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Policy & History

The Safe Drinking Water Act, Flint, EPA vs. EWG standards, and what the new 2024 rules actually change. Plain-English regulatory journalism.

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6 min read
May 12, 2026

Flint, Michigan: what actually happened, what the law changed, and why 'compliance' is still not 'safety'

Between April 2014 and October 2015, the city of Flint poisoned tens of thousands of residents with lead-contaminated water. It was a failure of a city manager, a state agency, the EPA, and a regulatory framework that mistook procedural compliance for public health. Here is the timeline, the technical failure, and what the 2024 rule changes — and doesn't.