and thank you to the audience. two at 8:30 p.m. eastern. announcer 2: washington journal >> joining us this morning from salt lake city the producer and director of frontline on pbs.

here to talk about the new documentary. remind viewers when and why fresh water was contaminated. >> and 2014 the plant one - - the city of flint decided to have a new water pipeline coming from lake huron surrounding counties and cities. in the interim before the pipeline is fully constructe constructed, state officials in charge of the finances at the time decided to switch the city onto the river and turn off the t treatment water to the plant that was barely operational over the last 50 years. >> so what needed to happen for that to be successful and whatn didn't happen to make withat switch to the flint river

quick. >> there were a lot of upgrades that needed to happen at the plant, tens of millions of dollars worth o that i guess was not operational in this way and half a century. there is a lot of things that needed to be done and equipment that needed to be replaced and staff adequately trained and what we found is before they made the switch , there is not enough. they didn't have the adequate training necessary. and they could not fathom they would make it turn on in such aa short time. >> one of the plant one - - workers at the plant regarding his sister what wasbe he saying quick. >> we spoke to matt mcfarland. he worked at the plant for about 20 years before this happened he lost his job because he was very passionate

and in the lead up to this he was responsible for the planned but some of that was operating the systems that kill the bacteria and he knew in the lead up to this which those systems were not working so he was very nervous before the switch took place. he was calling his sister and getting his supervisor to delay the switch. he spoke to others and state officials shut it down and said no matter what. he called his sister the night before they actuallyy. switched and said tell everyone you know you love and flint do not drink the water or they will die. what we know is state officials in charge of the city of flint at the time that the plant needed more time and more staff and better

equipment. >> talked about pbs frontline new documentary with the producer and director we will get to your questions and comments. also we will show our viewers a little bit from the documentary. >> most people outside of haint. >> frontline exclusive. >> michigane officials know

what was happening and why was its happening. they should have tested the water. bb>> let's go back telling officials they are not ready to go and you interview the man who is in charge to make surere that deadly bacteria is killed. what happens after they make the switch? >> he is actually deceased he passed away in 2016 but we interview the sister that he confided in a lot a couple weeks laterer cases of legionnaires' disease start popping up in flint it is bacterial pneumonia that is severe and can be fatal if untreated and it's very important the community and

the medical community are aware there is an outbreak of legionnaires it might go untreated because they would not test or diagnoseis that. >> so there are cases popping up of legionnaires. so what happened quick. >> nobody alerts anybody. that cases are popping up in june and then a couple of weeks after the switch and they continue to pop up in july, august, september, october and it continues through the end of 2014 there were 30 different cases for every 100,000 that in itself is the biggest outbreak inre us history and at that time the health department knew about the outbreak and the county health department knew about the

outbreak but the residents of flint were in the dark. we know the medical community was also in the dark for most of the time. >> those government officials what were they doing at the time or talking about doing quick. >> at the time they were talking about abo where the outbreak may be stemming from and whether or not it could be coming from the flint water wasupply. or if it was confined to one local hospital. what we found in our reporting is at the outbreak of legionnaires' disease is not confined to one hospital has to come from somewhere and likely to be visible water source so the fso officials were speculating if it was coming from the water supply and also we see a narrative starting to form maybe it is confined to one hospital that it is not.

>> where was the hospital getting their water quick. >> through the city of flint and it was flint river water. >> governor of fish one - - government officials know when they see the number of legionnaires and the deaths what should they have done quick. >> experts have said that when you see a case of legionnaire legionnaires, one case in a hospital and investigation needs to be launched and find the source of the outbreak and decontaminate and also check to make sure other people do not have the symptoms. and investigation should be launched right away especially in a city likeke flint where the poverty rates are very high and with high poverty comes chronic illness. we saw this in the bronx in 2015 with similar social economic situation experts who

handled the outbreak started an investigation on day number one and the fatality rate was much lower and they were successful to stop the outbreak. >> when did the local government call and federal officials or should they have? >> the hierarchy you have county health department which in flint to be fair, they don't have the time and resources or big staff but the county health department was ringing the alarm to get the state involved because they needed additional help. when the state health department was not responding or adequately responding then they tried to get in touch with the cdc they needed the permission of the state before they could come in. they said in e-mails that we obtained this was the largest

