Gov. Snyder asks Obama for federal aid in Flint water crisis

A class-action lawsuit claiming Flint’s leaders and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder replaced the city’s clean water with what is was filed on behalf of residents in November.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Friday it was reviewing the request and would make a recommendation to Obama as “expeditiously as possible”. Residents already are being urged to use drinking water filters, which are being distributed for free along with bottled water.

U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint, welcomed the governor’s request for federal help. Genesee County also has seen a spike of Legionnaires’ disease resulting in 10 deaths that may be related to the water crisis, state officials previously said.

Meantime, the Michigan Democratic Party is calling on Schuette to appoint an independent investigator to the probe, saying he has a “conflict of interest and history of blocking the people of Flint from accessing critical information” on the water crisis. There is no doubt that the state has a moral obligation to provide clean water immediately for the citizens and to devise a long-term solution, no matter how costly.

Bottled water is being delivered door to door in Flint, sometimes by sled. More damningly, in September a report found that the levels of lead in young children’s blood had more than doubled since the switch.

Kildee says in a statement that “thousands of children of Flint who have been poisoned are the victims in this situation”.

“They have some very sound ideas and we want to work with them and I think we’re seeing some solid progress”, said Murray.

As attorney general, I will investigate this situation to determine if any MI state laws have been broken.

“If Flint were to go to bankruptcy, that would highlight that this legacy-cost problem has to be addressed more globally,”Eric Scorsone, a Michigan State University economist, told Bloomberg News in 2014”.

It was not until September that evidence of lead poisoning became public, and officials began to acknowledge it. It turned out that the river water was corrosive, causing lead to leach from pipes. The state failed to ensure the city treated its new water for corrosion, and the new water wound up leaching lead from the city’s pipes.

Kerry Nelson is Flint’s city council president. At the Flint Crepe Co., a sign under the water jug on the bar reads, “unleaded”.

Kildee asked for a federal disaster declaration in September.

But Snyder said his team was now moving in the right direction to solve the immediate crisis to identify those who might have been affected by the elevated levels of lead in the water and restore drinking water to the almost 100,000 residents of Flint.

Flint switched back to the Detroit water system in October, but the high lead levels could remain for as long as six months.

“Everything they have done at the state level has been way too late”, Kildee said.