The Flint contamination issue occurred after a state-appointed emergency manager in April 2014 ordered that the city switch its source of water from Detroit to the Flint River in an effort to save money and reduce debt.
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The Flint City Council and the city’s chief financial officer still have to take action to receive the grant funding.
The governor is expected to testify, probably next month, at a congressional hearing on the Flint water crisis.
The heavy toll exacted on the residents of Flint, Michigan, goes beyond the potential health consequences of consuming lead-contaminated water. State Treasurer Nick Khouri says that five thousand of the 29,000 residential water customers in Flint are delinquent on their bills.
Cornell Brooks, president of the NAACP, speaking to about 100 people at the Christ Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, in Flint, said the plan being touted by Gov. Snyder’s office to coat the old pipes is not an acceptable solution.
In early 2015, dirty water in Flint, Michigan, was being tested for lead, two lawsuits were challenging rate increases, and now a study finds residents were then paying the highest water bills of 500 communities surveyed nationwide, according to a nonprofit advocacy group.
MI state House on Thursday approved $30 million to pay back Flint residents who have been forced to purchase safe drinking water, rather than pull from the tap.
“Water is a critical need that we have”, she said. For the moment, in spite of 15 years of regional drought, Arizona cities have plenty of water stored, thanks to a robust network of dams and canals and decades of dedicated groundwater banking. Regarding personal injury, “physical injuries caused by lead and copper poisoning and other water contaminants will be compensable as non-economic damages in the nature of emotional distress, fear, apprehension and pain and suffering”, according to the website.
Meanwhile, in Flint, the high cost of water reflects the basic equation of post-industrial fiscal woe: The city is forced to support water infrastructure (and other services) to the same geographical area, but with a dwindling population and tax revenue.
Adding phosphates is the usual way to neutralize corrosive chlorides in water, and it was the city’s failure to treat the water properly that resulted in the contamination of the system with lead.
“How long is the water sitting in the pipes before it actually gets to the home and is there some relationship between water age and the lead levels”.
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The study found that Flint paid substantially higher water bills than other municipalities in metro Detroit. A deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, which is caused by a water-borne bacteria, spread throughout the city, killing 10 people.