outbreak they have seen in a long time and it required a full investigationin. they were willing to come in and help but they needed permission from the state and i never got that. >> was there any investigation done from the outside team? >> not really. and 2016 after the government finally comes forward a year and a half later tells everybody there has been an outbreak and hiresse a team from different universities across the state to investigate the source of the outbreak. but as we uncovered these experts felt they were experiencing consistent pushback by the state officials by what they could

investigator what water they could test or who they could talk to. they don't sell - - they didn't feel their investigation that they were given a full opportunity. >> what did they tell you, the team of scientists about what should have been done and how their communication with the government and what was it like for them to do this investigation? >> it was interesting because at thee time these men and women were brought on for the investigation, it's around the same time that the special prosecutor appointed by the attorney general was starting to mount a criminal investigation. he absolutely investigating department of hhs as well as other agencies involved in some capacity. miss - - michigan was overseeing the scientist and .ith their investigation so there is a conflict of

interest for the very people who supervise thiss team to investigate the source are also being investigated criminally by the attorney general for the very situationt. the scientist in the film said they experienced increasing pushback. they cannot just water filters, they cannot look at pneumonia death. three testify to the fact that when they told the michigan department hhs director that if they don't up surveillance they could experience another outbreak. and if they do that people will die. and according to these three men then his response was they have to die of something. >> so your team went to investigate the connection of legionnaires and pneumonia death so we will show our

viewers that part of the documentary. >> with a criminal case in them though we were still trying to determine the pull of the legionnaires outbreak. >> so you look at the evidence to evaluate the circumstances then you start putting these cases together. >> after months of reporting frontline documented 150 pneumonia death happened in flint during the outbreak. in response to our finding findings, spokeswoman for the state health department said they noticed an increasedep also but concluded it was due to influenza. but independent scientists were telling us that in all likelihood, some of them are actually due to legionnaires. >> a look at information from the death certificate and plot out each death on a map just to see if anything stood out. and in fact it did.

in particular the older parts of the city we found these clusters of people that around the same time frame of the switch were dying of pneumonia and legionnaires' disease. >> why was it important to look at the death that could r have been caused by pneumonia in this investigation? why was it important to look at pneumonia specifically quick. >> legionnaires is a severe fatal form of pneumonia. the symptoms you might experience are similar to pneumonia for good if there is an outbreak of legionnaires the experts and have said that if it goes unannounced in the medical community is not alerted and the public is not alerted it is very likely a lot of these cases could go sediagnosed. in that event patients would

just be diagnosed with pneumonia and they may be treated with antibiotics used for typical bacterial pneumonia and those likely will not work against legionnaires. which is a very severe bacteria and require specific ggtreatment. in order for doctors to know to test for and diagnose and treat it they have to know there's an outbreak going on.n. once they realized there was never an investigation done by the county into the outbreak it becamest apparent likely there were more cases and were officially reported. officially there were 12 deaths and 90 cases and then we figured out whether or not there was an increase of pneumonia death in the city at the same time of legionnaires to determine if that scope could have been larger. >> have those cases been reviewed by officials since you madeos those connections?

>> we have shared our findings with officials, yes. with a number of people at the government level. we found 150 pneumonia death we counted every death certificate during the time of the outbreak and we found 115. we cannot say if that is meaningful so what we did is we bout thoset death to independent epidemiologist and they did a broader ivinvestigation and use a control group to compare our death with deaths and surrounding counties and cities and similar climates and illness and they can conclude 70 coincide with the outbreak of legionnaires so there were 70 additional deaths that we had not seen

previously. >> so let's get to our callers from kansas good morning with your question or comment. >>caller: good morning. i was thinking with the crisis of lead in the water with the lead pipes but i was trained in chicago and i met a woman in the observation car from flint michigan. she was about six years old. we were one - - 60 years old and i said how is the situation with the water supply. she said we are still being given bottled water. they are giving us plenty and that's not the problem but that's not the worst of it. our water bills are outrageous

