TINA MARTIN: Next on Local, USA, a special report on the water you drink.

Flint, Michigan, is ground zero for water safety, struggling with high levels of lead coming out of taps across the city.

- Our daughter would go to school through the week, and then she would come home and she would be complaining of stomach aches.

And so we didn't understand what was going on until we started to read about how you can see those effects manifest itself in children.

MARTIN: Even as Flint searches for solutions, we're beginning to see that the problem is far greater than one town in one state.

Is the water coming out of your tap safe?

"Beyond the Tap," next on Local, USA.

♪ Local, USA, "Beyond the Tap" is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The Kendeda Fund.

With additional funding provided by the Erb Family Foundation and viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Tina Martin.

The national spotlight has been on Flint, Michigan, as it faces a major health crisis.

Poisonous levels of lead are coming out of everyone's tap.

Many argue this crisis was mismanagement by government and water industry officials at every level.

Everyone agrees it threatens more than 90,000 citizens.

But this city is not alone.

Tonight, we look at what's happening in Flint, Michigan, and introduce you to some of the people who are most affected, as they try to safeguard themselves and their children.

We travel to other towns in the region where the issue of lead in the water is also front and center.

In the Midwest, around the country, citizens are asking the question: can what happened in Flint happen to us?

Flint, Michigan.

An hour northwest of Detroit, for years it was a car manufacturing powerhouse.

But when the auto industry abandoned the city, Flint fell into a deep economic depression.

Charles and Dana Banks grew up in Flint.

He's a former school counselor, now studying social work at the University of Michigan.

She works as a health and wellness coach.

I love Flint.

It made me me.

It's a hardworking community, a community of resilience.

DANA: You try to do all the right things.

You take your kids and you teach them manners, you take them to church, and you teach them to be respectful, and then you can't protect them from drinking water.

That's just ridiculous.

And it's sad.

CHARLES: All of the hard work that you do to try to place your children in the best possible position that you could place them in, and then you put them in a situation like this with water that compromises their system.

You know, it just makes you feel like that you failed your children.

MARTIN: Charles and Dana wanted to raise their four daughters-- Cameron, Alanah, Olivia, and Troy-- right here, amidst their extended family.

Now they're not so sure.

What do you call the Flint water?

A pencil.

'Cause it has so much lead in it.

CURT GUYETTE: April of 2014, in an attempt to save $5 million, the emergency manager overseeing Flint at the time unilaterally made the decision to begin using the Flint River as the city's water source.

For the previous 50 years they'd been getting their water pre-treated from Detroit.

The problem with the Flint River and lead was not that there's lead in the river, the problem is that the river itself is very highly corrosive and lead began leaching into the water very, very quickly.

MARTIN: The corrosive water was drawing lead out of the city's old pipes.

Adding anti-corrosive chemicals would have helped, but the state's emergency manager didn't require the treatment.

Almost immediately, there were complaints about the taste of the water.

There were reports of bacteria, lead and other contaminants.

I do remember when our water changed shortly after they switched over from the Detroit water to the Flint River.

- It was nasty water.

- It was a change in our drinking water, and I could tell that from brushing our teeth in the morning.

- Oh, yeah.

- Just getting up and close and personal with the water, and it was the slight... - It wasn't slight, it stunk.

- You could just tell that it was different.

MARTIN: For almost two years, the city told the people of Flint their water was fine.

They only learned about the danger in the summer of 2015, when Curt Guyette uncovered a memo from the Environmental Protection Agency about elevated lead levels in Flint.

GUYETTE: The Environmental Protection Agency initially was trying to find answers, but they were not told the truth about what was going on.

Miguel del Toro, a water specialist, began working with a homeowner, found out that the problem had to be outside the home, that there was no lead plumbing within the home.

Del Toro hooked her up with Marc Edwards at Virginia Tech, who helped her conduct an independent test of her home's water, and one of those samples showed lead levels at 13,200 parts per billion.

To put that in perspective, 15 parts per billion is the federal action level, 5,000 parts per billion lead, water is classified as hazardous waste.

So this family had two and a half times the level that water is classified as hazardous waste going into its home.

CHARLES: It's not normal, it don't feel normal.

Where you're just walking around, everybody gotta do this bottled water thing, and revolve all your eating habits around bottled water.

DANA: You know, you find yourself shifting between bottled water, using the sink, washing your hands, and not really being sure if you are protecting your family or not.

Okay, Mama.

I got it.

MARTIN: Suddenly, Flint had a full-blown public health emergency.

The effects of lead poisoning are well known.

In adults, it can cause heart problems and kidney failure.

