However, emails obtained by the liberal group Progress Michigan and released to reporters on Thursday show Snyder’s principal adviser, Harvey Hollins, was made aware of the outbreak and a possible link to the use of Flint River water last March. Gary Peters a baby bottle full of contaminated water after a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on February 3, 2016.
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For one: U.S. Marshals are on standby to force current Detroit public schools emergency manager Darnell Earley (and former emergency manager of Flint) to testify before a congressional committee in Washington, D.C. He initially refused but, according to the Detroit Free Press, one Congressman said it doesn’t work that way.
Committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz has promised another Flint hearing in the coming weeks, and insisted Earley will be there.
Snyder says he and city officials still have to figure out exactly how to credit Flint water customers for the tainted water they already paid for.
He also noted, “This situation has been explicitly explained to MDEQ and numerous city’s officials”. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission also plans to hold hearings to explore whether the civil rights of Flint residents were violated.
Joel Beauvais said Wednesday that EPA’s regional staff urged MI officials “to address the lack of corrosion control” but that state officials delayed responding.
Here’s another blemish for Gov. Rick Snyder.
Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, said it was unacceptable to offer a “partial refund for a product that was not only unfit for use, but actually poisoned” people.
That’s cost the city millions of dollars.
The Detroit Water and Sewage Department talked about the problems of the Flint Water Department with respect to cleanliness, elimination of contaminants, mercury and lead levels, Kilpatrick said. The Flint River contained more corrosive water, which led to lead from an aging pipe system being leached into the water as it ran through.
Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech professor who helped expose the lead problem in September, said: “It’s hard to find moral justification in having (residents) pay for water that is not suitable for consumption nor, until recently, for bathing”. As WIRED noted, “unpoisoning” Flint’s water is going be a hard process, even if funding is easily available, because the city would have to “dig up several hundred miles of poisonous pipe buried as deep as dead bodies”.
“I know people in Flint just want to see this problem fixed and fixed fast and everybody just wants to get on with life”, Laurie said.
A wide-ranging USA energy bill, the country’s first major energy measure in more than eight years, was close to stalling in the Senate on Thursday as the chamber struggled to strike a deal to help Flint, Michigan cope with a drinking water crisis.
State officials are not the only ones who made mistakes in Flint, Creagh said.
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In addition to the FBI and the EPA, the federal team includes the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, said Gina Balaya, a U.S. attorney’s spokeswoman in Detroit.
