Economy
In Flint, Providing Safe Water Is a Full-Time Job
Hundreds of locals have been hired to help the city recover from its water crisis.
In an enormous unmarked warehouse on the outskirts of Flint, Michigan, pallets of bottled water extend to the horizon in endless rows, tinted blue by the “Absopure” label shrink-wrapped around each case. This inland sea turns over weekly, trucked out for distribution throughout the city of about 100,000 people, most of whom have relied on publicly funded bottles and filters for more than year.
On a recent afternoon, Jessica Johnson and Chris Cooper stop back at the warehouse to refill their yellow box truck, then head out on a route that winds past the General Motors plant and through neighborhoods of modest prewar bungalows in the city’s northwest corner.