Snyder, who has been criticized for his administration’s role in the crisis, last week declared an emergency in Flint over problems with lead in the city’s drinking water.
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Michigan State Police and other state employees will go door-to-door in Flint handing out bottled water, water testing kits and other resources to families affected by the city’s water crisis.
Although the state assisted the city in moving its source of drinking water back to Lake Huron water supplied by Detroit in October, concerns about contamination remain because the river water damaged pipes and other infrastructure.
On Thursday, while declaring the state of emergency, Snyder wouldn’t say when he became aware of the lead problem in Flint.
Audio clip: Listen to audio clip.
Stacks of bottled water waiting for distribution to the public at a Food Bank of Eastern Michigan warehouse in Flint on December 16, 2015. He declared the same less than a month ago, saying Flint’s water was causing elevated levels of lead in children. The Flint water is safe to drink if a properly installed and a properly maintained lead filter is used, Wells said.
In October, the state legislature appropriated $6 million to help Flint reconnect to Detroit water, paying for half of the $12 million cost. Both the ACLU and Michigan Radio cite the work of Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech engineering professor who has studied the situation in Flint closely.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control, black children are three times more likely than white children to have elevated levels of lead in their blood-and Flint is a district where students are overwhelmingly black and from poor homes.
No one believed state and local officials when they said that this icky brown water was safe.
In 2014 the city of Flint’s emergency manager, appointed by the state, ordered that the city stop drawing water from Lake Huron and start taking it from the Flint River.
As the governor and mayor of Flint try to figure out how to deal with the crisis, protesters continued to call for Snyder’s dismissal over the handling of the water crisis.
“High levels of lead are especially harmful to children and pregnant women, and can cause ‘learning disabilities, behavioral problems and mental retardation, ‘ the World Health Organization says”.
“Because Snyder has known the drinking water supply was toxic for at least a year, it is certain he would have let it continue unabated without federal environmental, justice, and health agencies getting involved”.
For as little as $100 per day the state of MI could have treated the water and prevented the life-long suffering that the children of Flint are now going to experience, but instead it prioritized fiscal savings over the health and human rights of children.
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FEMA spokesperson Rafael Lemaitre writes on Twitter that the agency is in MI to provide situational awareness and support to the state.
