Nakiya Wakes, who lives in Flint, refuses to pay for the water supply that made her family sick.
“I refuse to pay for poison,” she told me.
Because she owes $1,983.59 to the city of Flint in unpaid water bills, the city cut off her water supply last month.
The state has shut a number of free bottled water pick up sites in Flint – or PODs as they’re known here locally.
Nakiya and her son begin to pour bottle after bottle of Nestle water into the cistern of their toilet.
“It takes two cases of bottled water for just one flush,” Nakiya tells me.
And instead of the ‘fix’ for Flint promised by visiting politicians, Nakiya and her fellow residents now face the final indignity.
I get it that the city needs money – but the state should be paying.
They did this.” Despite repeated requests, the City of Flint has been unable to confirm the exact number of homes where the water has been shut off.
Melissa’s work that I filmed back then [and that of fellow resident Leanne Walters] was crucial in rallying Flint residents to conduct a citywide lead tests with the help of professor Marc Edwards at Virginia Tech university.