Few cities have had as hard a time in recent years as Flint, Mich., which has suffered nearly all the troubles Detroit has, with less national attention. Once a prosperous General Motors company town of nearly 200,000 residents, Flint has been devastated by the downsizing of the auto industry and sent spiraling into emergency management. 

Last year, to save money, then-emergency manager Jerry Ambrose switched from using water from Detroit’s regional system to water from the Flint River. When residents complained that the water looked, smelled, and tasted bad, Mr. Ambrose blithely said it was just as safe as water from Detroit — although it turned out to be contaminated by bacteria. 

When a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study indicated Flint’s water might be causing lead poisoning, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Snyder’s Department of Environmental Quality ridiculed that suggestion and said state tests showed the water was fine. But that wasn’t true. 

An investigator for the American Civil Liberties Union and a Virginia Tech scientist got a grant, did intensive testing, and, in partnership with a local hospital, proved that the Flint River water was causing lead to leach out of old pipes and affect children and infants. Even then, state and city officials said there was no money to reconnect Flint to safe Detroit water. 

But after an avalanche of protests, Governor Snyder reversed course and announced that the money would be made available after all. The scandal has hurt the governor’s credibility. Those who attempted to cover up how bad Flint’s water was need to be fired. 

But it also illustrates what may be Mr. Snyder’s greatest weakness: the tendency to see human lives as items on a cost-benefit spreadsheet. Government has an obligation to provide clean and safe water to its citizens. That anyone thought doing so was just too expensive is deeply troubling.

First Published October 14, 2015, 4:00 a.m.