Buhs said the purchase of purified water was prompted by a city warning around January 1 of 2015 that total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), a by-product of the chlorine disinfectants added to the water to kill the bacteria, had exceeded federal limits in 2014. Residents receive free water filters from National Guard soldiers on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, at a Flint Fire Station in downtown Flint, Mich. Flint’s water became contaminated when the city, under emergen… The water wasn’t properly treated, and it corroded the pipes, causing unsafe amounts of lead in the drinking water. Soon after, a Hurley Medical Center doctor demonstrated it was likely that lead was making its way into the blood tests of Flint children.
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“Some of the tests… before the water goes through the filter… came back and we noticed some of the water samples showed lead levels above 150 parts per billion, We aren’t completely sure why…”, said Dr. Nicole Lurie of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In one case, it was in the thousands. “People were concerned about the changes in color of the water, they were concerned about the smell of the water”.
The filters are rated to handle 150 parts per billion. Many of these citizens have poisonous, brown water coming out of their tap, and the EPA is telling them their water is safe.
One of those experts is Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech civil engineering professor who helped establish the presence of lead in the water past year. Officials said they may fill up the testing bottle and return it to where it was obtained. “The system is still recovering”.
“I had no knowledge of that taking place”, Snyder said Friday. Emails that were released Thursday revealed that employees at the state office in Flint have been drinking from coolers of purified water for a year.
On Friday, Snyder signed a bill providing $28 million in state aid to address the water crisis.
Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant resigned in December after acknowledging the DEQ failed to require the addition of needed corrosion-control chemicals to the corrosive Flint River water.
“If Flint were 57 percent white and not 57 percent black, you wonder whether or not the kind of callous indifference that’s being shown – not just by our state government but by Republican candidates who won’t even speak up for a whole population of 100,000 people who are facing a serious crisis”. The Senate could vote as early as next week on the proposal.
Gov. Rick Snyder made it official Friday, signing a bill to provide funding to cope with ramifications of tainted water, damaged pipes and health problems for those who drank from the tap before authorities finally sounded the alarm.
Ann Arbor resident Laura Tanner told The Ann Arbor News that she and a friend gave Snyder an earful at the Old Town Tavern. Since then, Snyder has faced repeated questions about when he first knew there was too much lead in Flint’s drinking water.
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He says “other things like that have been going on for some time now” and that the criticism makes him “feel bad”, but that he remains focused on resolving the city’s problems.