minus $300 a month. that's almost ten timess what i pay in kansas and that she lives by herself, she goes to the gym three times a week and hardly uses water said if that doesn't kill less than the cost will. so i guess in context what you are reporting but yet this was occurring and they're still paying $300 a month and by the way it is outrageous. >> flint residents have been experiencing extremely high water bills for years and this is how people were in favor of joining the pipeline five

years ago when the crisis began. so a lot of officials came in a wanted flint to get a new water supply with the idea that water rates will go down and they were so desperate for their water bills to go down because it was soe. expensive. we were there and met residents who had a $6000 water bill because during the crisis they were still expected to pay the water bills so if you go to flint and talk to residents the water contamination and the high water bills are almost equally prohibitive. >> there still drinking bottled water? what is the water bill now? >> they have switcho back to the detroit water supply which is now under a new name of the great lakeswa water authority

and yes they are still drinking bottled water. in the summer 2018 the administration in charge declared the water infant is the same or better than other socities so they discontinued free bottled water at that time and recommend people use water filters. so now there are three churches that operate for donations and it is miles long people trying to get bottled water that same administration that lied to them is now telling them that it is safe. but the water filters that they purported to be the solution actually don't kill bacteria it only gets rid of the lead so there was never acknowledgment there is bacteria in the water early on so even with the solution the

state is provided it is not adequate to kill the bacteria that has been in the water since the crisisor. >> so you started off to tell us in the beginninge that is that in place? >> and other cities and counties they are using the pipeline yes. there are thoughts flint is still paying off some of the bonds they had to take out to participate so it is still very much in the world of flint. >> go ahead. >>caller: i want to make sure you get the facts from the very beginning wasn't the governor involved in coercing them to switch from the flint river? and hower they were negligent?

i was reminded of how difficult it is to compare how even when president trump tried to say. >> so we'll just take your question. >> i don't know about the governor pressuring the epa but i do know there was whistleblower at the epa who tried to blow the whistle on the lead levels very early and was discredited. this is what we have seen throughout the entire crisis. medical professionals who come to the table with evidence that there is bacteria in the water every step of the way government officials have discredited them and not taken their word at face for you

initially. he got the them casest former director of michigan department of health and the chief medical executive, they were both charged with involuntary manslaughter for the legionnaires rick. -- of those cases were bound for the legionnaires outbreak. both of those cases were bound over to a jury trial. that was deemed to be a success as far as the criminal prosecutions go. thever, last november, political landscape in michigan changed a lot. in you attorney general came in and actually fired the former special prosecutor and has since dropped all the charges without -- without prejudice, saying that they can charge again.

but there is a statute of limitations and the clock is ticking. host: is there an effort underway to pick up the case, grassroots or otherwise? guest: the new prosecutor has said they are actively investigating it and we have no reason to believe that they will not bring the charges. we just have nothing to go on except for their word at this point. they have said the previous investigation was fundamentally flawed despite the fact that, you don't judges agreed they --uld proceed to jury trial judges the fact that two agreed they should proceed to jury trial. but many activists want justice and are likely putting pressure on the attorney general's office. host: what did the special prosecutor unveil about the motivation of the head of the health department and the chief medical doctor or not alert the public to this region nears out break -- to this legionnaires outbreak?

guest: i know that is still something we are reporting as well, to understand the motive of why. the question is, why didn't they just switch flint off the river when they new there was bacteria in the water and the knew it was. people and making them very sick? washen they knew that it killing people and making them very sick? in the preliminary hearings, the prosecutor talked a lot about the pipeline and the bonds, and the money, and payments that needed to be made, but we have yet to prove any of the to be true. host: carol in michigan. carol, where it is more in the state -- where is royal oaks in the state? caller: about 20 minutes from flint. flint is not the less. abbey, forgive me if you have answered this, but what in the world ever made flint city

resign from detroit water and start this mess? guest:? guest: i am not sure if you are familiar, but in michigan, the former administration used emergency managers a lot. state officials appointed by the governor who answer just to the treasury. their job is to balance the budget in these cities. flint was under emergency manager at the time, so it was in state control. it had about 4 different emergency managers shuffling in a not doing that period. while the city council did not vote to join the pipeline, their vote did not matter, it was more like a rubber-stamping. they could have voted against it, and state officials still voted for it. so while the city council voted in favor of this, it is kind of a moot point because they really did not have any power at all. i think their motivation was that they were being told that

