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Doni: So you wake up in the morning, you take a shower, you wash your face, you brush your teeth, you put the coffee on.

I bet that you never think about what's common to each of these activities.

So let me tell you, it's water.

Mostly we take our clean, healthy, high quality water for granted.

But guess what?

We should not.

There is a real but unnecessary possibility that our access to clean, healthy, high quality water might be at risk.

It's a topic worth talking about.

Local water crisis expert and executive director of the Junction Coalition, Alicia Smith, is here to do just that.

On to the point.

Connect with us on our social media pages.

As you know you may email me at doni _miller@wgte.org for this episode and any others that you might be interested in seeing, please go to wgte.org/to the point.

We have with us today one of the loudest voices, one of the most informed voices, one of the most listened to voices in our community when it comes to the empowerment of our communities.

And today we are talking about that empowerment through the need for healthy water and the water crisis that is facing this nation.

I would like to introduce to you it is my pleasure to introduce to you the president and CEO of the Junction Coalition, Alisha Smith.

Good morning.

Alicia: Good morning and thank.

You to you.

Doni: I'm so glad you could join us.

It is.

Alicia: Our pleasure.

And I always say our because when I sit here, I see the community.

Being able to have a voice is our pleasure to be here.

Doni: We are speaking of that, we have a short video that I'd like people to see that talks a bit about the Junction Coalition.

Alicia: Okay, wonderful.

Doni: All right.

Announcer: This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources.

Alicia: We talk about intent.

The intent is to replace the wetlands.

The impact without proper education is harm.

Speaker: There is no acceptable level of lead.

And if you happen to be black in America and you are living at or below the poverty line, you're more four times more likely to have elevated levels of lead in your blood.

So this is an issue of public health, but it's also an issue of justice and equity.

Alicia: The whole theme was get the letter out and it was supposed to be a community education campaign to ensure that residents knew what to do to ensure that their family work, families were safe from lead exposure, providing filters, providing education, providing resources and providing networks to ensure that people understood how to protect their families.

That did not have a good follow through.

Within disadvantaged communities, many families do not have the benefit of having Wi-Fi or Internet access.

We canvass door to door because of that particular issue is that everybody does not have Internet.

Everyone does not have access to public education.

Community education.

Community engagement is going to be paramount to the success of any little replacement.

Those are things the junction is going is the poverty of information.

Not having the information is where we have suffered for so very long.

Doni: Special thanks to filmmaker Aaron Martin for producing that segment.

Takes your breath away.

Your breath away.

We have gotten awfully comfortable in in this town and frankly, in this country with our reliance on healthy, safe, clean water.

We think it's always going to be there.

Is it, in fact, a crisis?

Alicia: It is, in fact, a crisis.

There was the Flint crisis.

There's the Biden Harbor crisis as we speak.

There is the national crisis as we speak on safe, affordable, quality drinking water.

We need to understand that even as we go to the polls on November 7th, there is an issue on the ballot issue 25 about safe, affordable drinking water with Bayview Treatment Center.

But there's been no conversation with the residents of our community about how that's going to impact them.

Is it going to make water unaffordable?

When you think about 2014, when we had our water crisis in Toledo, half a million people were without their water.

That's astronomical.

That is something that cannot and should not happen in our United States of America.

We have children who could not bathe in the water, drink the water, touch the water.

Mothers who were had to have the opportunity to feed their children could not do that.

Elders could not take their medication.

This is a very serious concern in regards to water.

We need to stop, think about our loved ones and require that our officials do the best things for us as a people regarding our water.

Doni: Is this all about our infrastructure?

One of the things that I noticed when I was researching this topic is that most of the infrastructure around the country was built in the last century, only designed to last for 75 years.

We are way past, way past.

Alicia: You know, the beautiful thing is we our administration currently has that in their forefront.

They understand it.

We have to do something about the infrastructure is why we have unprecedented historical dollars right now for the infrastructure bill, The Inflation Reduction Act.

But we have to be skilled enough to work together as a in a partnership, city, state and federal to know what we need to do to ensure that communities can enact themselves and begin to get out there and get the work done.

