A regional director with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is resigning in connection with the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
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The pop superstar has been a leading celebrity voice in the fight to get supplies to local residents, who have not had clean running water ever since 2014, when officials chose to draw from the dirty Flint River, which has tested positive for lead poisoning. Now families fear for their health and especially for the future of their children, who can develop learning disabilities and behavior problems from lead exposure.
Messages left with Snyder’s office and the EPA were not immediately returned. But officials failed to treat the corrosive water properly to prevent metal leaching from old pipes.
But Flint was under the sole authority of an emergency manager forced on them and appointed by Snyder. “Mismanagement has plagued the region for far too long and Ms. Hedman’s resignation is way overdue”.
Snyder on Friday blamed the water crisis on bureaucracy, citing a cultural problem with civil servants more focused on technicalities than common sense.
The EPA “is deeply concerned by continuing delays and lack of transparency”, the letter said, describing the measures as “essential to ensuring the safe operation of Flint’s drinking water system and the protection of public health”.
On Friday, an advisory panel to the governor recommended steps the state should take to restore the city’s reliable drinking water, including hiring an unbiased third party to declare when the system is free of lead. In the end, though, he says that the incident, while problematic, helps make the public more cognizant of the things that go into municipal water supplies.
Snyder’s office released a statement saying the state would cooperate with EPA.
Snyder declared a state of emergency earlier this month and Michigan National Guard has been distributing bottled water to residents. The documents provided to the Guardian are said to point out Philadelphia, Detroit, and Rhode Island state as being among places using these misleading methods.
And for now, it’s unclear whether they will receive any help in covering those costs.
Today, she called in to The View today to discuss the problem with co-hosts and Flint Mayor Karen Weaver.
Snyder requested $96 million in disaster relief, but Obama extended $5 million in federal emergency aid and followed Thursday with an $80 million allocation to the state of MI for federal drinking water construction aid and loans. Officials say the number was changed after they found some deaths weren’t considered to have been caused by Legionnaires.
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Water quality engineer Marc Edwards tells Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson that Flint is just one of many cities with aging infrastructure that’s in “horrible shape.” says the low-priced approach is to fix the pipes incrementally as they fail.
