Local Man Hired To Help Snyder With Public Relations During Flint Crisis

“That’s what we’re doing”.

In his talk, Brooks called for the U.S. Department of Justice to launch a federal investigation of what led to the contamination, saying that a state-level investigation by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office was inadequate. Some parts of the city do not have lead service lines, said Creagh, who added that targeted water testing may soon allow officials to clear some neighborhoods for tap water use.

The lawsuit alleges that city and state officials have violated the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. “That’s our commitment, is to put together a methodical, defensible and reasonable or rational plan”.

The Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee, which also includes the mayor, will make recommendations about the health and welfare of people exposed to lead and suggest ways to upgrade the city’s aging water system. Besides being contaminated with lead, the Flint River water being piped into residents’ home was not being treated for bacteria, which means bacterial diseases are on the rise in Flint.

The Legislature has already approved $9.35 million for Flint for the current 2016 fiscal year and a further 2016 appropriation of $28 million has passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate this week.

Walmart and several major corporations are banding together to give 6.5 million bottles of water to students in Flint, Michigan.

They charge that Flint residents are victims of “environmental racism” – that is, race and poverty factored into how Flint wasn’t adequately protected and how its water became contaminated with lead, making the tap water undrinkable.

“It’s hard for me to imagine the indifference that we’ve seen exhibited if this had happened in a much more affluent community”, he said. “I don’t want to create panic, but residents need to know”.

The UN has looked at MI water issues before, sending two human rights officials to Detroit in 2014 as the city was shutting off water service to residents behind on their bills.

The more pressing issue, the governor said, is determining whether efforts to recoat existing pipes with proper corrosion controls will produce safer drinking water, now being pulled from Detroit’s system while construction continues on a regional pipeline to Lake Huron.

Independent research by Hurley Medical Center (Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha) and the Genesee County Health Department later discovered higher levels of lead poisoning in children and an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease (resulting in nine deaths).

Edwards said that as a result of the recent developments in Michigan, “We now feel that Flint’s kids are finally on their way to being protected and decisive actions are under way to ameliorate the harm that was done”. Senators have said that because of the massive surge of donations of bottled water to Flint, some of the money could be targeted away from water toward other needs.

But the trip this week was canceled once the Flint water crisis came to dominate the attention of the Snyder administration.

The Flint Water Study team comprising of Edwards – the Charles Lunsford Professor with the Virginia Tech Charles E. Via Jr. Concerns about the water first surfaced in April 2014, when in an effort to save money, officials began drawing the city’s water from the Flint River, instead of relying on water from Detroit.

“I joined this lawsuit because I no longer believe the city of Flint and the state of MI can solve Flint’s water crisis and return safe drinking water to our homes”.