Flint Residents Take Legal Action as News Keeps Getting Worse

“We’re going to get this done – and done quickly – by any and every means necessary”, Weaver said in a statement.

“I appreciate that the Governor has answered our call to bring additional resources to the table so we can start getting lead pipes out of Flint”, Weaver said in a press release.

“Lead did not come from the treatment plant and water mains – it came from lead service lines running between the water main and homes, and from plumbing inside the homes themselves, which contributes to test results varying from home to home”, she said.

Snyder, asked about his role in the events that led up to the water crisis, provided an impassioned response Thursday, saying he wants “to fix this problem” and that he is “trying to stand up and take responsibility like our value system says we should”. Mary Lawston, a retired widow, said that she still struggles to pay between $172 and $214 a month for water she and her grandchildren can’t use.

States have first-line enforcement responsibilities to compel public water systems to comply with drinking water regulations, the report said.

As part of the visit, Burwell will tour Hamilton Community Health Network, a federally qualified health center in Flint that is providing blood lead testing and other health care services to families and children affected by the lead contamination.

“Yeah, maybe you couldn’t drink it, you couldn’t cook with it”, he says, “but there’s other things, there were other uses, the water was used, so there should be some payment for that.”

Snyder says officials do not know the composition of 10,000 service lines still. The river water had already been flowing into resident’s taps for more than a year by the time the levels were detected.

For comparison, the study found the least expensive water bills could be found in Phoenix, where the average resident was paying $84.24 per year – less than 10 percent the price of Flint’s tainted water. As explanation, Overton, a member of Concerned Pastors for Social Action, pointed to a series of price hikes starting well before the disastrous 2014 decision to switch Flint off water from Lake Michigan in favor of the Flint River. In this photo taken on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy listens to Flint resident Tia Simpson at her home on Flint’s south side, in Mich. Murthy said he wants to connect health ca…

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For decades Flint relied on water from Detroit’s utility company.