Currently, the responsibility for notification lies at the local and state level. “We knew right then and there that there was a problem and they weren’t telling us everything”, said Mays, one of thousands of Flint residents who for months unknowingly drank and cooked with lead polluted water. “In the past two years, the percentage of Flint children with elevated levels of lead in their blood has doubled and in some areas has almost tripled”. She also touched on the issue of Flint residents’ water bills.
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The allocation of the money – but not the amount – changed a bit because of the huge amount of bottled water that’s been donated to the city of Flint from all over the country.
The suit calls for a federal court to order the city and state governments to carry out additional water testing and to replace all lead water pipes at no cost to Flint residents. “All of these need to be fixed, and it’s all manifest in the Flint crisis, but it’s something we all have to take seriously”. But officials are bracing for a much higher tally than what blood tests have revealed so far.
Maddow was joined on-air by a bevy of guests, including Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards; Flint Mayor Karen Weaver; state Rep. Sheldon Neely; Anna Johnson, principal at Holmes; Charles Williams, president of the National Action Network in Michigan; Sen.
Creagh says officials are studying whether the city’s pipes are being recoated with enough of a lining of phosphates to keep the lead from leaching. So funds initially slotted for the purchase of water has been shifted to address other needs in Flint.
Some richer cities have made it a priority to replace lead pipes, but few infrastructure upgrades have been achieved in cities that like Flint are struggling economically, Sellers said.
According to the Detroit Free Press and other news accounts, the water from the river contains eight times more chloride than Detroit’s water and that the chemical, which is corrosive to metals, ate away at old lead-lined service pipes that connect to residents’ homes.
Three area schools and Monroe firefighters are collecting bottled water to ship to residents of Flint, Mich., a city of some 100,000 dealing with lead-tainted drinking water in a crisis that’s drawn national attention.
Sadly, it’s too late for many: thousands of residents in Flint will experience serious health issues for the rest of their lives because they drank polluted water. People in Flint say their water turned brown, because of the lead poisoning.
Drinking water in Flint was contaminated with lead starting in April 2014 when the city, while under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, switched the source of supply from Lake Huron water supplied by the City of Detroit to Flint River water treated at the Flint’s city treatment plant. She adds that her organization has contacted the University of MI to try to get medical students to provide lead testing at St. Mary’s, but that’s still in the works. Two seek class-action status and financial compensation; another asks a judge to declare that users do not have to pay their water bills.
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“Most states and most local authorities, if they determine that there is lead in the water, they’re going to do everything they can to fix it and will be transparent about it. Usually”. Concerned Pastors for Social Action is named as a co-plaintiff to the complaint, as is the Natural Resources Defense Council.