In children, the effects can be even worse: behavior and learning problems, lower IQ, slowed growth, possibly even severe damage to the brain and the nervous system.

DANA: Our daughter would go to school through the week and then she would come home and she would be complaining of stomachaches and then they said that she was lethargic, and she's never lethargic.

She's always engaged and happy.

And so, we didn't understand what was going on until we started to read about how you can see the effects manifest itself in children.

MARTIN: Some families were seeing new and worrying health problems, perhaps related to other toxins in the water.

My daughter has a boil under her arm the size of an orange that she had to have lanced.

And then they casually asked, "Oh, would you like us to test the sample that comes out?"

That gave me the idea-- oh, this is because of the water.

They said, "Yes, don't rinse it in the Flint water "once we clean it.

"Don't wash it in the Flint water.

Be very careful not to get any of the water in it."

I've had three so far.

I've had three and they're so painful.

No, no, I've had four.

I had four.

My first one was in January.

And, like, they live for like two weeks, and it's painful and embarrassing.

You don't want to talk about it because it's gross, but it's like what can you do?

DANA: You know, I try to be calm when I'm explaining and talking about this water situation, but it really makes me angry.

MARTIN: The state of Michigan began providing bottled water for Flint residents, and bottles also came from the city and from foundations and individual donations.

It's handed out at fire stations, at churches, delivered to the elderly as needed.

The town also delivered lead filters for Flint home taps.

And they started testing families aggressively for lead.

It's a massive, expensive process.

MAN: So why are you here today, what's going on?

To get my kids tested and me tested to make sure that we doesn't have any high level of lead in our bodies.

All of us was low, and that's a good thing.

MARTIN: Cheryl Porter is the Chief Operating Officer for the Great Lakes Water Authority, the agency that delivered treated drinking water to Flint before the city changed sources.

CHERYL PORTER: Our industry is something that's hidden.

It's not well known, it's not well communicated.

So they don't pay attention to it until the water no longer is running in your home.

MARTIN: Treating drinking water so it's safe is complicated and heavily regulated.

Some of the steps include removing dirt and sediment, adding chlorine to kill bacteria, and, critically, adding anti-corrosion chemicals.

These chemicals coat the inside of pipes the water travels through, and keeps lead and other metals from old pipes from entering the water.

PORTER: Lead is not a part of the water.

It is something that leaches into the water as it travels through our system.

That's why the corrosion control protection was established.

So that no matter what the situation was, we were doing all that we could do to ensure the protection of water as it is reaching that home.

MARTIN: In 1991, the Federal Lead and Copper Rule established a limit for the amount of lead that is safe in drinking water: 15 parts per billion.

Flint and other large systems have to test regularly.

But smaller communities don't have to test so often.

And that is how some other water systems have fallen through the regulatory cracks.

This is one of those smaller communities-- Sebring, Ohio, a rural village with only 4,500 people.

Like Flint and other towns in America's "Rust Belt," Sebring has lost jobs and population and is struggling economically.

And like Flint, Sebring has been facing a leaded water crisis.

MARVIN ABEREGG: We just recently failed our lead and copper tests for the distribution system.

For the last 22 years we have just barely passed the test.

COREY HUGHES: We're embarrassed of the way, how things were handled and how it made us look as a whole-- some podunk town that really didn't know what they were doing... MARTIN: Corey Hughes and Marvin Aberegg have lived in Sebring all of their lives.

Both were surprised to find out there was a problem with Sebring's water, and they began to look for reasons why.

MARVIN ABEREGG: Several years back we were voted best water in the state, so you don't equate that with 22 years of nearly failing lead tests.

MELANIE HOUSTON: In Sebring they didn't change their water source, but they changed their treatment.

Large water systems have to do corrosion control treatment, which is adding those agents, right, that stop the water from having such a nature that it would cause that lead to come out of the pipes.

But small and medium-sized systems are not required to do that until after there's a problem that arises.

MARTIN: Sometime before 2015, Sebring, like Flint, stopped adding anti-corrosives.

The untreated water that went through the pipes began leaching lead into the drinking water.

And, as in Flint, the residents were not notified by the city or the state.

HOUSTON: We do have records that indicate that EPA officials knew in October of these results, perhaps earlier.

But it looks as if the situation was that those folks held on to that information.

So we had not only local officials and the operator, village manager, kind of sitting on this information, but also Ohio EPA not stepping up and assuring that when the locals didn't do their job, that essentially they would step in and make sure that the public was notified, and start to take corrective actions.

MAN: This water's awful.

And really it started back in early December, late November.

