In the summer of 2014, General Motors realized there was a problem with using the Flint River water – the water was corroding GM’s engine parts.
GM took immediate action to switch out the Flint River water for the cleaner Lake Huron water.
At the same time, the Flint River water was also corroding the drinking water pipes in Flint, leaching lead into the drinking water and poisoning the people of Flint.
General Motors says that it did not know about lead in Flint’s drinking water until it was made public in September 2015.
“GM was first notified of concerns over the the presence of increased levels of lead in the drinking water of Flint by an article published in the Flint Journal on September 24, 2015,” GM’s James DeLuca wrote to Ralph Nader last month.
DeLuca, GM’s executive vice president for global manufacturing, was responding to a letter from Nader to GM CEO Mary Barra charging that “there is no way GM did not have information about lead and other heavy metals in the water from its own comprehensive testing.”
Now comes former GM environmental engineer Nicholas Kachman.
Kachman is out with a remarkable new book titled GM: Paint It Red: Inside General Motors’ Culture of Failure. (Mariner Publishers, 2016).
Kachman says that GM’s explanation that it did not know about the lead in Flint’s drinking water until GM read about it in the paper is “not credible.”
“They are saying that they didn’t test the water for drinking water quality,” Kachman told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week. “And that’s the statement you got them on. There isn’t an engineer in the environmental business who wouldn’t test the drinking water after suspecting that the water was corroding an automobile part. They would immediately say — it must not be fit for drinking. Let’s test this immediately.”
“The people who were in those plants in Flint back through the early 1990s before GM started to outsource the engineering, would never let that happen.”
“They would have tested that water immediately. It’s stupid to say — we are testing it just for parts and not at the same time think — it might not be worthwhile drinking the water. That’s inconceivable. During the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, General Motors used the Flint River as a depository for every kind of contaminant you can think of until we put on pollution controls.”
“When World War II started, there were very few pollution laws. The Flint River once caught on fire. Around one of our plants, a dog stepped into the stream along the gutter and burned its feet.”
Why is the Flint River still corrosive?
“That stuff is still in there. The lead drinking water pipes were coated with minerals. But the corrosive water from the Flint River took the coating off the pipes. It put lead in the water.”
GM says they did not know about lead in the drinking water until it was made public in late 2015.
“That statement means that they did not have any concern, they didn’t have one employee coming to them saying there was something wrong with their water. And they don’t have a procedure in place now to check for drinking water — which is unbelievable.”
When you were with GM, what would have happened?
“Don Nash was the environmental engineer at Buick. He was famous with the Department of Natural Resources for being really progressive. He had a lab on the river.”
What would Don have done?
“GM polluted the river like crazy back in the day. He would have tested the water right away. He would have been the first. Any other plant that had a lab would have tested.”
Is GM lying? Or did they just not test for lead?
“I believe they no longer have the interest in that part of it. They have contracted it out. But there isn’t an engineer who wouldn’t say — it must be bad for drinking water. And the other thing I can’t believe is that some employee didn’t come to GM and say — my drinking water is bad and they didn’t test it. It’s inconceivable. And if they didn’t test, it is neglect of their obligation to their employees.”
“If the guy who answered Nader’s letter lived in Flint, they would have tested it ten different ways and paid for the clean water for the whole city.”
He probably does not live in Flint?
“Heavens no. The executives don’t live in Flint. The workers live in Flint. They have 7,000 workers in Flint. At one time it was probably 70,000 workers there.”
They poisoned their own workers?
“They allowed it to happen. They have a public relations staff. They go with solar cells and recycling and sustainability. The public doesn’t give a damn about it. A gold mine would have been if they switched the water to Lake Huron water, it would have been $100 million worth of public relations. You are doing something for the public. They should have paid the $6 million. Instead, they are spending $40 million on prairie grass credits that no one gives a damn about.”
“I’ve been trying to get somebody at GM to answer my phone calls. But they are not calling me back. My only suspicion is that they have been told not to talk. I can’t get in there. Most of my employees are retired. I’m trying to find some of my water people who are still there.”
In his book, Kachman outlines a $100 billion fear-driven, top-down boondoggle that didn’t make the news. It was called the paint plan.
And Kachman says that the plan was doomed and it in fact contributed to GM bankruptcy.
In a move to revolutionize auto painting, GM embraced the enemy, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Kachman says it was a move to buy time by making foolhardy promises they could not keep — utilizing paint they had not yet invented — and building nine new billion-dollar plants that didn’t last a decade.
Overall, Kachman says that GM was defined by a culture of resistance.
“Engineers go to school and learn the various disciplines to solve problems. But at GM, we were paid not to solve problems,” Kachman says.
“When a proposal came from the government for fuel economy, or safety or pollution controls on a plant, the staff would issue letters saying — no, it’s not necessary, we are not the problem. Instead of looking for solutions at the most competitive least cost and maybe make money by solving some of these problems, they fought, they resisted. The fellow who was handling safety, a remarkable man, came down to lunch and said — I’m retiring. I asked him why? And he said — Lee Iacocca is going to put airbags in Chrysler cars — the fight is over. That was ridiculous.”
GM was fighting airbags forever —
“And seatbelts. And fuel economy.”
In his book, Kachman argues that had the corporate types not put their thumb on the engineers and allowed them to do their work, not only would it have saved lives and reduced pollution, but it also would have saved the company from bankruptcy.
“Fighting the regulations was a public relations program,” Kachman said. “Every regulation turned out to be very cost effective, very beneficial to society and improved people’s lives. And yet they kept saying — too much regulation, EPA should be gutted, let’s stop it, we don’t have to do anymore. They fought it completely.”
“They were fighting regulations for fifty years — from 1940 to 1990 – and they were losing sales. Their public relations is going to hell. And yet, they never reviewed the culture of resistance to say — maybe this is the wrong thing to do, maybe we should be the first to put in seatbelts and airbags. Maybe we should be the first to get better fuel economy.”
Why didn’t the engineers revolt? Why didn’t they go public?
“That’s the phenomenon,” Kachman said. “Some of the finest engineers you would want to meet. Professional engineers that are registered — which means whatever you are going to do is going to be safe for public use and to benefit society. And for a few dollars, they start to resist. And the people who resisted the most got the most money, the biggest reward.”
“It’s happened at Chrysler and Ford. Not as much at Chrysler — but Ford was just as bad as General Motors. And this whole business about getting rid of the EPA and too much regulation – the auto industry just kept hammering away in the political arena.”
“I was fighting it. Why weren’t the others? They had families, kids in school, they needed the money and they see if you raise hell and try to insist on safety, they saw what happened. The guy who was head of auto emissions suggested putting a canister to collect the fumes when you shut off the car. It’s simple. It’s going to come. It’s practical. Let’s give it to the EPA. He was transferred out for suggesting that. He went back to safety.”
[For the complete q/a format Interview with Nicholas Kachman, see page 30 Corporate Crime Reporter 12(12), March 21, 2016, print edition only.]