their water rates were going to be less expensive each month, and that it could potentially lucrative,omething because flint made for the first time in a really long time, have the opportunity to treat and sell its own water instead of buying its water from detroit. host: dawn in wisconsin, good morning to you. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. i guess at some point along the way. , the citizens of that city and that area voted for their local officials and they got what they voted for. i happen to live in the farm in of rural area. i have my own well. i do have someone come to check my well to verify if i have a concern, i have to take it in and get it tested. i have to take appropriate action. . if people are being charged $300 a month, and you have 100,000 people in the city, he have got a whole lot of income to make some changes and take some

action on yourself. why is it somebody else's fault? guest: what is important to understand, and it is difficult for those of us would have not lived in a city like this to understand is that in michigan, the governor appointed state officials who had all the power. so doing the flint water crisis and before the flint water crisis, local elected officials had no power, they were not allowed to make decisions on behalf of the residents. tragedy.eal michigan is one of the leading examples of how this policy can really harm cities. but actually, it is so important to note that all of these decisions were being made by the state of michigan. when residents started protesting immediately after the switch, when the water was brown and people are getting sick, and they fought and fought and fought, their cries were completely silenced because they were protesting to their elected officials saying, we voted for

you, now, you fight for us. but the officials had their hands tied because a state official was in charge of the city of flint. so there wasn't much democracy at the time or before the switch at all. residents have been disempowered in flint for a long time because of these policies. host: john in michigan, the name of your town is. caller: pinckney. host: ok, where is that located? caller: between lansing and detroit. host: ok. caller: my comment is, what i see here on pbs is a typical -- goingical of all these bs on in this country. this all started because the people in flint did not pay heir water bills,

period. their water bills were not $300 a month, that was an accumulation because they weren't paying them. and because they weren't paying their water bills, they had to switch to something else. they couldn't continue with the detroit water. you can play this anywhere you want, but what it all boils down to is, there's is a bunch of freeloaders in this country that are trying to turn this country into a socialist country. host: ok. john, did this start with water bills being paid? guest: now. this is not a result of water bills not being paid. in fact, at the time, flint did not need a new water supply, and also could not afford to get a new water supply. this was very much a decision made by state officials and powerbrokers in the region who want to the pipeline to go through. our reporting has found that it would have been very difficult for this new pipeline, which was

servicing other cities and other counties, it would have been very difficult for it to go through without getting the 100,000 residents of flint on as ate payers. this has nothing to do with the inability to pay water bills. host: ron in illinois. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. host: go ahead, ronald. caller: back in the 1970's, i went to school to get my certified operators license for the e.p.a.. certifiedass b operator and responsible charge for not one that two -- not one chicago.uburbs in when i went to school, i was told by all the instructors, if

there is any type of water contamination in the areas that you are responsible for, and they traced back that it was because of your incompetence or your ineptitude, or your inability to get water samples every month, and something like that happened, i would go to jail. well, that stuck with me the entire time that i was a certified water operator and responsible charge. we never, ever had any problems whatsoever with our water supplies because i was very, very set on getting these water samples when they were supposed to be taken, sending them to the e.p.a., and within one or two days, we would get the results of these water samples and get

an ok from the e.p.a.. so during that time, there was one suburb were the certified water operator was putting addresses down for getting water samples, but he was actually getting all the water samples and one or two faucets probably doing it from where he worked. eventually, it caught up with him because there was an outbreak due to a cleaning facility that was pouring poison into the water, and they found out. they traced it back. that man got a five-year sentence in jail. host: ok. abby ellis, what do you make of what ronald is saying? guest: so one thing we have tragically seen in flint is that throughout the second year of the water crisis, there were tests being done.