MAN: Why are smaller water systems held to a different standard?

- That is an excellent question.

And I can say that this is an outdated standard.

I don't think that's a satisfying answer to the public, who have now been exposed.

You know, again, potentially women expecting children drinking lead-tainted water, elderly folks, children.

It is the way that the standard was set up in 1991 when it was put in place by the U.S. EPA and it's something that we feel strongly needs to change.

MARTIN: City Manager Richard Giroux has said he found out about the issue from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in December 2015, but there's evidence he knew months earlier.

HUGHES: We did retrieve a document through public information.

It's a copy of an email that our operator emailed to our city manager.

MAN: "Here are the facts: We are in violation for high levels "of lead in seven out of the 40 samples we grabbed.

"The problem is caused by old water lines going in old houses with lead used as its solder."

HUGHES: That confirms that, yeah, he received that memo and he knew all about it.

Later on in December, that's when he was notified by the EPA that there was a violation and that everybody needed to be notified.

Our city manager then still never told anybody, never did anything until he was notified again in January by the EPA stating that the public must be notified.

MARTIN: By the time they were told, the men, women, and children of Sebring had been drinking high levels of lead in their water for five months, and perhaps much longer.

The water operator had his license revoked in Sebring and was removed from his post.

Two employees of the Ohio EPA were fired, and one demoted.

To date, I have received not a bit of information from the village.

The only communications I've had concerning the water have been from the health department when they tested my water after the fact.

Prior to that, nothing.

(loud creaking) - Needs oil.

- I guess!

MARTIN: Anti-corrosive chemicals have been reintroduced into Sebring's drinking water supply, and the immediate crisis is over here.

But it cost the village nearly $200,000, and the long-term effects are still unknown.

MAN: Where are you taking this water?

- City Hall.

- How come City Hall needs water?

- We're clear, but they just been drinking, like the bottled water.

I mean I drink it, whatever, I don't care.

We're just kind of a small town, happen to be the epicenter of this issue as an echo of Flint, not necessarily national newsworthy on its own.

MARTIN: In Flint, the crisis is not over.

The city switched back to getting treated water from the Great Lakes Water Authority, but residents are still afraid to open their taps.

Lead is still flowing out of the pipes and into residents' homes.

The problem is that so much damage was done to the infrastructure for the 18 months that the river water was being used, that it's been very, very difficult making the water safe again.

Many Flint residents are, not surprisingly, not using very much water.

It is lead solder.

See this here?

The delivery of the cure, which is this clean water that needs to flow through the system, in some Flint homes, it's simply not happening.

According to one simple model it's probably going to take months or years to get these deposits out of the pipes and to clean these pipes up.

WOMAN: The water that comes out of the faucet, what do you think about it?

- Um...

I don't like to use it.

I think it's really irritating using bottled water every day to just do normal household things, like brush your teeth, and sometimes to wash your face, because it burns like when it gets in your eyes and in like your nose.

And so I think that's just really upsetting that we actually have to use bottled water to do it.

First we have to get a water bottle, and then we pour some water on the toothbrush to like wet it.

And then you get your toothpaste, put it on there, and then you brush your teeth.

And then you have to get the water, you have to use that to swish around and clean the toothbrush.

And you end up using like a whole bottle of water just by brushing your teeth.

And you have to brush your teeth twice a day, every week, and every single day of the week.

So that's like a case of water, like a bunch of water in just like a week.

WOMAN; Olivia, do you talk at school about the water?

- Yes.

WOMAN: And what are the conversations at school?

- It's more like, when is this going to end?

Like not soon.

When is it going to end?

Why did this even happen?

Do we have enough water?

Like, I feel like in the summertime because at school everybody's running around at recess and playing, and then that's when we're really gonna want a lot of water and I'm scared that like we might run out or something.

WOMAN: Do you think this would happen if this weren't a predominantly black community?

- Personally, I don't.

Because of this community is predominantly black made the decision for those to drop the ball a lot easier.

Another factor: poverty.

- Yup.

- It's poverty.

MARTIN: The Banks family is solidly middle class, and their neighborhood is well cared for and relatively prosperous.

But they agree with those who say the state and federal government ignored residents' complaints because Flint is a predominantly black and working class community.

(drilling) An hour away from Flint lies Lansing, Michigan's state capital, a predominantly white community.

11 years ago, citizens in Lansing began to notice high levels of lead in their water.

Virg Bernero was running for his first term as mayor at the time.

VIRG BERNERO: A change in that water chemistry, even what seems to be a slight change could suddenly render these pipes a real danger.

GUYETTE: Lansing is a much richer city, much more stable tax base than Flint had.

