Flint Water Crisis: Community Members Gather at Church for Rally, Free Water

At City Hall on Thursday, where signs advertise free water filters, Quintina Swanson stopped by to pick up a replacement cartridge. He said residents should continue to use filters and bottled water, and the state doesn’t want people to assume anything is good with their water until extensive testing has been done.

Michigan DEQ director Dan Wyant resigned in December 2015 after a state task force report was highly critical of the agency’s handling of the crisis, as did DEQ spokesman Brad Wurfel, whose wife Sara worked as a spokeswoman for Snyder and issued a number of statements related to the water crisis on the governor’s behalf.

But it was not until this week that Snyder declared a state of emergency, following in the footsteps of the city’s mayor.

Audio clip: Listen to audio clip. Residents, and particularly children, are being poisoned by lead, which can cause irreversible brain damage and affect physical health. The declaration launched the State Emergency Operations Center, made up of state emergency response personnel and non-governmental organizations such as the Red Cross. Deputy State Director of Emergency Management and Homeland Security Capt. Chris Kelenske said the state is trying to make sure people have access to what they need.

“It’s ridiculous we have to live in such a way”, said Colette Brown, a Flint native who months ago stopped drinking tap water. “MDEQ even initiated a “Flint Water Communications Plan” campaign at DHHS, to promote how safe Flint water was to drink, as a direct response to work by Virginia Tech and Flint residents that were showing otherwise”. The new supply corroded water pipes, with lead leaking into the system.

According to the newly-released emails, which were obtained by NBC News, Snyder’s chief of staff at the time, Dennis Muchmore, wrote to an unnamed high-level health department staffer: “I’m frustrated by the water issue in Flint”.

Back in October, Gov. Rick Snyder switched the water supply from the Flint River back to Lake Huron. “The group will analyze any long-term effects of high lead levels in Flint residents and recommend action”, he said. Plus, this catastrophe – which was caused by a zeal to save money at all costs – could actually cost $1.5 billion in infrastructure repairs.

“We know that we have kids that have been impacted by this, impacted in a negative way”, she said. These people here are living day to day. The state could ask for federal help at a later date.