Michigan to work with US on Flint water issue

The environmental agency’s director and communications director resigned last month.

Michigan’s top environmental officer has told his us counterpart the state will comply with an order to ensure safe operation of Flint’s drinking water and protect public health. For many, it echoes the lackluster federal response to New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Back in November when Governor Rick Snyder signed the road funding bills, he said: “We should be proud today”. However, the new pipeline wasn’t finished yet, leading the city to temporarily get water from the Flint River, which hadn’t been used to supply municipal water since the 1960s. Their cost-cutting measures exposed Flint to a local water supply that was more corrosive than the previous water supply and caused more lead to leach from aging water pipes.

Snyder, a Republican in his second term, was blasted by Hillary Clinton in her remarks after the recent Democratic presidential debate. The documents provided to the Guardian are said to point out Philadelphia, Detroit, and Rhode Island state as being among places using these misleading methods.

Snyder “had requests for help that he had basically stone-walled”.

From the outset, people complained about the Flint River water, which had a reddish-brown tinge and a metallic smell and taste.

Cher involved herself recently by donating 180,000 bottles of clean drinking water to the people of Flint. They didn’t learn the water was tainted until the state issued warnings a year and a half later.

Flint had serious fiscal problems of its own, and from 2011 to 2015, its finances were under the control of a series of emergency managers appointed by Snyder’s administration. “They have a really classic, attractive look to them, too, so people are very, very surprised when they find out what the material is”. Healthy Michigan was a whole Medicaid expansion.

While much of the blame has been directed at Snyder and state officials, particularly the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, some have faulted the EPA’s Region 5 office for not acting more forcefully.

“I don’t think anybody knows how long it will take or the amount of corrosion built up in the pipes”, longtime city Councilman Scott Kincaid said. Many Flint residents, and Democratic politicians including Hillary Clinton and Flint’s mayor, Karen Weaver, have said the answer is yes. In the early 1970s, the automaker employed 80,000 blue- and white-collar workers in the area. The city lost half its population, and a third of those left live in poverty.

It’s not just Flint, MI.

“I’m glad they’re finally trying to accommodate us”, he said.

“But they still show isolated problems”, Edwards said Friday.

The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it will take over lead testing in Flint because of what it said was “inadequate transparency and accountability”.

President Obama expressed his concerns for Flint families earlier this week.

Frustrations boiled over at a weekend protest outside City Hall. An agency task force plans to go to Flint to try to determine how badly damaged they are.