The door-to-door distribution follows an announcement Saturday that water would be available free at fire stations throughout the city.
Advertisement
The state said Sunday that the water resource teams will go into Flint neighborhoods beginning Tuesday.
To date in the city, there have been more than 12,000 water filters distributed, 2,000 blood tests performed, and more than 700 water tests performed.
Monica Lewis-Patrick, a spokeswoman for the group We the People of Detroit, said at an anti-Snyder rally in Flint Friday that Snyder should not only be requesting federal financial assistance, but should be mobilizing the Michigan National Guard to assist with the crisis.
Audio clip: Listen to audio clip. According to the World Health Organization, “Young children are particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects of lead and can suffer profound and permanent adverse health effects, particularly affecting the development of the brain and nervous system”.
After the letter was released, Snyder, a Republican and former businessman who took office in 2011, apologized and announced the resignation of the director of the Department of Environmental Quality.
He said “we need to focus on improving Flint for the longer term”.
On an otherwise quiet day at the corner of Roberts and Wager Streets on Flint’s north side, help is coming for thousands of residents who rely on bottled water to live. Per Edwards, Flint city officials broke federal laws by failing to collect water samples from homes that were at the highest risk of lead contaminiation and failed to conduct followup tests as required on homes whose samples showed high levels. It’s been three months since the state first acknowledged lead contamination in the city’s water supply. But he says federal officials should also be held accountable for the water crisis in Flint. The chief of staff to President Barack Obama said the White House is watching the Flint situation “very closely”.
The impact of lead poisoning is irreversible, as we reported last month.
He also says the recent water shut offs in Detroit, and the water problems in Flint have a unfortunately very similar. It’s all being paid for by MI taxpayers, as part of the State of Emergency declaration issued last week.
“We know that we have kids that have been impacted by this, impacted in a negative way”, she said.
Advertisement
Although the state assisted the city in moving its source of drinking water back to Lake Huron water supplied by Detroit in October, concerns about contamination remain because the more corrosive Flint River water damaged pipes and other infrastructure.
