Many Flint families still drink, cook, and wash with bottled water, boiling it on the stove and filling the tub to bathe. They’ve been doing this every single day for three years, not yet having received confirmation that the city’s water supply is safe and free from high lead levels —toxic to children — and other issues, like Legionnaires’ disease.

On the scale of justice, the Flint water crisis has not only affected the health and living conditions of the city’s most vulnerable populations, it has created a significant lack of trust and confidence in government leadership. “This is a man-made disaster,” said Noah Hall, who in 2016 was appointed special assistant attorney general for Michigan, joining the special counsel team for the Flint water investigation led by state Attorney General Bill Schuette. Some litigation has supported residents’ basic needs, such as forcing the State of Michigan to fund and deliver bottled water. But the task force is also charged with uncovering and prosecuting potential crimes, including the violation of environmental statutes.

After exhaustively poring over email communications used as evidence, Hall is certain that public officials knowingly and actively disregarded their legal duty to protect Flint’s citizens, ultimately causing a long-term public health emergency. Schuette’s team has filed criminal charges, including involuntary manslaughter, against 15 current and former state and local officials.

"They made choices favoring finances over human life," Hall said. "It is our hope that we can bring some justice to Flint and hold officials accountable for disregarding environmental laws."

Hall credits his SEAS education with providing him a realistic perspective on environmental law and justice. “Paul Mohai taught me how environmental policy is supposed to work, and Bunyan Bryant taught me that it doesn't work for the most vulnerable people and communities,” he said.

Hall is founder of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit environmental organization that provides legal assistance to community organizations, environmental non-governmental organizations, and local, state and regional governments. He is bringing his experience back to SEAS as a visiting professor in winter 2018, teaching a special topics course on new directions in environmental law including Flint as a case study.