First of two parts

Someone asked me the other day when I was going to write about the water crisis in Flint, Mich. I have to confess I have put it off because it is just such a sad, sad story.

Flint is a city that has been mugged by the globalized economy — over and over again.

We cannot deglobalize the world economy, and we don’t seem to be easily able to reinvent cities like Flint.

And now this: Toxic levels of lead in the water that have poisoned a generation of kids. One source claims every child under the age of 6 in that city of about 100,000 people must now be considered lead-poisoned. That means a generation with learning disorders as well as physical vulnerabilities and immunity deficiencies.

All because someone thought it would be smart to take the water supply from the Flint River instead of Lake Huron and pipe it through pipes that should have been replaced decades ago. The city could save a million dollars a year.

It will cost many more millions to deal with the damage, which cannot be reversed in the kids — it is neurological. And no one knows when or exactly how the water supply can be restored to relative purity.

But the real mystery is not all that went wrong systemically. The real mystery is the stubbornness of the people in charge — mostly the governor and his state government. The political failure. The reality failure.

“Inexplicable and inexcusable,” said President Obama.

Like all social tragedies, from the war in Iraq, to defenseless kids getting shot in the streets, to the real estate and banking fraud that crashed the economy in 2008, the real scandal was the refusal to see what was in plain sight — long after the early danger signs were evident.

That’s the other reason I hesitated to start reading more deeply about Flint: I don’t want Toledo to be the next Flint.

Look, our own water crisis in August, 2014, I am convinced, was a false alarm. We were never in danger from drinking the water. But the crisis DID underline what was already known and what no one was doing anything about — what the New York Times called “a long-troubled Lake Erie.”

In the recent mayoral race, two of the candidates — Mike Ferner and Sandy Collins — in slightly different ways, made the lake a key to their campaigns. Not that a mayor can clean up the lake. But a mayor can press for federal action.

The failure of Toledo City Council on Tuesday to join the Lucas County commissioners in seeking a federal designation of the Lake Erie watershed as an impaired watershed was not only a political failure (and where, oh where is our mayor?) but a moral and human one. For this is the only practical avenue available for restoration of the lake.

If the U.S. EPA rules our watershed officially “impaired,” we get an inventory of polluters and a mandatory cleanup plan.

If the President issues an executive order “for protection and restoration,” as he did for the Everglades and the Chesapeake Bay, there would be funding and action.

Without federal action, what is Plan B? Hope the problem goes away? That the lake heals itself somehow, magically?

Mr. Ferner did not get many votes for mayor. But he was supremely right about one thing: If we fail to heal Lake Erie, patching Toledo streets will be an academic question. No one will want to live here.

Flint is now a federal emergency. About $80 million has been pledged, and doubtless more will be spent.

Would it not be better if the cities and towns bordering Lake Erie did not wait for a Flint-level emergency for an entire Great Lake?

Would that not be inexplicable and inexcusable?

There should not be a “next” Flint.

And it should not be us.

Keith C. Burris is a columnist for The Blade. Contact him at: kburris@theblade.com or 419-724-6266.

First Published January 28, 2016, 5:00 a.m.