The office of Michigan’s attorney general is representing the Republican governor and others in lawsuits filed over the water situation.
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They will be trained by Michigan National Guard members who are managing the sites.
In 2014, Flint switched from Detroit’s water system to the Flint River to save money.
By the time the loan agreement was in place, cries about Flint’s water quality were growing louder, though it had not yet been discovered that the improperly treated Flint River water was causing lead to leach from aging pipes and put children at risk.
At a cost to taxpayers of almost half a million dollars, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has contracted with two outside attorneys regarding the Flint water crisis, an administrative spokesman announced Thursday.
Ari Adler said Wednesday that Greimel “chose to focus his efforts on a politically charged press conference” instead of attending a briefing with staff from the governor’s office on addressing the Flint emergency.
Both attorneys are being paid with state dollars, Adler said.
“The Snyder administration effectively put a financial gun to the heads of Flint’s families by using the emergency manager law to lock the city into taking water from a poisoned source”, party chairman Brandon Dillon said.
“Expanding Medicaid coverage to tens of thousands of expectant mothers and youth means the most vulnerable citizens served by the Flint water supply can now be connected to a wide range of needed health and developmental services, including lead-blood level monitoring and behavioral health services”, said HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell.
Snyder is in his sixth year in office and can not run again in 2018 due to term limits.
One month prior to the loan agreement being made, Snyder’s aides were notified by a state official about the spike in Legionnaires’ disease, which has killed 10 people in the area since Flint’s water source was switched from Detroit to the corrosive water of the Flint River.
House Minority Leader Tim Greimel called Wednesday for Snyder to resign over “actions and inactions” related to the crisis, accusing the executive office of “negligence and indifference”, Jonathan Oosting of The News reports.
A FEMA spokesman said Snyder’s appeal was under review by the agency. He says the governor’s handling of the crisis also speaks to larger problems within the Snyder Administration. It obtained the document through a public records request.
Michigan Democrats said Wednesday that the state of Michigan blocked Flint from returning to Lake Huron water from the Detroit water system when it agreed to grant the city an emergency loan of $7 million in April 2015.
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Provisions in such a loan agreement are “included to ensure that a local unit of government remains on solid financial footing and does not slip back into financial emergency”, said state Treasurer Nick Khouri, who took the job just days before signing the loan deal.
