A Conversation About Water with Mari Copeny, 16-Year-Old Activist and Philanthropist

This podcast episode features the incredible youth activist and philanthropist Mari Copeny - aka Little Miss Flint - who is on the front lines of tackling America's water crisis head on and helping kids to embrace their power through equal opportunity. When the Flint Water Crisis began instead of feeling helpless Mari decided to use her voice to help her community and to fight for the kids in Flint. Since then, she has expanded her efforts to help communities across the nation dealing with toxic drinking water. In this very special episode, Clean Water Action's Michigan State Director Sean McBrearty joins We All Live Downstream host Jenny Vickers to talk about current water issues in Michigan. 

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Transcript

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It's a basic human need. We need it to survive. We need water to survive. So everybody deserves clean water. And I think if I had a magic wand and could, what was, if I could change one thing about the world, I think I would change. I think the one thing I would change is .... every place has bad water... we got clean water. Hello everyone. Welcome to We All Live Downstream Water Action podcast. In each episode, we will be interviewing leading environmental and their work in the field. We'll dive deep into topics from drinking water and climate change to environmental justice, plastic pollution, and toxic chemicals. I'm your host, Jenny Vickers, the National Communications Manager for Clean Water Action. I'm so excited for today's podcast. First off, I'm usually solo here. I fly solo, but I'm excited to have Sean BR from Clean Water Action in Michigan. Joining us today. Sean is the state director up there, and he'll be co-hosting the podcast with me. We are joining forces today because we have an incredible force here with us today. We couldn't be more excited to have a conversation with the amazing Mari Copeny, aka little Miss Flint, who's on the front lines of tackling America's water crisis head on and helping kids to embrace their power through equal opportunity. When the Flint water crisis began, instead of feeling helpless, Mari decided to use her voice to help her community and to fight for the kids in Flint. Since then, she has expanded her efforts to help communities across the nation dealing with toxic drinking water. Welcome to we All Live Downstream. So happy to have you here, Mari. Hi. Just a quick little background on my cohost Sean. Sean also learned the importance of protecting drinking from a young age growing up in a community devastated by perennial droughts and poor water and air quality in California Central Valley. I mentioned this earlier, he's been leading efforts to protect clean water in Michigan since 2011, starting out as a clean water canvasser community organizer, and then now becoming our Michigan State Director. Hi, Sean. Thanks for co-hosting today with me. Yeah, Jenny. Thanks for having me. And Mari, thanks so much for joining us. You're welcome. So what happened in Flint wasn't just a water crisis, it was an environmental justice catastrophe. The water crisis in Flint, Michigan began on April 25th, 2014 when the city switched its drinking water supply from Detroit system to the Flint River. In a cost saving move, tens of thousands of front residents, including children, were exposed to dangerous levels of lead. Mari, can you take me back to those early days of what happened and when your activism first began, what made you first feel, besides the obvious, the issue, but what made you, what's that first moment that caused you to get involved? Well, the very first thing that automatically made me want to get involved with trying to help with the fall audit crisis was the fact that when it first happened, though people in charge were not listening to each other at all. They were acting like literal children. So I took it upon myself to be, well, if they want to act like children, maybe they might listen to a literal child. It took a little bit because I got told to stay in a child's place. I didn't know what I was talking about. Basically, I was getting bashed, but I didn't let it get to me because as you can see, I'm still doing everything I still do now, and I just never stopped because I'm not going to let grown adults hate on me and bash on me, get to me. So that's really just what led me to want to get started with what I do because they just weren't listening to not taking anything serious and I just want to take it upon my hands. Yeah, I remember thinking back of the early days of the Flint water crisis and what really precipitated that. It's unfortunately a pattern that we've seen again and again, especially in impacted and poor black brown indigenous communities where, and in the case of Flint, we had the theft of democracy by the Snyder administration with appointing an emergency manager who essentially on his own had Flint switched their water sources over the objections of some of the local elected officials even. And I think it's important to remember and all that, that at the height of emergency manager in the Snyder administration, almost half of the African-American population of Michigan was living under an emergency manager, where really their local electeds did not have power. So they were losing local democracy. It affected less than 2% of white residents at the same time. And so it's