The Michigan House is expected to approve a bill on Thursday, giving Flint $30 million to reimburse 65 percent of the cost that city residents have been paying for water that has been contaminated with lead for the last two years. Flint did not treat the water from the Flint River properly.
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If consumed, lead can cause developmental delays and learning disabilities in children.
The city of Flint switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River in 2014 as part of a plan to get water from a new pipeline being built.
A state House committee has OK’d an emergency spending measure to help Flint residents with a portion of their water bills. Over the past four months, MI lawmakers have designated $70 million towards the city of Flint, Snyder said.
According to The Intercept, a Michigan Department of Community Health report indicated in May 2015 that the Flint River had elevated levels of PFCs, including PFOS and C8, which has been linked to health problems including two kinds of cancer.
GM got a quick response.
In a statement, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) hailed the effort, but said the Snyder administration needs to do more to help the city.
The findings only add insult to injury, as Flint residents had to pay $864.32 yearly for their water despite the fact that it was filled with lead and was toxic to drink or even bathe in. In this photo taken on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, Flint resident Tia Simpson pauses after prepping her dinner using half a dozen bottles of water at her home on Flint’s south side, in Mich. U.S. Surgeon Gene… It will have to go back to the Senate for approval before it will be forwarded to Gov. Rick Snyder’s desk. He said he wanted the water service line replacements to start quickly but not so fast that the repairs might lead to other troubles.
Snyder said the money will be available for the city to start removing priority lead service lines within the next 30 days. “I continue to hear from Lansing that the people of Flint should wait to see if pipes can be ‘coated.’ I call on Governor Snyder to end that discussion, and to commit fully to getting the lead out of Flint”. But the mayor said she would not agree to allow the governor’s engineering firm and contractors to do the work.
The CRS report says the EPA did not use its emergency powers to protect human health until January – nine months after officials became aware of water contamination in Flint.
Officials still do not know the composition of 10,000 service lines connecting water mains to the city’s homes and businesses.
Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have tax plans that extend the “middle class” classification up to those earning $250,000 a year – a number that some experts say is arbitrary and false.
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The state and federal governments have committed over $100 million in relief funding, but it remains uncertain when Flint residents will once again have potable water.
