President Obama drinks filtered Flint water at a rally in Flint, MI.
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With that request, during remarks at Flint’s Northwestern High School, President Barack Obama sipped from his second glass of filtered water during his one-day visit to Flint for a firsthand look at the city’s ongoing poisoned water crisis. That’s why we have to keep testing the water.
President Obama said called Flint’s water crisis “a manmade disaster” that he hopes begins a national conversation about what needs to be done to invest in future generations.
He told the people he understood why they are angry and frustrated, and said the government failed them. “The water around this table was Flint water and it just confirms what we know scientifically, which is, if you’re using a filter, if you’re installing it, then Flint water at this point is drinkable”.
Top image via the AP, White House image via Pete Souza’s Instagram. But he took a drink, saying he wanted to show the water must be safe if he’s drinking it. The Obama administration’s response, through the Environmental Protection Agency, has also come under criticism from Snyder and some in Congress who say the EPA didn’t move with necessary urgency upon hearing of problems.
Gov. Snyder and Mayor Weaver met President Obama’s plane when it landed at Bishop Airport and rode with him to his first stop at the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan where he received a briefing on the response to Flint’s water crisis from federal officials and members of the United Command group.
Snyder issued yet another in a series of frequent apologies he’s made to the city’s residents since the state admitted that Flint’s water was contaminated.
During the hour-long speech, Obama – making his first visit to Flint since declaring an emergency there in January – noted that it wasn’t until the 1980s when lead in paint and gasoline was banned and that, “if you are my age, or older … you got some lead in your system when you were growing up”.
Known as “Little Miss Flint”, Mari is one of the many children impacted by the Flint, Mich., water crisis.
“In many places, not all places filters are still not working”. “I am sure that somewhere when I was 2 years old I was taking a chip of paint, tasting it, and I got some lead”, he said. “I don’t want anybody to start thinking that somehow all the kids in Flint are going to have problems for the rest of their lives, because that’s not true”, he said to applause.
Obama, again echoing frequent remarks made by Snyder, said it’s no time for politics or fighting over who caused what.
Liberal documentarian Michael Moore criticized Obama on CNN Wednesday.
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About 42 percent of Flint residents lived in poverty in 2014, compared with 16 percent in MI overall, according to the U.S. Census, and the median home value was about $37,000, compared with $120,000 for the state.