a horrible pattern where we see this crisis of democracy that then creates something like the Flint water crisis. And so Mari, I'd love to hear more about just in the early days of the Flint water crisis before, as it took quite a while for the state or anybody to acknowledge that something was happening to the water in Flint. And so what were the first things you noticed when the water crisis began? Well, the few things that I noticed was when my sister got this really bad rash that resembled chemical burns, it was really bad. A whole bunch of people around the city were getting rashes that resembled chemical burns from the water. The water was coming out smelling like chlorine and just not smelling like how water should smell. Literally the color of the water wasn't clear. Some people's homes were like their faucets water was coming out brown. That's disgusting. A whole bunch of kids were getting lead poisoning. It was affecting the way they were learning and everything. Let's see, people were literally dying from the water here. Like Legionnaires. People were dying from Legionnaires and the government was not doing anything about it. They knew these things were happening from the water. They knew, they just didn't want to take it into their responsibility. They didn't want to take any accountability for it. So they automatically knew what was going on. They just didn't want to really, they didn't care. They really didn't care. And it was really terrible. And me included, it's not really that noticeable, but I had this really big rash patch thingy on the side of my cheek, and it's still there. It's always been there. It's never really went away at all. I'm so sorry to hear that. So what were some key moments that you remember along the way in your fight? I know I've read a lot about your work and you wrote a letter to Obama. What are some significant things that happened when you were fighting? I think some significant things that happened throughout when I first started out was the fact one I wrote to former President Obama. He wrote me back and came to point to meet me. That was very significant because it helped a lot of people here because in my letter I was talking about how this, everybody was saddened down because of the water, and he uplifted and talked to everybody that was there. But that was a really big significant moment. Honestly, I think every significant moment has to be when I'm doing events, when I'm just doing events for the kids here. It was a very significant moments. Tell me about currently some of the work that you're doing and key moments. You're still working with youth, but I mean Obama, that's totally incredible that he came and you met him. And I know he is one of your idols and I mean he's an inspiration to so many people and what you're doing now. Tell us a little bit about that. Well, like I mentioned, I do events and stuff for the kids here. Literally recently, as in last month, I did a Easter event, did a big Easter egg hunt, and then we made a whole bunch of baskets, big, big baskets, all themed and everything. Kids came out, they were so happy to get baskets and everything and when it wasn't doing Easter and everything, I do Christmas events every single year. I do this really, really, really gigantic toy event. We have a big stocked up to room every single year. Every single year. It's one of my favorites. I always do back to school because there's a lot of people here in my community that can't afford to get new backpacks, new clothes, new school supplies and everything. So that's why I come into place and it's not just school supplies that I'm giving out. It's like, yeah, school supplies, they get to pick out their backpacks and everything, but I'm talking about we do, we do other little cute little activities and stuff at the school events because we don't want this being boring. I always want to make sure that my events for the kids are fun because they deserve to have something fun. I feel like it's just a lot of kids here lost half of their fun because of the flint water crisis and all that. So I want to make these kids happy because helping kids is my motivation. It makes me really happy and I love helping people, especially the kids here and the kids deserve to have something fun. They deserve to have something special. So that's why I keep on doing everything that I do. You mentioned earlier that you were very frustrated because you could see what was happening and you were a kid at the time and adults weren't listening to you. So that's so frustrating. So can you talk about that obstacle, any obstacles you're facing as a result of your age? And then what would you say to someone listening right now, a young person who's also feeling disheartened and who wants to make a difference? There was a lot of obstacles and struggles when I first started out, and even now I still get bashed by, but literal grown adults, I still get told stay inside a child's place and I'd be confused because I do a lot. I talk about a lot of important things and just those people that were telling me to stay in a child's place refuse to listen to me because it is just really weird. I just get a lot of hate for even helping people. I get a lot of hate for helping people. And it's weird because why am I getting hit on for literally hosting these events for people here? It makes no sense, but honestly, I really don't let it get to me because at the end of the day, I'm still doing what I do. I'm still doing