They heard Gov. Rick Snyder say, “Technically, it will come from the school aid fund. But what I am proposing is that we use MI tobacco settlement proceeds to pay $72 million for ten years to help Detroit Public Schools address its debt and restructure”.
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Gov. Snyder said the state’s new budget would earmark an additional $195 million for Flint, Reuters reported. The bill would help Flint fix and replace lead-contaminated pipes and provide health and educational support for children poisoned by lead-contaminated water. It includes $25 million to replace lead services lines in the highest-risk homes, $30 million to help residents and businesses with water bills and $50 million that would be set aside in a reserve fund for future needs. She, along with Steve Busch, also of that division, had been suspended in October 2015, after the toxicity of Flint water was publicly admitted by Snyder. The plan will be detailed in the Republican governor’s annual $54.9 billion budget presentation to the GOP-led Legislature on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016.
Flint, a city of some 100,000 people was under control of a state-appointed emergency manager in 2014 when it switched its source of water from Detroit’s municipal system to the Flint River to save money. When asked if manslaughter was a possibility if it was determined that government officials were “grossly negligent” in how they handled the water crisis and it’s clean up, Flood responded. And the governor who’s also a CPA for the first time in six years, did not ask for a big deposit in the state’s “rainy day” savings. Flint has since moved back to the Detroit system; officials hope anti-corrosion chemicals will recoat the pipes so it is safe to drink without filters within months.
“It is of no surprise to those of us who were here 12 years ago in very similar hearings, talking about the same issues, and begging for help for our residents here in D.C.”, Dr. Yanna Lambrinidou, president of Parents for Nontoxic Alternatives in D.C., said as she compared the Flint crisis to the 2004 lead contamination in the District of Columbia’s water.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Karen Weaver, the mayor of Flint, announced that a $55 million pipe replacement program is scheduled to begin this month.
“We have performed over one hundred and sixty lead tests throughout the city since switching over to the Flint River and remain within the EPA standards”.
Democrats didn’t waste much time Wednesday mentioning the absence of a particular MI governor at the witness table in a U.S. House meeting room on Capitol Hill.
An email written by a former Flint official says anti-corrosive treatments weren’t added to the Flint River water because of concerns about bacteria.
The CDC official added: “I know you’ve run into issues getting information you’ve requested from the city water authority and the MI Dept. of Environmental Quality”. “We deserve new pipes because we did not deserve what happened”.
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“We face tremendous challenges this year, and we’re taking these challenges on”, the governor said. “To be clear, we do value the skills and resources of our CDC colleagues, but we also recognize that their involvement needs to have some structure”, and “I want to reinforce the necessity that investigation communications from the Genesee County Health Department need to be directed to staff at the MDHHS”.
