water problems and the viability of water solutions
Practical roads ahead
Water affordability
Re-negotiate GLWA deal
Health in all policies
Racial equity impact statements
Use racial equity as a frame to transform social institutions and physical infrastructure

37. Transforming institutions and infrastructure
What determines the social and economic determinates of health?
Spatial-Structural-Strategic racism have defined the institutions and infrastructure that define our state
Need new visions and values
Racial equity
Sustainability
Fairness
Justice
Beloved Community

38. What determines health?
Biomedical
Public Health
Social & Economic Determinants (environment)
Racial Equity & Justice
(transforming infrastructure)

39. Additional references
Peter J. Hammer, “The Flint Water Crisis, KWA and Strategic-Structural Racism,” (2016) available at
Peter J. Hammer, “Dear Judge Rhodes: Evaluation of the Expert Report of Martha E. M. Kopacz Regarding the Feasibility of the City of Detroit Plan of Adjustment,” 17 Journal of Law in Society 19 (2015)

40. Thank you!
“Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Questions?

41. Thank you!
“Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”