big things and I'm doing it for a good cause. I'm doing it for a good cause. That's what I do. And if any kid was listening to this, I know it's probably wouldn't be a few. I just want to tell 'em anybody who's listening is that if you want to speak up for a good cause and want to start a and everything, you have to use your voice. That's what you have to use your voice. If you don't use your voice, nobody's going to know what you're talking about. Nobody's going to hear you. And even if you feel like people aren't listening to you, you never know who could be listening to you. Trust me, trust me. I ain't even who listening to me until I found out that there's literal classrooms full of little kids that watch videos through whole assignments on me, projects on me and everything. You literally never know who could be listening. You never know. You literally never know. So you just want to use your voice. That's what you have to use your voice. Just use your voice, speak up for what's right and just don't let any of the negativity get to you. You have to be a lot of negativity that comes with being a child activist. And so not in everything, but you can't let it get to you because then you're not going to want to do anything else anymore because you're getting hated on reality. You can get hated on, but you don't want to stop what you're doing. You got to speak up 10 times louder. You want to be louder, you got to be louder than them. And also align yourselves with like-minded people. So I would also say seek out organizations that might be doing the same work that you believe in too, like clean water action. We work on a ton of water issues. We are working on a ton of water issues for a very long time and reach out to us if you need help at all. And it's really hard to keep going sometimes, especially with what happened in Flint. But are there any inspirations of people in the world that have inspired you to keep going, people that you look up to? Well, I think my biggest major inspiration has to be Bernice King. She's one of my biggest mentors ever and always uplifting me. And I dunno, she's she. She's part of the main reason why I didn't give up what I do at all. There was a point in time where I just completely want to stop what I was doing because of how badly the negativity was getting to me. The negativity did get to me at one point, but I made sure that it wasn't going to get to me to the point where I was going to fully stop. I had the idea that I wanted to stop, but I didn't end up stopping because I don't want to stop what I do. I think about it. I don't want to stop what I do. So she's just one of my just biggest inspirations in general. Honestly, it is one of my biggest inspirations. Yeah, that's really great. So when did you first meet Bernice King? When did I first meet her? What year was that? Was it 20? It was little. Yeah, I was little when I first met her. It had to be like 2017, 2018, somewhere in that timeframe. Somewhere in that timeframe. Well, that's really cool. What a great inspiration. So how do things stand now in Flint from your perspective? Well, I mean from my POV, nothing's really changed. We still got bad water. It just 2024, we still don't have clean water. Our pipes still aren't fixed and the mayor does not care. I hate to say it. No, I don't hate to say it. I mean, he don't care. He don't care. He's proven times that he does not care. He only cares about his reputation and what makes him look good, not understanding. If you were able to get our pipes to be fixed, that would automatically boost up your reputation. I don't think he understands that. I don't think he understands that he does not care. The people in charge do not care. They still don't care. And it's really sad to see, because we haven't had clean water since 2014. It's 2024. Where is our clean water at? Why do we still have to use bottled water and filters? Why do we have to keep on hoping that they're going to fix our pipes and our pipe still doesn't fix? And honestly, I don't even know when they're going to up fixing the pipes. I honestly wish I knew. I don't know. I don't know when they're going to get fixed, but I know that we still don't have clean water still. And it's so crazy. And I know they've been replacing the pipes slowly for quite some time, but there's still large parts of the city where the water is an issue. And a lot of it really comes down to funding and state and federal water infrastructure funding, which has sadly fallen way off from what we used to be investing. I know federal investment since the 1970s and water infrastructure and has really fallen off to the point where I know most water utilities in Michigan right now rely almost entirely on rate payer funding for the upkeep of infrastructure. We have a 20, or it's a conservatively estimated 1 billion a year water infrastructure shortfall in Michigan. And so cities like Flint and Benton Harbor, Detroit places that have a lot of lead service lines, really it's been taking way, way too long to address this problem. And we need a massive influx of funding in order to really make it happen. Again, a billion dollars a year over the course of 20 years, just kind of to fix our infrastructure. That's not to entirely replace everything. So a lot of it really comes down to looking at that state funding for water infrastructure and federal funding, which again, we really need to be making these investments instead of doing some of the things that we're seeing now