Doni: And for folks who don't know, come a current administration, the Biden administration has put $30 billion in the infrastructure legislation and another 550 million in the Infrastructure Reduction Act.

But even with that money, we are falling way short of what we need to fix our system.

One estimate, Alicia, said that it would cost $1,000,000,000,000 to fix the system and they used one.

See Jackson, Mississippi, who's alone.

Fixing their infrastructure alone would be $2 billion.

Alicia: When you look at our southern states and those that are coming online, and I've had opportunity to visit Utah, Alabama, some of the same issues in that space is Jackson, Mississippi.

We are behind the times in doing this work.

But if we were to think innovatively in how we can generate people instead of profit, we can educate our people in a way that it creates innovation and allows them to think, how do we use stormwater management to help us generate energy, generate funds and generate thought provoking changes within our climate, within our environment for justice.

And when you look at the cost of water, that is going to be the greatest impairment for us because people know about their water.

Doni: And let's talk about that a little more because one of the things that you educated me on is that water is not really useful if it is not affordable.

Alicia: It is not.

When you think about during COVID, the issue was wash your hair.

Doni: That's right.

Alicia: If you couldn't wash your hands, you were at a greater exposure.

And we thankfully were able to talk with Governor DeWine's office and he began the moratorium on water shutoffs, and that was paramount.

Folks, public health is something that we have to stop and think we are the public in public health.

We are the public and public utility.

So there is a need for public deliberation.

Talk to us, communicate, be transparent, because there's ways that maybe those of us that have a little bit more than the other can begin to give.

And there can be a culture of funds that ensure no one is without water.

Right?

Doni: Right.

And during that moratorium, what that allowed was not only the limitation for exposure to COVID, which we know was far, far more difficult an issue in underserved and disinvested communities than others.

But it also, I think, gave people who were paying attention the opportunity to see how important this resource actually could be.

Alicia: We live in the Midwest.

We have the Great Lakes, the largest body of fresh water, fresh.

When we began to think about sanitation and the things that it costs.

We understand that there is definitely cost to ensure safe, affordable drinking water.

But we should also sit with ourselves and say, how are we preparing our young people as the infrastructures aging?

So our is the workforce.

That's right.

So are the individuals who are serving us right now.

So how are we bringing our young people to the table and sitting them down and saying, for every glass of water you drink, that is life, right?

The United Nations says water is life.

Right.

And there's no amount of water that should be kept from when we start talking about conservation keeping.

You only use this amount of water you set and rationing water out.

This is ridiculous.

We can't have individuals on television saying we're going to shut the water off if you don't get this done or that done.

That is a sign of war.

Right.

You know, we are not in a third world country.

We are living where we can speak to each other, deliberate, come up with conversations and innovation to change how we live for a better quality.

Doni: That's right.

We need to redefine.

Don't you think that the way we look at this issue, water is not only all of those things that you've said so eloquently, it is also the foundation of our lives.

It has everything to do with health.

Alicia: Is it has definitely mostly what we're made of.

Doni: That's right.

Alicia: You know, and you think about to pay for something that you're made to pay for, something that you have to have that should not be.

When you look at the issue on the ballot, there's a state House bill 93 that talks about leans against people, homes for water bills.

We really need to take private privatizing our water.

We cannot privatize.

Doni: Water.

It becomes a conversation about profit at that point, which is where we don't want it to go.

We're going to take a break right now.

But when we come back, I want to I want to ask if you're advocating for free water for everyone or if there's another thought that you have in mind with me.

Alicia: Yes, please.

Doni: All right.

We will be right back.

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Doni: You can connect with us on social media and you may email me at doni _miller@wgte.org.

Also, as always, if you are interested in seeing this episode again or looking at any other extra episodes that we have, please go to wgte.org/to the point, we are with Alisha Smith, who is a water crisis expert.

She is also the executive director of the Junction Coalition.

When we went to break, we were I had a question that I posed to you.

It sounds like you were advocating that water be free for everyone is and.

Alicia: Should be affordable.

We understand our responsibility as citizens and stewardship of what we must have.

A basic human right is water so we can be free.

There's way that there are ways that we can talk about that, but it's going to take time.

