Introduction:
Located nearly at the geographic center of the world’s largest supply of fresh water – the Great Lakes (see red diamond in the map within the attached document), Flint, Michigan suffered (and continues to suffer) from a series of project decisions that led effectively to the poisoning of their public water supply, and in turn, death, poor health, and lasting effects for the citizens of the city. It happened when the city of Flint initiated a project to switch their water supply from the Detroit River (fed by Lake Huron) to the Flint River. You will learn more about the rationale for doing this switch this in your research, but at its heart, this was a project rationalized by cost reduction.
Although much has been written, broadcast, published, and debated about the project failure, its causes, its outcomes, and most of that has been about blame, politics, equity, and ethics. This case is about the issues driving project decisions that in turn, led to the problems. Although you should be aware of the surrounding context, and they are of paramount importance, we request that you do keep them in mind but for the purposes of this assignment, instead focus solely and intensely on the project management issues that led to these terrible outcomes.