How to help with the water crisis in Flint, Michigan

Rick Snyder has activated the state’s National Guard to help with the ongoing crisis in Flint, Mich., resulting from elevated lead levels in the city’s water.

National Guard members are expected to arrive in Flint as soon as Wednesday, with additional members arriving by Friday, Snyder Dave Murray spokesman said.

The problem starts with the corrosive drinking water that goes through old iron water mains that turn the water brown.

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.

Flint has since returned to Detroit’s system for its water, but officials remain concerned that damage to the pipes caused by the Flint River means that lead could continue to impair supply.

Snyder’s executive order comes less than a week following his decision to join Flint Mayor Karen Weaver in declaring a state of emergency in the city.

Snyder requested support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to “coordinate an interagency recovery plan with other federal agencies to provide resources to Flint”.

Volunteers and authorities are going door-to-door in Flint neighborhoods to give residents bottled water, water filters, replacement cartridges and lead water testing kits.

Snyder’s statement also raises questions about the speed and scope of the state’s response since October 1 and why state officials did not immediately instruct Flint residents on October 1 not to drink the water without a filter.

And yet, bills have been issued, money is being collected, in a city where 40% of the population lives below the poverty line, where the water hasn’t been drinkable, and where residents have been buying bottled water for months. He didn’t formally request federal assistance until earlier in the day Tuesday.

It was the state’s Department of Environmental Quality that signed off on the city’s water treatment plan that didn’t add the proper chemicals to Flint’s water, and used the wrong federal regulations to monitor the city’s system after it made the switch to Flint River water. Lead exposure can cause learning disabilities and behavioural problems in children.

U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, said he welcomed the Republican governor’s deployment of the Michigan National Guard, but said, “Flint needs more action and less talk from Gov. Snyder”. “Flint residents are the victims in this crisis and they deserve a more urgent response equal to the gravity of this crisis”.

“I want the Flint community to know how very sorry I am that this has happened”, Snyder said in a statement.