residents were begging to have their water tested for lead. then were being done and being falsified in the lab. in addition to that, people who were testing the water for lead, had been charged -- those charges have not been dropped -- but they were accused of testing the water in an area that did not have lead lines. so throughout the crisis, there were instances where people who were responsible for testing the water were accused of falsifying the tests and not testing the water in the right areas. host: i want to show viewers a little more of the documentary. this is how. it medical team from emory university conducted their own investigation. [video clip] arrator: the team compared test from the control group. the control group was from counties similar to genesee county in terms of size, income,

education level, socioeconomic's, in michigan and surrounding states. when we start in. 2011 and we follow the mortality rate, they are pretty similar between genesee county and the controls. this continues until you get to 2014.the middle of this is sort of where the inflection point happens. narrator: the increase was most pronounced in the first six months of 2014, and less so in 2015. it is not clear why, since flint was still on river water than. >> right when the legionnaires epidemic starts, the pneumonia death rate in genesee county goes up while in other counties, it is going down. host: abby ellis, what did we learn there. host? guest: we learned that there

were 70 additional deaths from pneumonia, and furthermore, what we found and what ever it confirmed that's what them are confirmed, was that in several pockets of the city of flint, we had several confirmed cases of virginias disease and pneumonia what we found, and what emory university confirmed, was that in several pockets of the city of flint, several confirmed cases of legionnaires disease and pneumonia deaths were found. after the switch of water spike of the pneumonia death rates go up. pneumonia is typically associated with influenza and usually something that happens in the winter, not spring or summer. so while it was going up in genesee county, it was going down in other counties.

so emily confirmed that the legionnaires outbreak -- emory confirmed that the region's outbreak was centered on flint. caller: good morning. i wanted to say first that the gentleman who worked for the people, ift those they were incompetent in their jobs, five years is a slap on the wrist as far as i am confirmed. you got people's lives on your hand. everybody, youd can trust, but you better trust and verify that your letter was safe. we were told that the air was safe. safe.e told the air was that is the point. don't trust the government. you have to verify for yourself, your community. people.ually poor is a sad thing to think that there was led in the water.

i don't want to bring politics into this, but republicans and democrats, sometimes political people are not the people, it is bureaucracies that are running. they are not privy to everything. it is like senator mccain making the trip to the v.a. and everything is running shipshape the day before he comes. and when he leaves, people are dying. so maybe he did not know what was going on, and we didn't know what was going on. and now we are paying a major price. host: ok, we will leave it there. abby ellis, can you tell us who outbreak?during the guest: to her the end of the summer of 2014 and the beginning of the fall, the state department was made aware, the county health department was absolutely aware. we know for sure by january of 2015 that the director of the department of health was aware, and a couple of months later, we

know that several members of the governor's office were aware, both cabinet members and aides to the governor. however, former governor of michigan rick snyder has had that he did not know about the outbreak of each and there's until january of 2016 -- the outbreak of the juniors until ofuary of 2016 the outbreak -- he did not know about the outbreak until january of 2016. host: what does the disease due to someone? guest: it can cause kidney failure, lung failure, heart failure, it is a very severe type of pneumonia. that is why it is so crucial that you get treated right away. and why it is so crucial that the medical community be aware that there is an outbreak. and it is also important that the public knows, because if you have a fever nausea and you think you have a cold or flu, if

you know there's a deadly outbreak of the disease in your community you might go to the emergency room a lot quicker,. in flint profound resident who got sick of doing the outbreak of legionnaires disease, and some connected her illness with that. she has since passed away. i wanted to just show the viewers of the debate from the documentary featuring jasmine macbride. [video clip] >> i have been doing breathing treatments to help open up my airway and my lungs. some type of medicine in that solution that are put in their, and it does help. you notice the difference when you do the treatment and when you don't do the treatment. four times a day is kind of hard to do, especially when you have dialysis and you just want to sleep all day and do nothing. ♪

generation, my am, like, theyi all got children or the have started families, and here i am, i am battling health issues. it is a challenge. but you do what you have got to do to live, to get better. host: abby ellis, tell us about jasmine ride? guest: she was 26 when should got diagnosed with legionnaires disease. she wanted to become a pediatric nurse. she was working at a senior center of the time when she got sick. enroller job, wanted to at university for nursing degree. she got sick in august of 2014 a couple of months after the switch of water supplies. she almost died. . she was in the hospital for a couple of months. by the time she got out of the hospital, she had kidney failure , her heart had failed multiple times during her hospital stay.