in the state government where we're spending billions of taxpayer dollars giving corporate tax breaks while people in Flint and elsewhere still don't have clean water to drink. It's a question of priorities. And I know that bipartisan infrastructure law was passed and that was huge, but how long until Flint will see some of this money? And it's a hard question to answer. The infrastructure law was a big step, and that will create an influx of money that will help. It unfortunately won't pay for everything. We're still going to need a greater investment in water infrastructure and especially to speed up the process in places that have been left behind for far too long, like Flint. So Mari, I know you do a lot of events and you're still very active with the youth. Is there anything next coming up for you? You could talk about what some of your next projects or events are, and then I have another question. If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing to impact or country, what would it be? Well, I think, well my main project right now is my water filter. So I do have my bare on water filter. And that's been my biggest projects because it's really sad that I had to get my own water filter just to make sure that people had clean, safe drinking water. That's actually really absurd. But honestly, that is one of my main projects. That's been my biggest main focus because, because it is really not just Flint that has a water crisis. America has a water crisis and everywhere deserves clean, safe drinking water. And it's not just Flint that has my water filters, my filters get shipped out all over, all over because everybody deserves clean drinking water. Everybody deserves that. It's a basic human need. We need it to survive. We need water to survive so everybody deserves clean water. And I think if I had a magic wand and could, what was it? If I could change one thing about the world, I think I would change. I think the one thing I would change is every place that has bad water, we got clean water. Yeah, that's awesome. So yeah, here at Clean Water Action, we focus on preventing waste before it starts stopping pollution at its source so that we don't have a problem after. I think that's important to do go after. Where is with PFAS, where is it coming from? How is it getting into our water in the first place and then stopping it at the source? So I didn't know if Sean, you wanted to add anything more about Mari's aspiration because we feel the same way. Oh, absolutely. I mean, clean water is a human right and they say clean, safe, affordable. Drinking water is a human. One of the other things that we're actually working on at Clean water in Michigan right now is we're working to get legislation passed to create a statewide water affordability program and ensure that everybody is able to afford safe, healthy, clean water coming out of their taps. And we'll work into, you can take action on that, on our website, clean water.org/mi. And the affordability crisis that we have is really tied to the infrastructure crisis, which I think brings us back to the example of Flint here where because we're under investing in infrastructure, water, utilities are relying more and more on rate payers to cover the cost of infrastructure. And so then they wind up hiking up rates to where cities, even during the water crisis, Flint residents were still paying some of the highest water rates in the country for water they couldn't drink. And we have a lot of communities in Michigan that have high rates like that. And so I think making sure that we solve the affordability crisis along with solving the infrastructure crisis is a very important thing. Then they really go hand in hand. Yeah, I mean, you said it's not just Flint, Michigan. I mean, I remember when I first moved to New Jersey, an entire towns water supply was contaminated. Kids are getting sick with cancer and it was in Tom's River and there's a book written about it and it's just terrifying. It is happening all over the country. So yeah, Mari here at Clean Water Action Water and Climate Justice are two of our main priorities. And what do you think are some of the most important ways that people can get involved in fighting for climate and environmental justice? Speaking up about it, just speaking up about it, about really just using, yeah, literally just using your voice to speak up about it, posting on social media about it. Instagram. Instagram is really good. Twitter's good. But Instagram, if you want a really good reach of both of kids and adults, Instagram for sure, Twitter. I don't know about Twitter personally, Twitter just, but it is good. But you didn't want to use your voice. Choose social media post, post about it. If you see somebody else, if you see another person that's posting about it and talking about it, repost their stuff, save their stuff, literally just repost, repost, repost other people's things. But most definitely get you more intact with everything, literally more intact. It gets you more tapped into everything, then you can make connections. Then you can literally make forensic connections through talking about climate and water and everything. That's how you get the sort of supporters and following, that's how it works, but you really just want to speak up about it. That is the best way to do it. Just speak up about it. If there's any protests or marches near you, most definitely show up, show up, protest, do this and that. Try to do anything you can to