So should we be paying for it and should we be ensuring that there's ways of developing revenue around free, affordable, safe drinking water, bowl water?

Yes.

I don't think that it should be free right now because we're not in that place.

But it should definitely be affordable.

Doni: And it should definitely be a conversation.

Alicia: It should be should.

Doni: Be a conversation.

No one should be required to go without this resource or not one.

Alicia: During the COVID, during the pandemic, we had QR codes where people could scan if they were living without the water, and the water department would go out and connect their water due to the crisis.

Well, as I still say, we are in a crisis.

Doni: We're in a crisis.

Alicia: When you talk about the trauma that COVID left us to live with and the loss of all of our loved ones, this is something that we have to understand.

Water is paramount to our success, our livelihood and humanity.

Doni: Absolutely as usual, in these issues.

Those communities that have suffered the largest amount of disinvestment yet are the communities that are hit.

The hardest.

The National Corps of Civil Engineers have given this country only a C-minus in terms of its water overall.

So you know that when you're looking at communities that have a slew of lead pipes.

Yes, often we don't know where those pipes even are.

To be able to replace them, we have a whole nother critical conversation.

Alicia: And I want us to understand right now in the city of Toledo, we are replacing lit lines.

That's right.

We cannot do that without residents calling, engage Toledo, calling and asking for someone to come and test those pipes right in your home.

You need to know if you're living with lead copper or galvanized pipes.

There is a team that has shirts to say gatley, and they will come into your home, test your pipes, and if you have lit the city, we will replace that from your home to the curb at no cost to you.

Doni: You know, when I want to interject this right now, because I'm so proud of the work that you guys are doing in the Junction Coalition.

Congratulations on your recent award.

I want folks to know that the Junction Coalition was the only organization in the state of Ohio to receive money, a grant through a highly competitive application process, $600,000 over three years to do so.

Many of the things that we're talking about.

Alicia: Doing, so many of the things that grant from the Center for Disease Control is focused on reducing and preventing and educating the exposure in our children and communities, but particularly creating collaborations.

So the collaboration that we have are just astronomical partners that understand social determinants of health, right?

And that's where we are when we talk about water, that's where we are.

When we talk about replacing let lines.

Now do not sit at home.

I urge every viewer to say, What am I living with?

What's in my home?

How is it impacting my children?

Imagine three year old child going to get a anything glass of water and consuming contamination.

Doni: And let's... let's focus on that for just a second.

The impact on children that in fact, this exposure in the environment of children has been identified as the number one environmental hazard for children under the age of six, Under six.

Do you hear me out there?

The number one environmental hazard for children under the age of six, just drinking water.

Alicia: You know, over in Flint, we and I fight back tears thinking about the children who we have lost to lead exposure.

You know, and it's not just internal, but even what you see on their bodies as they are exposed, that lesions and things that.

Doni: Tell people.

Alicia: You know, the things that are exposed that children are exposed to in Milwaukee, they have issues in Ben Harbor, in Flint, Michigan.

This is a national issue.

And to watch the mothers come together and talk about, you know, how it has impacted their children.

There's a young man in Milwaukee who has written a book, a child who says, Protect me, Our children are crying out.

And you're right, disadvantaged communities.

But how unfortunate is that?

We have not taken the time to define what is categorized as a disadvantaged community.

How unfortunate is it that we have not we don't have accountability for how we use federal funds within small, disadvantaged, low socioeconomic communities to support change and is something that can be definitely done.

We are watching children with scars on their bodies due to exposure to contaminated water.

Doni: Delayed cognitive process.

Alicia: Their cognitive disabilities.

We were just at the juvenile court yesterday and our judges see the need to reform and restructure how we deal with things based on environment that is in our soil paint, taint, water.

And it is now high time for us, those of us who care to sit down and say, how do we do this?

And we do it better for our future, because somewhere those young people will take care of us.

Doni: That's exactly right.

Homeowners who and correct me if I have the date wrong, every house built before 1970.

Alicia: 19, actually 1968.

So 1970 within that space should be definitely calling nine three, six, 20, 20 and getting someone out there to test Elliot lines.

