Michigan Steps Up Efforts To Tackle Lead Crisis After Outcry

Michigan DEQ director Dan Wyant resigned in December 2015 after a state task force report was highly critical of the agency’s handling of the crisis, as did DEQ spokesman Brad Wurfel, whose wife Sara worked as a spokeswoman for Snyder and issued a number of statements related to the water crisis on the governor’s behalf.

Snyder is expected to hold a news conference at 2:30 p.m., hours after signing an executive order creating a team to address the issue.

Gov. Rick Snyder last week declared an emergency in Flint. About half of the service lines to homes in Flint are made of lead and because the water wasn’t properly treated, lead began leaching into the water supply, in addition to the iron.

Residents are urged to use filtered water for drinking, food preparation, brushing teeth and watering pets. Officials announced Saturday that five city fire stations will serve as water resource sites for residents.

“We know that we have kids that have been impacted by this, impacted in a negative way”, she said.

The chief of the Racine Police Department is helping spearhead an initiative to bring clean water to a MI city dealing with a water crisis.

As previously covered by Medical Daily, Flint was forced to switch where it obtained its water in 2014, from Lake Huron to the nearby Flint River, as part of a cost-cutting maneuver undertaken by a state-approved emergency manager, following continuing financial debt owned by the town.

“High levels of lead are especially harmful to children and pregnant women, and can cause ‘learning disabilities, behavioral problems and mental retardation, ‘ the World Health Organization says”. “It’s nearly like a stepladder – you start from the top and you go all the way down to the bottom”, she said. “We had to come up here and do what we could to help”, Amru Meah says.

On Sunday, Snyder spokesman Dave Murray said once the initial response phase is over, state officials will work with the federal government on what additional resources may be available.

“What the governor should do is become fully accountable to this problem and give us the finances that we need to rectify the problem”, Davis said.

He said residents should have access to water filters, bottled water and blood tests and acknowledged that actions taken by the state have not been good enough. “People over in Lansing, they forget how the poor folks live”, Pickell said, referring to the state capital.

At Snyder’s request, “FEMA may conduct a Preliminary Damage Assessment in cooperation with state and local emergency management officials”, according to a fact sheet distributed by the Michigan State Police.

Still, residents said they were grateful that state officials and federal investigators were now engaged.