Impression Management From the Department of Environmental Quality in the Flint Water Crisis

The citizens of Flint, Michigan have been at a disadvantage for decades, even before the water crisis. After Flint switched their water source from the Detroit Water and Sewage Department to the Flint Water Treatment Plant in April 2014, its citizens began to complain about foul-smelling, discolored, and contaminated water. However, government officials in Flint ignored complaints until Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha revealed an increase in Flint children’s blood-lead levels in September of 2015. After the crisis became public, Governor Rick Snyder released ninety-nine PDF files containing emails from the various government agencies involved, and Flint switched back to the DWSD on October 16, 2015. Drawing on an email archive constructed with fellow undergraduate researchers, I compare a sample of 15,733 emails from the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to 100 public statements from the DEQ. I aim to uncover: how did the DEQ engage in impression management during the Flint Water Crisis? I apply Irving Goffman’s theory Dramaturgy (1959) to show how the DEQ engaged in public impression management through a "normalization of deviance" (Vaughan 1997). This study will show how competing concerns of citizen health, financial interests, and public relations were weighed in handling the developing crisis and aftermath.