Critics also accused the EPA of covering up what it knew about that misconduct while Flint residents continued drinking the tainted water.
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In a letter to more than 46,000 state employees Friday, Snyder said “what happened in Flint can never be allowed to happen again anywhere in our state”.
LANSING, Mich. (AP) – Legislative leaders said Wednesday they are open to spending $30 million to help pay the water bills of Flint residents facing an emergency over a lead-contaminated water supply, though a top Democrat said the proposed state funding should be doubled.
“I agree with Flint residents, that they should not have to pay for water they can not drink”, Snyder said in a statement. Wednesday’s hearing started with an unusual request to the U.S. Marshal’s Service to physically serve subpoenas to some MI officials who failed to appear for the hearing. Under Michigan law, an emergency manager is appointed by the state, and Gov. Snyder was empathetic enough to appoint a Democrat as the manager.
The EPA’s water official, Joel Beauvais, said the Department of Environmental Quality first said corrosion treatment wasn’t needed for the river water, then “resisted” demands to follow rules requiring it.
At the time, his attorney said the subpoena “border(ed) on nonsensical” because it would have been impossible to appear by Wednesday morning after the subpoena was issued Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, the FBI have joined the EPA’s investigation of this terrible man-made health crisis.
Lynna Kaucheck of the not-for-profit group Food and Water Watch delivered 21,000 signatures to the Flint mayor’s office last week calling for a moratorium on drinking water bills. Last month the governor’s office released a batch of the governor’s emails on the subject, including a February message in which the Department of Environmental Quality essentially told the governor not to worry about “that brown water that angry residents were holding up in jugs for the media cameras last week”.
The emails were received 10 months before Gov. Rick Snyder alerted the public to lead contamination in Flint’s water, brought on after the source was changed from Detroit’s system to the Flint River. “To save a few dollars, the Snyder Administration poisoned an entire city and thought they could get away with it because those poisoned were poor, and primarily black”.
He pointed to Flint’s water problems, including elevated levels of lead in some local children’s blood, increases in Legionnaires’ disease deaths, E. coli and carcinogenic disinfectant byproducts.
“I don’t think we should have to pay for water until they get it right, at all”, said resident Eric Marland.
Federal and state health officials also held a press conference Thursday afternoon in Flint to detail follow-up water studies conducted this week in some of the 26 homes where lead levels in unfiltered water exceeded the 150 parts per billion rated capacity of water filters.
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Chaffetz and other Republicans said the EPA should have acted on its own to warn the public about water problems in Flint.