And they had elected officials in place that were being responsive to the needs and concerns of the residents.

BERNERO: And we started to get some questions about the lead service lines, from constituents.

And we started to raise questions about it, really just calling the proper authorities, trying to get educated about it.

MARTIN: Although many of the complaints came from the less wealthy areas of town, Lansing reacted quickly.

They began a program of systematically removing the old lead pipes, every year replacing some of them with safer copper pipes.

Richard Peffley is the Chief Executive Officer of the Lansing Board of Water and Light.

RICHARD PEFFLEY: When we first started this, we would trench from the water main all the way to their house with a backhoe.

Through the curb, through the sidewalk, sometimes through their driveways.

Made a mess, and we restored it, but it was an inconvenience for them.

BERNERO: We've replaced almost all of them.

I think we've got about 500 actual live lead service lines, and we test regularly for them, and we will eliminate them all probably in another year.

When we used to trench, that took nine hours and cost about $10,000.

Now we do the directional pulling, we call it, and that costs $3,600.

And we cut the lead service to water main, then what we do is we take and we push a cable, just a standard cable from the street, into the customer's house.

The backhoe grabs that cable and pulls it through.

The lead service starts coming out into the street and the copper just pulls through.

And it's as simple as hooking the copper line up to the water main and we go off to the next house.

MARTIN: The Lansing Board of Water and Light is now consulting with Flint, helping to launch their lead pipe replacement program.

It's estimated that it will take 32 crews working for a year to replace all of the pipes in Flint.

BERNERO: Flint, like a lot of our cities, became the hole in the donut, instead of the hub of the wheel.

MAN: If wealthy people live in the donut, who's living in the hole?

- It's poor, it tends to be minority, it tends to be poor, it's people who can't get out.

MARTIN: In Flint, for the Banks family, the frustration has been growing.

DANA: Our water bill has been averaging $250 to $300 per month.

And then they've been going through this series of recalculating to decide how we're gonna get the 60% credit that they've come up with some rocket science, mathematical equation to decide that we should still pay for partially... we should still partially pay for toxic water and bacteria-filled water, which is ridiculous.

For most groups of the population, no one would stand for that.

But for some reason, for a predominantly African-American community, a poor community, oh, it sounds very reasonable.

And it's ridiculous.

Who wants to pay a portion of something that's garbage?

Because nobody's paying for all these boils that we have and the pain that we are dealing with.

The chemical burns and the stomach aches, and the inconvenience for trying to cook, and have to pour water and try to rinse.

And is it clean or not?

Nobody's paying for that, and nobody's dealing with the inconvenience for that.

MARTIN: Dana and Charles have finally decided they can't stay in Flint.

Some of their neighbors are leaving, too, if they can.

They love the city, but they have to think about what's best for their families.

DANA: There are a lot of great people here, doing great things.

So it's not all doom and gloom.

But my patience for Flint is gone.

We're looking to short-sell our home and possibly relocate.

We're hopeful that the bank will agree to a short sale.

And then we're hopeful that they will agree to the price that they determine, you know, the comps to be in the area.

And then we're hopeful that we'll actually be able to find a buyer, because who wants to buy a home in an area that has polluted water?

Leaving friends, it's hard to do, but making new friends is easy and not having this water problem in our house and at our school is really great.

Being able to brush your teeth with your faucet is really awesome.

And not having to carry around bottled water in your house, because that gets really irritating.

WOMAN: And that's not normal.

No, it's not.

- I'd rather make new friends than new boils.

And I would say it's like a love-hate relationship.

You know, of course it's my birth, it's my home.

But I do know that life can be better in different ways.

HOUSTON: This is a major environmental justice issue.

We need to fix this problem.

MAN: What's the one thing people need to know about this issue?

HOUSTON: You should always reach out to your local, state, and federal decision makers to ask them what are they doing on this issue, and to tell them what you think they should be doing.

And ultimately, the message is as easy as, I deserve safe, clean drinking water in my home, and to know that I'm giving my child water that won't harm them three years, five years, ten years down the road.

MARTIN: What will happen to Flint as it loses more of its educated middle class, like the Banks family and their neighbors?

What will happen to the people who cannot move out?

The water crisis here, and in communities across America, has left many people with questions about their government and their water safety, and fears for their future.

The poisoned tap water may be washing away longstanding communities.

To join the conversation on water safety in America, go to WORLDchannel.org.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Tina Martin.

Local, USA, "Beyond the Tap" is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The Kendeda Fund.

With additional funding provided by the Erb Family Foundation and viewers like you.

Thank you.