she had respiratory issues, so by the time she got out three months later, she has to relearn how to walk, talk, eat, everything. every single day, she had to do breathing exercises to help strengthen her lungs. she was on 24 hour a day oxygen. she had to do dialysis multiple times a week, which is a couple-hour process, to flush out her kidneys. host: from michigan, good morning to you. caller: goo hello. host: go ahead, bob. caller: i am sick to death at the mcgrath creating all these problems and blaming republicans for them. the governor had nothing to do with what went on in flint. -- there was flint

an attitude of people in flint were supposed to add to the water to keep it from corroding, they didn't add it. it was very expensive, they didn't pay for it, and it cost of the people to get sick. that is the bottom line. it had nothing to do with republicans. that city has been run by republicans for least 50 years. host: you want to jump on that? guest: i think one thing to keep in mind was that the city of flint was under state control when all of this transpired. so there was one person in charge of the city who answered only to the governor and to the treasury department. so when the governor is roped into a lot of these conversations, it is because the city of flint was under state control. host: maurice in washington dc. caller: i have to the questions before i make a comment -- i have two questions before i make a comment. is flint in the united states in america? guest: yes. caller: is there water system run by the city? guest: yes.

caller: in america, not paying your bill has nothing to do with the quality of your water. this is a social and economical problem. the water problem in flint is complicated, but the solution is easy. there are so many political, problems in america there don't understand, but i can still have a pretty good life, but when you are talking about the water system and the united states of america, this has been going on for decades, obviously. i am not really clear, is it the pipes? because him and if the river is messed up, is it the pipes, the processing plants that are processing water? host: let us review that? guest: so, originally, when they switched to the river -- river

water can be drinkable as long adequately.ated the problem was that at first, they treated it a little bit, but they did not treat it adequately for it to become drinking water. that was the problem in the beginning. as a result of that, the water corroded the pipes. and a you have in. -- you have infrastructure all around the city that is corroded which meant water was leaking in and leaking out. now, the majority of the types are still corroded, have not replaced, and they are wondering how you can trust what are coming through these pipes that have gaping holes in them. lead which led to the crisis, the story most people heard about. guest: yes. what we think about when we think about the city of flint is children getting poisoned by lead in their drinking water.

what adds to that tragedy is there were people dying in unusually high numbers during the water crisis and those deaths are, links to the switch in water supply as well. host: mary from alabama. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a question regarding the residential property values and commercial property value. theuestion is, how has deadly water crisis affected property values? i would be reluctant to purchase . home or business in flint can she speak to that a bit? guest: so that is actually a really important point, and it was really sad to learn throughout our reporting that residents who wanted to leave because of the water crisis who wanted to leave flint actually can't now because they can't

sell their houses. so we have not reported on it very thoroughly, but i can say that we have spoken to a lot of residents who say that their property value has gone down, and they feel trapped in the city because nobody wants to move to the city of flint because they are scared, they have no idea if the water is safe yet. and the residents would live there -- who do live there are unable to sell their houses. host: we go to massachusetts next. norman, your turn. caller: thank you for taking my call. i read a couple of items about federal culpability in the we keep the article on the flint water crisis, and i am curious if they were in your documentary. one of them was that secretary castro's housing and urban development department was required to inspect the water

but neglected to do that. of course, i don't know if anyone was fired -- i am sure no one was arrested for it -- seems like maybe that devastation continues. the other thing mentioned in wikipedia is not a whistleblower did indeed inform the federal may, andt in april or is that of acting on it, the obama administration dropped his contract. some lightcan share on those things, i would appreciate it. thank you? guest: so, i'm not aware about the whistleblower who alerted the obama administration in the spring. i am not sure about federal agencies and what may be they failed to do. what we do know is that this outbreak and this water crisis happened at the city level and

there was a county health department and a state health department responsible for taking care of the citizens of flint and they didn't do that. host: wilbert in flint, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. the elephant in the room, and i 's group toabby investigate the fact that flint's water was coming from detroit. there was nothing wrong with the water. -- somethingas changed in the equation. they one of the pipeline that flint did not need, because the water from detroit was efficient. they wanted the pipeline to come -- the way across michigan [indiscernible] fracking.