Okay, What are you living with?

What are your children exposed to?

What is that grandchild exposed to?

What are you exposed.

Doni: And how and learn how you can mitigate.

Yeah, mitigate that led in your house.

It's not rocket science.

It is pretty easy process.

Alicia: And we just had the fortune of having the federal EPA with us injunction junction during the month of July, talking with residents about water filter installation.

And what we've learned is some of those residents could not install the filters.

And so we talked about pictures that could go in your home and do the same thing.

But we want to know what is it that we can do to help residents?

We went down to Saginaw and installed water filters to Benton Harbor with Reverend Pinckney and helped him with that process.

Monica Lewis Patrick working to assure affordable water Nationally, the Great Lakes Commission was just here at Miami Bay State Park having the same conversations.

These conversations are happening, but they cannot happen without the public.

They have to have public deliberation so the folks know what is happening to them about them and for them.

Doni: Exactly key to that partnership, though, our elected officials, you've always said every time I've heard you speak, you talk about this being an US problem.

I love your definition of community.

Yes.

It's about what's common for us.

Yes, it in unity.

Alicia: Yes.

Doni: Common unity.

Common unity.

Yes.

That's community.

What what do you want those elected officials to hear you say?

Now I know you well and I know you will get this done if there's nobody but you out here making this work.

But I also know that part of your own social philosophy is that things get done when there are lots of people at the table.

Alicia: Lots of.

Doni: Marching with the same marching orders and committed to those marching orders.

What do you want those elected officials who don't quite have this high enough on their list of priorities?

What do you want them to know?

Alicia: You know, I watched Congresswoman Kaptur yesterday at the press conference and she was passing out information about water every official in our nation should be just that connected that any time I'm going to be with my constituents, I need to be talking about what I'm doing for water.

There needs to be, if you ask me, a equity matrix for every politician, every public servant, What have you done in regards to water?

How are you protecting me?

Because we lack them.

So I would say.

Doni: And I'm sorry we elect them and there is no equity, there is no matrix.

So we use that.

So we have no way of really holding them accountable at all.

Alicia: Right.

So we start as I start with the city council members, because they're elected to serve.

Doni: The people's communities.

Alicia: You know, and hold the administration accountable for what we receive, ARPA funds we receive.

How did those funds impact the lives of those the haves and the have nots?

You know, let's stop creating division and create a togetherness.

Sit down with your constituents, go into the communities.

Talking to business owners is great, but what about the residents, the seniors who don't know that they can have discounts on their water?

What about those individuals who don't know that there was a water affordability study done by Roger Colon in the city of Toledo?

And where is that?

Where are we at with their water affordability plan for our city on November 2nd, there's going to be power in a city, an entire movie about how we can strategically innovatively power a city hill imagination station.

What am I doing as a public servant to inform the folks I serve?

And it is time we have beautiful spaces where we can meet publicly when we have city Council meeting meetings.

How many meetings are held on a weekend where we can attend?

That's where we need to begin today.

Doni: Tell me quickly what we should have learned from Flint.

What can and can Flint happen here?

Alicia: Flint can happen here and it will happen here if we do not proactively move quickly to support our public utilities.

I know that our director Moore and those working with him, Dennis, Matthew, Dennis, are working and Simmons working tirelessly.

You know, every time I pick up the phone.

Alisha, how can we support and it's not just Alicia how can we support is lead on how can we support our public utilities, environmental services wants to do this right, but they cannot do it right without us attending public service meetings and conversations, creating public service announcements.

They should always be something on television about what is happening with our water.

Why?

Because we need it to live Because water is a life.

Doni: Absolutely.

I want you all to know that the resources that Alicia has mentioned during this conversation will be available on our website.

I'm this is such a critical conversation.

We have really relaxed into a place that's dangerous for us and voices like yours shake us out of that.

Alicia: They have to.

When you think about all of the different unions, you know, all of these men and women working there, working for a better quality of life and creating, that has to happen first with the foundation of safe, affordable drinking water.

Doni: Thank you so much for being with us today.

And thank you for being with us as well.

And we'll see you next time.

On to the Point.

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