The Flint River water corroded the city’s pipes, which leached lead and iron into the water, possibly also creating incubators for a deadly explosion of legionella, a waterborne bacteria.
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And looking at the long term impacts of lead. But we can’t seem to provide our citizens with something the United Nations (UN) has declared a basic human right. “Because they could be affected”.
Maddow noted that Gov. Snyder had said the replacement of the pipes is a job for the long haul.
Meanwhile, Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence (D-Michigan) says she’s “outraged” that Snyder will not be called to testify, which she says she specifically requested when she first called for Flint hearings.
“I think we’re just very disappointed that somebody really didn’t figure this out”.
Vicky Shultz, CEO of Catholic Charities, said the health and safety issues continue to be a “major crisis”, and the organization is distributing bottled water and gallons of water, as supplies allow, to families and individuals in need.
“This is about working together to address the issue”, Snyder said.
Still, officials could not give a timeline on when people would be able to turn on their taps.
One of the roadblocks to outright replacing the pipes, Snyder said, is that the city isn’t quite sure where all of them are.
The short-term goal is to recoat the pipes, he said.
A congressional hearing on the crisis in Flint is scheduled for February 3. A plan to save $15 million on Flint’s water bills may now cost $1.5 billion to clean up, Moore said. “This is squarely in his lap”.
“In the 1890s, they changed a water supply, as in Flint, and suddenly, adults started coming down with obvious symptoms of lead poisoning”.
“Just the idea of people drinking poison water with lead and stuff is enough to make anybody want to do something about it”, said Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Rufus Johnson. “This is a case of a handful of government officials making extremely poor decisions that had massive consequences for people”.
Already, Susan Hedman, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator for Flint, has resigned.
The Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee is a 17-member panel that will make recommendations regarding the health of people exposed to lead, study Flint’s water infrastructure, and establish ways to improve communication between local and state government.
Next for Flint is more bottled water, more National Guard, a dedicated office to be opened and staffed by the governor’s top appointee and a whole lot more testing.
The governor rightly released his emails last week.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the Hurley Medical Center pediatrician who discovered high lead levels in the children of Flint, said not every child will have a problem.
But some groups aren’t waiting for the findings of a committee.
City officials in Flint switched their water source from the expensive Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) pipeline to the equally expensive Karengondi Water Authority (KWA). And in at least one Flint home, researchers found lead levels in the water that exceeded the level classified as hazardous waste.
Then, the city cut corners by refusing to add anti-corrosion treatment, which caused the water to eat away at the interior of the city’s water infrastructure and put those metals into the city’s water supply. Although lead levels in Flint spiked after the city switched its drinking water source, and the EPA knew about the threat and told officials in the state to take precautions, the agency wasn’t required to follow up on or enforce its findings, and the state never warned local residents about the potential health risks.
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A new federal lawsuit over Flint’s water contamination seeks to force city and state officials to resolve violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act, demanding they replace all of the lead pipes in the city’s water system to ensure safe drinking water.
