This year marks the 10th anniversary of one of the largest public health disasters this country has ever witnessed.

The Flint water crisis began on April 25th, 2014, when the City of Flint switched its drinking water source from Detroit's system to untreated water from the Flint River in order to save money.

As a result, tens of thousands of residents in the primarily African-American city were exposed to dangerous levels of lead, which caused major health issues.

So here we are a decade later.

How is the water quality today in Flint?

And what health concerns remain?

Here's my conversation with Flint's current mayor, Sheldon Neeley.

Mayor Neeley, welcome to "American Black Journal."

- Well, thank you for having me, and so happy to be here with you.

- Yeah.

So it's a kind of somber occasion to mark the 10-year anniversary of the beginning of the Flint water crisis.

I think all of us can remember, as we were learning about what was happening, just how horrifying it all was, and it only got worse as we learned more.

I wanna start with you telling me about where we are now in Flint with the state of the water, but then also the state of the people in Flint who I think have to, over and over again, we've gotta make sure that we center this conversation on the lives of the people in your city.

So tell us how we're doing with water and with just the folks there.

- You know, as you framed it, you know, 10 years, but, you know, somber is not the word I would use as we relate to the anniversary, the 10-year anniversary, because it's a graduation period from where it started and where we are currently today.

You know, I'm here as a lifelong resident of this community, born and raised in this community.

My mother, my parents, and my daughters and my wife are still here.

So we were here from very, very day one.

You know, I was a city council person when this tragedy first engaged, this manmade crisis.

You know, we moved on to the state to try to rectify some things, you know, asking for investigations from the attorney general then at that time to be able to engage the process of recovery.

And so 10 years now, you know, we're still moving through the process.

Our infrastructure is in good shape.

We still have some more work to do, a little bit more work to do.

Major infrastructure, residential infrastructure.

You know, making sure that we had a secondary delivery system.

You know, major construction.

Making sure that the accessory to one of the crimes that was committed was with the Flint River water untreated.

But residents of this community never have to worry about ever drinking from the Flint River water again, based upon that level of infrastructure, building a secondary delivery system to our system.

We are in compliance with the lawsuit that was filed against the municipality.

31 lead service lines need to be replaced still, and that is in process as we speak currently, right now.

That work will be done before the end of next month.

Or, you know, we expect that work to be done in the next couple weeks, but we still have a little bit more work to be done.

About 1,900 more residential lines have to be repaired, but we have to get access and consent.

One of the things, and one of the troubling things, is that we have not been able to gain access to all the residential sites.

- All the lines.

Yeah.

- All the lines because we have to have consent to be able to gain access to those residential homes, and then we have to have access to it.

But we're still working through the process.

And so what people don't know is that the identification of 18,000 lines was done, and the federal government funded it at about $146 million, giving us a time window to get it completed on those 18,000.

But the 18,000 soon turned to 31,000, with no additional funding and no additional time.

And we had a worldwide pandemic that pushed pause on the world for about a year and a half.

And so the workers that went into this and all the coordination from state, federal, and municipal governments, you know, we were very proud of the work we're doing.

But we're still engaged.

And we're further ahead in the process to many other communities across the country because now we know, as a national issue, we have this problem.

And so, definitely, we're working through that process.

But then you asked the question about are people doing, myself and my family included, right?

My family, we're all included in this whole process.

My neighbors and friends.

There still is a big lack of trust.

There has been an erosion of trust in the process.

And it's justified.

And people are justifiably angry, frustrated through that.

And I don't blame them one bit, because I serve in that same capacity as a resident of the City of Flint.

So we're working through that.

The only thing that we can do to help restore trust is be able to continue to provide a level of transparency as we go forward.

But definitely, we have that element there.

Then we have the civil issue, because the settlement amount originated from about more than a half a billion dollars, $600 million from the state government.

That was the floor, not the ceiling.

More dollars would come in because more defendants had to go through adjudication process, the process of adding more money into it.

The sum now was $653 million, and that's not including the interest.

Interest has accrued on those dollars probably to the excess of $40 million.

So we're just about $700 million in and about.

And there's only one more defendant still remaining to be able to put some dollars to that.

And that is all guided by the federal process.

The federal master and the federal judge has been going through that, making sure all documentation has been satisfied.

But definitely when you have this level and the sum of money, there's some elements of fraud and things are going on.

So they're going through that process, trying to eliminate some of that and making sure that everybody who was negatively impacted- - Gets some compensation.

So I wanna talk about a sign that I saw on social media.

A Flint resident standing, I think, in front of her home that said, "Flint hasn't had clean water since 2014."

And, you know, I heard all the things you just said about the efforts to make sure that the water is clean and that you're not doing the same things that caused the crisis, but that also goes to the trust issue you were talking about.

