US denies appeal for Flint disaster declaration

Flint, Mich., Mayor Karen Weaver participates in a news conference during the U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016.

Ariana Hawk is the mother of 2-year-old, Sincere “Sunny” Smith.

A hospital associated with the deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Flint, Michigan was contaminated with Legionella bacteria from the city’s tainted water supply, the Detroit News reported Friday. MI law states that parents are neglectful if they do not have running water in their home, and if they chose not to pay for water they can’t drink anyway, then they could be guilty of child endangerment.

Snyder has apologized for Flint lead contamination. Released emails show that state officials failed to heed the concerns of EPA officials and researchers over corrosion controls, proper testing and adherence to the federal Lead and Copper Rule, which regulates the amounts of lead and copper in drinking water in the United States. Now families fear for their health and especially for the future of their children, who can develop learning disabilities and behavior problems from lead exposure.

Creagh wrote that state officials don’t know whether it’s legal for the EPA to order MI to take such actions. “We are waiting to see how much of the $80 million will be allocated to the city of Flint and how much of it will go elsewhere, but it’s a step in the right direction”. Snyder declared every house in Flint will be visited to assess harm at the individual level. The advisory group said its recommendations are more detailed and comprehensive than what the EPA ordered, and Snyder said officials would “move as quickly as possible to determine the best way to achieve the results”.

The Environmental Protection Agency employee who raised the first formal questions about lead in the water supply for Flint, Michigan, has spoken out about the crisis was uncovered.

“It’s horrifying. And we were in Ethiopia together six or seven years ago and this Flint thing has reminded me of this time in this little village where these kids were collecting this water that was about the colour of chocolate milk”.

Indeed, Snyder has been a key ally of Obama in seeking to use the bankruptcy of Detroit to set a precedent for the dismantling of public employee pensions and the hiving off of public assets to speculators such as billionaire Dan Gilbert. Snyder spokesman Dave Murray didn’t reveal how the PR team will be paid.

He added, “I’ve made a focused effort since before I started in office to say, we need to work hard to help people that have the greatest need”.

For numerous 99,000 residents of Flint, a struggling industrial town about 70 miles northwest of Detroit, the state’s slow response to the crisis has sparked outrage and calls for the governor’s resignation.

In his appeal letter, Snyder called the decision a “narrow reading” and likened the crisis to a flood, “given that qualities within the water, over a long term, damaged the city’s infrastructure in ways that were not immediately or easily detectable”. On Thursday, Snyder released over 250 pages of documents which he said constituted the totality of his personal correspondence on the Flint water crisis, but Neeley said an email he had written to the governor in January 2015, nine months before the state took action on the issue, warned of “civil unrest” if nothing was done to correct the situation.

A Hollywood A-lister has weighed in on the water crisis in Flint, calling for the governor of MI to resign as militia members joined the ongoing protests Sunday.

The EPA’s order to state and city officials came the same day that the agency announced that Susan Hedman, head of the agency’s regional office in Chicago whose jurisdiction includes MI, was stepping down February 1.