In response to the overdue but increasing amounts of attention being paid to the lead-poisoning crisis in Flint, Michigan governor Rick Snyder has released his emails relating to Flint from 2014 and 2015.
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“The issue of Flint water and its quality continues to be a challenging topic”, chief of staff Dennis Muchmore wrote.
Snyder used almost his entire State of the State address on Tuesday to address the issue, offering a direct apology to Flint residents, acknowledging missteps by his administration in recognizing and addressing what has become a crisis, and pledging to push for millions of dollars in additional state funding to help support residents and updates to the city’s damaged and aging infrastructure.
‘We’re going to have all of the people in Flint’s backs as they work their way through this bad tragedy, ‘ he said. Read the original story below.
The U.S. Justice Department is helping the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate, and GOP state Attorney General Bill Schuette has opened his own probe, which could focus on whether environmental laws were broken or if there was official misconduct. “It is a reminder that we can’t shortchange the basic services we provide to our people”. The emails released Wednesday don’t definitively answer that question, but suggest it was probably sometime around September.
State officials thought so little of the impoverished city and its 100,000 residents, majority poor and people of color, that they switched the water supply from the pure waters of Lake Huron to the brackish Flint River. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency denied the governor’s request for $96 million in assistance through a major disaster declaration, typically reserved for natural catastrophes. But, a press release from DEQ on October 2 said that the water in Flint’s system was safe to drink, “but some families with lead plumbing in their homes or service connections could experience higher levels of lead in the water that comes out of their faucets”.
The Governor called it a “first step” in helping Flint residents deal iwth the lead-tainted-water crisis. I also witnessed the former DPW director for the city drink a bottle of water that a resident had brought to city hall to show it was fine.
“I’m sorry most of all that I let you down”, Snyder said in the 49-minute address, which came as his administration is engulfed in criticism from across the country and as hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside the Capitol.
In his annual speech, Snyder committed $28 million more in the short term to pay for more filters, bottled water, school nurses, intervention specialists, testing and monitoring – on top of $10.6 million allocated in the fall.
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Lead contamination can lead to behavior problems and learning disabilities in children and kidney ailments in adults. “You deserve better. You deserve accountability”. “Well, we know the buck stops with the governor”. Resources are being sent to Flint as we speak,”Flint Mayor Karen Weaver told a conference in Washington on Wednesday”. He asked MI lawmakers to authorise spending on diagnostic tests, health treatment for children and adolescents, replacement of old fixtures in Flint schools and day care centres and a study of the city’s water pipes.