A lot of people still feel like they're in jeopardy.

- Right.

And, you know, the only way we can overcome that is, you know, by providing a level of information to them.

And they'll be able to digest that information to whereby they'll feel comfortable enough.

I'm not blaming anybody for the psychological space that they're currently in, but, you know, we are the most monitored, the most tested municipality in the State of Michigan as it relates to water.

We know the lead, copper rule, the standards from our EPA, Environmental Protection Agencies, for our federal government, and also EGLE, which is our state environmental protection agency.

They say that, you know, anything less than 15 parts per billion of lead in water is acceptable.

We say there's no amount of lead in water that's acceptable or safe, but that is the standard for our federal and state standards.

And we're gonna be working toward legislation that pushes that further down so no community in our country will ever have to face the same type of tragedy which the City of Flint is overcoming.

But the thing of what we were saying here is that no amount of lead is safe in water.

But we're continuing to support residents where they are, though we are meeting all standards, well, well below the standard of the federal and state environmental agencies.

We're testing consistently, month after month, year after year, below those standards.

And we're also promoting filtration of water for the point that you drink it.

And we're providing free filters for families at many different sites throughout the city, and we're doing that for free for them.

And we're also testing water.

If a resident has a concern, we're testing that water.

And then also we have a third-party independent testing facility.

If they don't trust government, they can go to that space and have their water tested.

And so, you know, I'm in the city, right?

My family's here.

And so I'm on the water system, as well as all of our staff.

Within a short proximity of where I currently live, which is I've been in that home for over 30 years, the police chief, the fire chief, the state representative, we all live in a close proximity of one another.

And that's deep in our neighborhoods, right?

It's not in no real affluent places.

So we see and feel everything that the residents are because we are the residents.

We are one and the same.

But definitely we want to help families that are still trying to graduate to a better place mentally.

We want to help them.

- Yeah.

So I want to cast forward now and talk about the future in Flint and the things that you feel good about, that you feel optimistic about in terms of repair, right?

Repair of people's lives.

I'm thinking of programs like Rx Kids, which is just underway, which is trying to make sure that people have what they need when they're starting a family.

One of the things that happened as a result of the Flint water crisis is this new attention on the problems that Flint had before the water crisis and how to solve them.

Can you talk just a little about what gives you hope?

- Yeah, you know, casting forward, you know, I'm saying that, you know, Flint is gonna be a destination location for the State of Michigan and also America.

We have so many great things here, and Flint has been known for so many great things throughout our country.

The first of many things happened here in the City of Flint.

Not just automotive, not just black leadership or open housing for African Americans in this community, but definitely we have everything in queue and ready to go.

We're just working through a large lesson.

When you talk about Rx Kids, it's the only program in the nation right now that provides a level of income for pregnant mothers and also young children under one years of age.

It's a program where we give mothers a $1,500 stipend, and then we give $500 a month for the first year of the baby's life.

And so what that does is provide a level of comfort and ease to be able to help mothers in those spaces.

I'm part of a coalition since.

I'm part of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income for people.

But definitely when we look at the whole menu, when we talk about black communities, much like Flint and other places, we have to look at the infant mortality ratios.

You know, black and brown babies die four times more than their white counterparts.

Maternal mortality.

Black mothers and brown mothers die three times more than their white counterparts.

This is one of the things that holistically I have to look at as a mayor.

I am a deep man of faith, and I'm not embarrassed about saying I have a great deal of faith.

But, you know, a prerequisite to faith is hope.

So I have hope, I have faith.

And we're aligning with people of like thinking, and we're just pushing forward through that process.

That's why our Rx Kids would develop here.

We put resources toward that to be able to support mothers in this community through a level of lifting them out of poverty, but also trying to make sure we eliminate the health crisis that we currently have here.

The president of the United States says that gun violence is a health crisis, especially in black communities.

The number one killer of black men is gun violence.

Homicide rates inside the City of Flint are down by 40%.

You know, that was intentional success, and that's why we continue to develop and work through these issues.

Now we work through our infrastructure process.

We're gonna continue to work through that.

And we're looking for partners.

Just not local partners or state partners or federal partners, everybody of like thinking.

And I wanna just take a brief opportunity to thank all the people across the world.

The philanthropic giving and the prayers and the well wishes and the water that came through over the period of a decade.

I wanna just say to them, thank you.

On behalf me as a resident of this community and my neighbors and my friends and the citizens, you know, together we are moving forward from crisis to recovery.

We're doing the work that's necessary to be done.

- Yeah.

Okay.

Mayor Sheldon Neeley of the City of Flint, it's great to have you here on "American Black Journal," and continued good luck in moving past this incredible crisis.

Thanks for being with us.

- Thank you and God bless.