There’s a backstory to how Flint, operating under a state-appointed emergency manager, chose to switch water suppliers, and how the decision stood despite mounting evidence that something was very wrong.
Advertisement
‘Gov. Snyder is committed to helping the people of Flint, protecting their health and safety and correcting the problems with the water, ‘ Dave Murray, press secretary for the governor, said in statement to MLive.com.
Even as the Snyder administration worked overtime to contain the political fallout from the crisis, the New York Times concurrently went into damage control mode for the Obama administration, seeking to lay blame for the disaster exclusively at Snyder’s feet and presenting the poisoning of Detroit’s workers as a racial, not class, issue.
A year ago, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder chose an unfortunate metaphor to launch his second term in office.
A high-ranking DWSD official told us today that Detroit offered a 50% reduction over what Flint had been paying Detroit. Several cities – Detroit, Flint, Pontiac, Saginaw – I’ve made a focused effort since before I started in office to say, we need to work hard to help people that have the greatest need…. Healthy Michigan was a whole Medicaid expansion. Federal officials denied declaring a disaster, which could have brought millions more. Many Flint residents, and Democratic politicians including Hillary Clinton, have said the answer is yes. Far from being fully transparent, Snyder has released a heavily redacted and apparently incomplete set of emails relating to the contamination problem. “Someone needs to change how we go about Washington’s role in this, where there’s more accountability and more transparency, so that when reports are done, they’re thoroughly vetted”. But the city didn’t use corrosion control to prevent lead from entering the water, and the river water also contained a much larger amount of chlorine, which is highly corrosive to metals.
On Thursday, the EPA said that MI authorities had failed to adequately respond to the crisis, and that it would begin doing its own tests of the city’s drinking water.
“To help address both the technical issues facing Flint, as well as the public-trust issues, we believe it is imperative to have the right people and organizations involved”, task force co-chairman Chris Kolb said.
Why is Flint’s public health crisis relevant to Kansas?
Professor Marc Edwards of Virginia Tech, who has been leading an independent study of Flint’s water for months, said the early numbers appear lower than the readings his researchers were logging in August. Flint is a poor, majority-black city where the supply has been tainted for more than a year, but for much of that time, state officials reported that it was safe to drink. First there was bacterial contamination, and then there was chemical contamination caused by a disinfectant used to kill the bacteria. In 2014, the state tried to save money by switching Flint’s water supply from Detroit to the Flint River.
Two Michigan Department of Environmental Quality workers were suspended Friday for actions they took related to water testing in Flint, Gov. Rick Snyder said.
It also gets people in surrounding cities to think about the well being of their own communities.
In 2014 local officials, in a cost cutting move, switched the water supply source from from Lake Huron to the Flint River.
Advertisement
The episode is under investigation by the EPA and the Justice Department at the federal level, and by the state’s attorney general, Bill Schuette.
