Three Experts On Preventing Another Flint Water Crisis

Jiquanda Johnson is a Flint-area native with more than 16 years of experience in journalism including print, television and digital media. She has worked for The Detroit News, NBC25, Fox and MLive Media Group/The Flint Journal, where she covered the city of Flint. Jiquanda discovered that the community needed a news publication focused only on Flint, Mich so she launched Flint Beat on March 13, 2017 to fill that need.

Virg Bernero was the 51st Mayor of Lansing and is currently CEO of Bernero Hannan LLC. Bernero put pressure on the Lansing Board of Water & Light to remove lead lines. Lansing is one of two cities in the county to completely have all lead lines removed.

Marc Edwards, a civil engineer and University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech conducted the research confirming that lead was poisoning Flint’s water. His work on the “Lead Crisis” in DC led to publication of a landmark paper documenting harm to DC’s children resulting from government agency negligence. He also created the Flint Water Study, an independent research team from Virginia Tech (VT) that volunteers their time, resources and expertise to help resolve scientific uncertainties associated with drinking water issues being reported in the City of Flint.

Click on the player to hear how these three experts in divergent fields came to share a common cause in the Flint Water Crisis. 

WDET’s “Created Equal” Season 2 focuses on the Flint Water Crisis and the elected officials, health care and environmental experts, and citizens who were on the ground from the beginning. 

The podcast season is a companion to the book “What the Eyes Don’t See,” written by Flint pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, above, whose research showed Flint children had elevated lead levels in their blood after the switch