Soldiers from the Michigan Army National Guard Flint prepare to give Flint, Mich., residents bottled water at a fire station January 17, 2016, in Flint. Buhs says state employees in Flint can also use drinking fountains.
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While attorneys have subpoenaed all emails and communications between Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) over the ongoing Flint water crisis, a few details have been released showing what can only be described as depraved indifference on the part of state workers to the plight of Flint citizens.
State lawmakers unanimously approved the funding earlier this week.
Flint residents are now warned to drink only filtered or bottled water because of lead contamination. But it’s not based on time; it’s based on science, facts and caution to make sure we’re doing the right thing by the people of Flint.
Keith Creagh, director of Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality, will represent the state, along with Darnell Early, the Snyder-appointed emergency manager of Flint during the time the city switched its water source. Should that not have also alerted them to look a little closer at Flint’s water quality, especially given its recent change in sourcing? County health officials had declared a public health emergency October 1, and the next day Gov. Rick Snyder announced $1 million for home water filters.
Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee staff made clear in a memo that the panel’s discussion next Wednesday will focus on the federal government’s role in enforcing and administering the Safe Drinking Water Act in Flint.
Help – $28 million of it – is on its way to Flint, Michigan. After more than a year of complaining about the taste, color, and smell of the water, state officials admitted that there was lead in the water and that the pipes that fed the city were the cause.
The water supply became contaminated when the city, under emergency state management, switched from the Detroit municipal water system and began drawing from the Flint River in April 2014 to save money.
Snyder has accepted responsibility for the emergency while also blaming state and federal environmental regulators, some of whom have resigned or have been suspended.
The state funding is meant to pay for bottled water, faucet filters, testing kits, additional school nurses, medical treatment and to help the city with unpaid water bills.
Snyder told WWJ-AM he had “no knowledge of that taking place”.
He wrote that the resignation of Susan Hedman as the top EPA official for the Great Lakes region “raises serious questions about EPA’s response to the Flint crisis”.
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It’s also worth noting that, besides the emergency response under way now, there would be little any president could do to resolve it. But that doesn’t excuse the candidates from recognizing it as a big issue at the moment, one that speaks to the failure of government to deliver on basic services. Because of that, into January, it’s still not safe enough to drink and may not be until the water infrastructure is completely overhauled.