that is why the water crisis began. host: ok, you are breaking up. let us have abby ellis jump in. guest: we have heard residents in flint and outside of flint talk about fracking and how fracking might be associated with the pipeline. they have their opinions on that , but we have not been able to look into that at all. host: bonnie in west palm beach, florida, go ahead. caller: i think we need to start holding these people accountable, and they should get prison time. get that is the only thing that will get people to stop doing this. each individual needs to report people. for some reason, people just don't want to speak up when somebody is doing something wrong. i don't know what that is all being,because as a human i cannot stand by and watch other people get hurt. host: bonnie, to your point. abby ellis, has anyone gone to

jail? guest: now, no one has gone to jail. as i mentioned, there were 15 charges, and they have since been dropped by the new attorney general. host: jeffrey matthews, north carolina. caller: this is my problem with flint,ries of events in everyone knows that the infrastructure is falling apart in america, but still, we are wasting money trying to build a wall, giving money to farmers and we arenning, acting like infrastructure problems don't exist. then, when we actually talk about it -- because i don't think flint or what is going on in new jersey is the end of this, i think it is just the beginning. i think what is going on across , ands like ohio, wisconsin minnesota, is all these

infrastructure problems that exist there are all going to start coming to fruition. if we don't want to spend a dime, later on, we will spend a lot more money just to save people's lives. i mean, we've got people calling in trying to assign blame to democrats or republicans when people are losing their lives. it doesn't matter whether they were democrats or republicans, people were trying to make additional money, that is why they got badwater in flint. i don't know how they were going to make additional money, but it all centers around money. host: abby ellis, can you take that point? guest: with infrastructure in this country, and flint did have lead pipes in the city. however, water can flow through lead pipes and be ok if it is adequately treated. in flint, specifically, the

issue is that they didn't treat the water effectively. not only that, once the pipes that are corroding, there was increasing push back from every level of government in michigan to not acknowledge the problem. one thing we can take away from flint is that the aging infrastructure, keeping that in mind, we need to be more mindful andhe treatment of water, we need to be maybe hypervigilant about if this aging infrastructure is failing it summer's x due to the water not being -- failing, in some rest x, do to the water -- in some respects, due to the water not being treated adequately. host: next caller. caller: getting back to the samples taken, you test the ph, that is the first thing you do. the chlorine will not work, it is a simple thing.

a swimming pool, take for instance, you have got sodium soda.onate, baking that was supposed to be put into the plant, it wasn't. what happens, it corrodes the lead joints on the old systems. so really, all the plants, there is probably a lot of lead giants all across america. they have got to make sure -- lead joints all across america. these plant managers have to make sure before that you have no bacteria. she explained what happened, it was an original person who was responsible for the samples not putting the right things in to treat the water. that is my comment. your team,ellis, what will you continue to look

at in flint, michigan? guest: we will continue to investigate motive and to better even afterwhy, people were dying and people are getting sick, and it goes on for a year and a half, why the city of flint was not able to switch off the river, and what motivation may have been in play theire. we would also like to better understand, with water contamination like this that goes unannounced for so long, it is years before you understand all the health implications. so we want to learn more about what other ailments people are suffering from, and whether or not they can be linked to changes in the water supply. host: and what are you watching out for, abby ellis, on the story of the prosecution and how the government is, moving forward? guest: we are watching, just like everybody else. like i said, the prosecutor has not giving -- given us

anything other than her word that they will continue the investigation. but we are keeping our eye on the statue of limitations. there are a number of them, because there are a number of different charges, to see whether the charges resurface, and if they do so in the right amount of time. host: if you missed the documentary, you can now find it pbs.org/website, frontline, and the pbs video, streaming their. abby ellis, producer and director ofls to

discuss technology policy and innovation. fortune magazine hosted the two hour event. [applause] >> thank you. moving on to our opening interview. sometimes plan a does not work out and you got to be ready to provide and that is one of the themes in our next story in conversation. i want to become the cofounder and ceo, post mates, delivery startup that is remaking the way we shop and get our stuff it's of our history and a quarter

billion dollars