Michigan questions some US demands regarding Flint water

A sign on a the front of a building warns residents to filter their water January 17, 2016 in Flint, Michigan. The downed pumped raised questions on whether the necessary levels of chlorine disinfectant were in the portion of the city’s drinking water distribution system near the treatment plant.

Mike Wilkinson, a staff writer at Bridge Magazine, got a spreadsheet from the state of MI that indicates areas where lead levels exceed those in Flint (he’s using data supplied for 2013; 2012 levels are available here). What has become clear, however, is that Kansas’ continuing budgetary squeeze and the anti-government, anti-federal assistance stances of state officials have created a series of personal crises for those individuals – the needy, prisoners and the mentally ill – who have the least power to affect policies that directly affect them.

Meanwhile, in Flint, parents worry over their children’s health and business owners fret over the lasting impact on their finances.

To hear Lizzie’s full conversation with Kai, tune in using the player above.

Department of Environmental Quality Director Keith Creagh wrote in a letter Friday to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy that the state will work with her department and city of Flint. Reports have pointed to errors at the city, state and federal level, but the bulk of the blame has been put on the DEQ, a state agency whose director resigned at the end of a year ago over Flint’s water issues.

He said the state Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Community Health “feel that some in Flint are taking the very sensitive issue of children’s exposure to lead and trying to turn it into a political football claiming the departments are underestimating the impacts on the populations and particularly trying to shift responsibility to the state”.

“The order demands that the state take certain actions, but fails to note that many of those actions… have already been taken”, Creagh, who recently replaced an official who resigned over the water crisis, wrote in his required response to the EPA’s order. That manager approved a plan in 2013 to begin drawing drinking water from the Flint River, and the city began doing so the next year.

Like Flint, many places have water systems that rely on lead pipes to carry water to homes.

Separately, Snyder announced the suspensions of two employees of the state Department of Environmental Quality in connection with regulatory failures that led to the crisis.

Water from the river, known locally as a dumping ground, was more corrosive, causing more lead to leach from Flint’s aging water pipes than the Detroit water the city previously used.

By early October, the Snyder administration was forced to acknowledge the validity of the lead concerns and help Flint return to the Detroit water system. “Until the public trust starts to build, this crisis will continue”.

Flint Mayor Karen Weaver refused to call for Snyder’s resignation while at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C., saying investigations should go forward.