Obama says he’s helping fix Flint water crisis

Gov. Rick Snyder on Wednesday released his 2014 and 2015 emails in an attempt to demonstrate what he knew about the lead water crisis in Flint and when.

The governor’s first water email was written on September 5, 2015, three days after researchers from Virginia Tech university first reported online that Flint drinking water is “very corrosive” and “causing lead contamination in homes”.

Most of the chronic, lower-level lead exposure in the United States comes from paint in old houses and lingering residue from leaded gasoline.

“I can’t figure out why the state is responsible”, Muchmore added, but noted that the state treasurer, Andy Dillon, had made the decision to switch Flint’s water source to cut costs.

So, he explained, “we’re not able to avoid the subject”. In the summer, the city began advising residents to boil water to combat high bacteria levels found in the water.

The governor promised to release the emails during his annual State of the State address on Tuesday. He did not release those of his staff. In Michigan, the executive office is exempt from public-records requests, but Snyder said he took the unprecedented step so people “know the truth”.

We were one of a chorus of voices that had called for Snyder to release the e-mails, which are held beyond the reach of public view because of an anomalous provision of the state Freedom of Information Act.

Flint, led at the time by a state-appointed emergency manager who was appointed to help solve the city’s fiscal woes, switched water supplies in April 2014 – in part to save money, which the emails showed amounted to $1 million to $2 million a year.

Flint, the birthplace of General Motors that once employed 80,000 autoworkers, but which now faces widespread poverty after auto jobs largely left the city, has been reeling from the discovery that its water contains dangerously high levels of lead.

Rick Snyder says MI will commit $28 million in the short term to pay for filters, bottled water and health professionals in Flint’s water crisis.

Last week, Mr Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint, which is predominantly an African-American, working-class city.

Snyder called for the state to spend $28 million on fixes.

On Wednesday the governor submitted his appeal and says the “considerable” needs brought by the disaster “exceed the funding capabilities of state and local government”.

Snyder’s former chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, told the governor that Flint residents were looking to point fingers over complaints of “taste and smell” in the water. The population is almost 60 percent black.

Following a speaking engagement at a Martin Luther King Day event in Flint, the Republican governor said her tactic doesn’t help solve the problem. He again painted a bleak picture of the city and said the “economic injury” from the crisis is significant. Snyder aides pledged that by the end of the week officials would visit every household in Flint to ensure they have water filters.

Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said Wednesday during a U.S. Conference of Mayors event in Washington, D.C., that aid provided so far to Flint water is “not enough”, adding that the city has been “crying” about the issue for nearly two years.

There are major investigations under way, but Snyder stands by the claim that he was slow to address the problem because other departments didn’t communicate it quickly and accurately.

“It’s unusual to watch people try to outdo each other talking about how bad things are”, Obama said.

True, if the proper chemicals had been administered to the water when state officials switched the town from the Detroit water system to the Flint River, there would not have been a problem.