Michigan National Guard, FEMA help Flint amid water crisis

Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday night activated the Michigan National Guard to assist with the ongoing crisis of the lead contamination of Flint’s drinking water.

The state said Sunday that the water resource teams will go into Flint neighborhoods beginning Tuesday.

Snyder, who has been criticized for his administration’s role in the crisis, last week declared an emergency in Flint over problems with lead in the city’s drinking water.

Michigan’s governor is owning up to the state’s failures in the flint water crisis. The Flint public health emergency has also been featured prominently in the New York Times and on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show.

The drinking water became contaminated after Flint, while under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager engaged in cost-cutting, switched from Lake Huron drinking water treated by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Company to Flint River water treated by a city treatment plant.

Volunteers and police have been going door to door with bottled water, filters and lead test kits.

“I trust the good men and women of the National Guard will jumpstart the Snyder administration’s lackluster response to this public health crisis”, Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, said in a statement. The state – which previously committed $10.6 million to reconnect Flint to Detroit and to respond with filters other services after initially downplaying the lead risk – could soon ask for federal help.

Only 2% of Flint’s population has been tested, even though state health officials urged children under the age of 6 to be checked.

In accordance with the Michigan Emergency Management Plan, the director of the Michigan State Police, or her designee, is responsible for coordinating all state efforts, including the Michigan National Guard to assist the City of Flint and Genesee County.

Val Washington, a Flint attorney who since 2014 has been in litigation with the city over unlawful billings and water shut-offs, said the city for years used water bills to subsidize city operations, instead of keeping the money in a separate fund used for the water system.

Asked if he and other pastors were asked to keep quiet about the role of the governor’s office in delivering the filters, Overton said that Hollins told him: “Listen, the donor did not want to be announced”.

“I have a degree of responsibility”, he said at a news conference Tuesday.

City and state officials have come under fire from residents for the perceived slow response to the water supply crisis. Dave Kaiser says the weather isn’t stopping them but did cause a bit of a delay.

Kildee said he spoke with President Barack Obama as Congress gathered Tuesday night for Obama’s State of the Union address.