
From Tap to Trust: Water as a Measure of Governance
In this episode, Manny Teodoro, author of The Profits of Distrust, explores the deep connection between trust in tap water and trust in government. He explains how public distrust grows when water systems fail, as seen in the Flint Water Crisis, and how this distrust forces many, particularly low-income and minority communities, to turn to expensive bottled water. Manny emphasizes that restoring trust in public water systems requires governments to act clearly and deliberately.

Transparency is key—governments need to openly share how water is treated and explain the steps taken to ensure safety. Proactively engaging with communities, addressing their concerns, and demonstrating a commitment to improving water quality can break the cycle of distrust. He highlights three essential elements for rebuilding trust: excellence in delivering high-quality and reliable services, openness in sharing transparent information, and equity in ensuring fair access to safe water for all. This conversation highlights how public institutions can rebuild confidence through visible action, fairness, and honest communication, ensuring everyone can access safe and affordable water.
The main theme of the book “The Profits of Distrust”
one of the things that Samantha Zuhlke and David Switzer and I argue in the book, is that water is the most basic of basic services and a core tenet of liberal democracy is that governments win and lose their legitimacy based on their ability to provide for their people’s basic needs. That’s not our idea, of course, that’s the core of liberalism, right, that governments get their legitimacy by providing for their people’s needs.
Diminished trust in the state
we begin with this idea that there is a tap water failure or any kind of a basic service failure that, as I mentioned, is going to reduce trust in government because the government has failed me somehow. The government was supposed to protect me from this problem where there are commercial alternatives to a government service in the case of tap water, I have a commercial alternative in the form of bottled water. People will choose that bottled water and when they choose the bottled water or other commercial product, they have now less incentive to participate in government. And the logic works like this. Once I’ve chosen to buy a much more expensive commercial product, I no longer have an interest in improving the public product, the tap water. And so that reduces my participation in government, my participation with the state, my engagement with the state.
Flint Water Crisis (Michigan)
it was a very high profile event here in the United States. In 2014, the city of Flint, which is in the state of Michigan, in the middle of the United States, suffered a what we now call a water crisis. It was a major contamination event when the city of Flint changed its water source from one river to a different river as a part of a cost cutting measure. Now, that cost cutting measure was imposed upon them by the state government because the city had lost its own authority due to a financial collapse. Well, that switch in water source caused lead in the distribution systems and the lines that connect the distribution system to people’s homes. It caused lead to leach out of those pipes and into people’s homes and so we had a large increase in the lead level in water and of course, lead is a neurotoxin, it’s poisonous to people particularly bad for children and for pregnant women. Well, that became a huge national story here and one of the things that we saw across the country is not just in Flint, but everywhere across the country people’s faith in their tap water declined. It is worth mentioning that Flint is a community with a very high poverty level, and it has a large black population. So we have a large racial minority population and we have a very poor population, we saw that echo across the country.