Creagh said MI “has complied with every recent demand” of the EPA and that Thursday’s federal order “does not reference the tens of millions of dollars expended by… the state for water filters, drinking water, testing and medical services”.
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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.
High lead levels have been detected in Flint’s water since the city switched from the Detroit municipal system and began drawing from the Flint River. “That’s not something that we should accept”.
Water from the river, known locally as a dumping ground, was more corrosive, causing more lead to leach from Flint’s aging water pipes than the Detroit water the city previously used. “I’m anxious that the whole town may have much higher lead levels than the compliance results indicated”, Del Toral warned in an April memo to DEQ, which was summarized in the email batch released Wednesday. He says Flint’s water issues reflect part of a long US tradition, exposing more African-Americans to lead. “All credit goes to state officials, especially Gov. Rick Snyder, for spending the extra cost for a lifetime of enrichment”, the video says.
February 3: State officials pledge $2 million for Flint’s troubled water system. “When the report has been revised and fully vetted by EPA management, the findings and recommendations will be shared with the City and MDEQ (Michigan Department of Environmental Quality) – and MDEQ will be responsible for following up with the City”. We’ve been given misinformation about the water, and the only way the governor can – if he can – rebuild trust, is to start doing that.
Flint residents across two of the city’s zip codes exhibited elevated levels of lead in their blood.
For the next six months, the agency was in a dispute with MI officials over how it interpreted water treatment under the 25-year-old EPA regulation on lead and copper. Gov. Rick Snyder and his men ordered the people who remained in the city to drink the water from the Flint River.
Many are calling for his resignation, among them film director Michael Moore, who is from Flint and even wants the governor arrested. “Essentially, the residents have been getting billed for water that they can not use”, Trachelle Young, an attorney representing Flint residents, said.
With a population of almost 100,000, the residents of the city have been urged not to consume tap water.
Flint residents have consistently voiced frustration over the time it has taken for officials to acknowledge this crisis and respond to it. Flint is a majority-black city, and 40 percent of people live below the poverty line.
Weaver met the president and some of his senior advisers earlier this week to discuss Flint’s crisis.
Nayyirah Shariff, Flint Democracy Defense League task force member, says the fight for safe water in Flint stems from racialization.
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January 19: Snyder devotes most of his annual State of the State speech to the emergency, saying he failed Flint residents. Due to EPA “media relations rules”, Del Toral has had to be a bit cagey to get his message across: When speaking to reporters, he has made it clear he does so as a private citizen, and is not officially speaking for the federal environmental agency.