get involved and speak up about what's right. Absolutely. I mean, movement work like that is so important. And really all these issues when I feel like when we talk about water and climate and water justice, environmental justice, climate justice, these are all interconnected. You can't really address the climate crisis without also taking a really hard look at our water. And one of the things we like to stay at clean water is me. Water climate change is water change. Our water systems are and are changing and are going to continue to change. And so having people like you, Mari, having more young people engaged in this fight for water and climate justice is such a critical thing, I think, for all of us. Yeah, I think young people can sometimes become disheartened when situation and feeling hopeless and stuff like that. So Mari, being an activist at such a young age is incredible and inspiring and I was so excited to have you on the show. I just wanted to hear your story and learn more about you. And this is, we're clean water action. So we put the action and everything. So if you do want to take action on any of these issues, just visit our website. We have a ton of work that we do across the country. And of course you can visit Mari's website as well and find out what's going on with her. And before we end, we always like to end with a call to action, but this has been kind of a serious subject, but I want to just know, what do you do for fun in your spare time? You said it's so important to have fun. You're a kid, right? It's like there's so much bad stuff happening, but you also have to have hobbies and have fun. So what do you like to do besides working and doing events and all the stuff you do, what do you do for fun for yourself. To sleep? I like to draw. I like to skateboard. I like to do my nails. I like to make phone cases. I like to make charms. I like to make beats. I like to watch TikTok. I like watching Instagram reels. I like watching YouTube shorts. I like playing on my iPad. I like playing Fortnite. I like playing Roblox. I like eating food while watching YouTube on my iPad. That's awesome. And I like looking cute. It sounds like you and my daughter would get along very well. Well, is there anything else you want to add before our call to action? We usually end the podcast with kind of like what people can do. Is there anything you want to say before we do that that we didn't talk about or touch on? Said everything. Yeah. Sean, anything? We're good. That was great. Awesome. So yeah, so we want to end with a call to action. So for people listening right now, what is the one thing they can do right now if they want to get involved? And it could be with anything. On it. Yeah, mean. So there's so many issues I feel like we covered today and really all the issues that we're talking about when it comes to water and climate, people should just go to clean water.org and you can look into where you live if you're here in Michigan, clean water.org/mi, we have offices all over the place in different states and you can take actions on our website on a variety of different actions where you can contact your lawmakers at both the federal and state level. Also, really encourage people to push that volunteer button in this movement building to really address the climate crisis. We need all the help we can get. So please reach out, get involved, get involved in your community. Check out my website to figure out how to support, how to support. And even just go on social media and look up whatever cause see what other people are saying. Try to get involved with them. Like I said, re post or post stuff that's talking about things that you're interested in. Seriously. Of course, once again, use your voice, speak up about it because that's how you get the most involved by speaking up. So true. And can you list out your website for folks to look up your website? My website is mari ny.com. M-A-R-I-C-O-P-E-N y.com. Thank you. And Sean mentioned we're at clea water.org as well. And I would say vote from a local level, state level, federal level. Just find out who is running for office research there, their platforms, and make informed decisions at the ballot box. And yeah, it's an important election year and I just feel like the more people that can get involved in democracy, the stronger it will be. So yeah, definitely use your voice and speak out that way. You could also use your voice through taking action on our website. You could use your voice by becoming a member. So we always say strengthen numbers and we're a nonprofit, so you could definitely visit our website and become a member if you'd like to as well. So those are my few take actions. So thank you both so much for being here today. Mari, you're truly an inspiration. I loved hearing about your story. Sean, thank you so much. Thanks for sharing both of your stories with me today. You can go to, like I said, clean water.org. If you want to support our work, visit our website. We have a bunch of podcast episodes there that you can go listen to our podcast interviews, environmental activists across the country, so you could go listen to our podcast as well. Thank you so much Mari and Sean. Be sure to subscribe to Ware Actions podcast. We all live downstream. It's available on Spotify, iTunes, wherever you listen to podcasts. And I just want to say a quick thank you and goodbye to everybody. Yeah, thank you very much Jenny. And thanks for joining us Mari. Thank you for having me.