Here’s the problem: When the state switched the city’s water supply to the Flint River, it did not properly treat the water, and the water corroded the pipes, leaching lead and heavy metal into the drinking water supply.
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The bill also authorizes $50 million for public health – though that funding is not specific to Flint – including $17.5 million to monitor the health effects of lead contamination in municipal water, along with allowing MI to use other funding to repay earlier federal loans taken out by Flint for work on its water system.
The administrative neglect that encouraged people to keep drinking this filthy water after they complained about stinky brown liquid pouring from their faucets has sparked nationwide outrage and calls for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to resign.
As the Democratic nomination hopefuls arrived in Flint, Michigan this Sunday, the city’s lead-poisoning crisis rumbled on.
The test results reinforce the belief among residents that the water – no matter what government officials say – will not be safe until the lead service lines are replaced.
“The perceptions are realities”, said Marc Edwards, a water expert at Virginia Tech who played a vital role in documenting the lead problem in Flint.
Although Flint was reconnected to the mains supply last October, the advice remains to stick to bottled water.
At Hurley, he met with Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who faced scorn past year as she tried to expose unsafe levels of lead in Flint’s drinking water.
Flint had been using water from the Detroit system but made the change to save money, planning eventually to join a consortium that would have its own pipeline to the lake.
Living with this – not for days, but for months – has grown exhausting for some residents, who see their problem less as a topic of political discussion and more as a daily grind through a blur of water bottles for baths, dish cleaning, cooking, everything.
Despite immediate complaints from residents about dirty, smelly water, officials insisted it was safe for consumption for about a year and a half, until research by activists and the medical community exposed the situation.
“I’ve always been under the assumption that water wasn’t 100 percent clean”.
“Even though helping Flint is obviously the morally right thing to do, speaking completely political[y], he missed an opportunity for the Republican Party to be shown as heroes and lock in votes for the 2016 elections” Miller said in an emailed interview.
Flint’s Mayor Karen Weaver has asked for $55 million to begin replacing about 8,000 lead service lines that she believes exist in Flint. The first residential lead pipe removal as part of the program took place Friday.
Other DEQ shortcomings it noted included a failure to ensure that Flint drew enough water samples for testing from high-risk homes with lead pipes or fixtures.
“That person is and will continue to be Gov. Rick Snyder”, Adler said. “The people are going to be drinking bottled water until the pipes are fixed”.
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The State House of Representatives approved $30 million to help pay for overdue city water bills.
