City Administrator Natasha Henderson told city council members Monday, Jan. 25, that the city’s water utility could be out of money by the end of the year as Flint’s public health emergency drives down collections on water bills.
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Listen Could the Flint water crisis happen in the Twin Cities?
As speculation swirls around why lead-contaminated drinking water was not sooner addressed by the state and local government in Flint, Michigan, Northampton officials say the city’s water is safe to drink. To save a relatively small amount of money, the state may have doomed these children to lower IQ levels, behavioral problems, growth delays, hearing difficulties, and a host of other physical and neurological ailments. Flint had already been connected to Detroit’s water system for several years up until 2014 when they switched and made Flint River the city’s main water source, according to MI news publication MLive. Residents also brought in water samples from their homes that would be sent out for lead testing.
The family of imprisoned ex-Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick shared a letter purportedly written by him claiming the Flint water contamination crisis dates back as far as 2004.
The auditor said in a preliminary report that the DEQ should have required Flint to treat its water to keep lead from leaching from service lines into people’s homes but did not purposely mislead federal officials about the lack of corrosion control.
Gov. Rick Snyder last week requested $28.5 million from state lawmakers as a short-term fix for some of the city’s issues, including covering costs the Flint water system needs to recoup if it’s not going to get it from residents’ bill payments.
As a result, lead leached from pipes and fixtures into the drinking water. Months of warnings from residents about the lead-infused water went mostly ignored by state and local officials.
Michigan’s top environmental officer was by turns cooperative and confrontational with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday, pledging to work together to ensure the safety of Flint’s drinking water but challenging the legality and scope of some federal demands.
“It’s individuals that know that they can wake up in the morning and they can take a shower and drink fresh water”.
“This independent investigation will be high performance and the chips fall where they may”, said Schuette.
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has apologized for regulatory failures and other things that led to Flint’s crisis.
Regardless of its effect on Snyder’s legacy, Flint’s experience with toxic water appears to have boosted support nationwide for more water regulation.
Now I ask you, the people of our state, to join with me in calling the governor’s office to ask for his resignation.
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Flint community leaders and concerned citizens are expected to pack a crisis meeting Tuesday led by Cornell Brooks, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP.
