Gov. Snyder and EM Ignored Warnings About Flint Water — Motor City Muckraker

A new lawsuit asks a federal judge to force MI and the city of Flint to replace all lead pipes in Flint’s water system to ensure residents have a safe drinking supply.

In an emergency administrative order, the Environmental Protection Agency slammed the city of Flint, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the state of Michigan, saying they are all responsible for the lead contamination in the city’s water.

FedEx will fly the water to Flint at no charge.

The team includes two people who helped focus attention on the water crisis – Flint pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha and Marc Edwards, a civil engineering professor at Virginia Tech who would oversee all state and federal water testing.

Previous tests have shown high lead levels in some children after Flint switched from Detroit water to the Flint River in 2014 to save money. Together they switched the city’s water source from the clean Lake Huron to the dirty Flint River. But the water contained corrosive elements that caused lead in the pipes to leech into the water. “The” class=”local_link” target=”_blank”>lead. The city and state have since declared a public-health emergency.

Michigan’s attorney general is investigating the process that left Flint’s drinking water contaminated with lead, but that effort is drawing bipartisan criticism. She says it began soon after she moved to Flint previous year. Many people in Flint may want government to work better, but with sufficient donations, they may find that the private sector has supplanted many of government’s functions altogether.

Oak Harbor and the Ottawa County Regional Water Plant will test for lead and copper this year, he said, according to the EPA schedule.

In a news release issued Wednesday, the governor says the 17-member committee will make recommendations regarding the health of people exposed to lead, study Flint’s water infrastructure and determine potential upgrades, and establish ways to improve communication between local and state government.

A lawsuit filed in federal court on Wednesday alleges MI officials failed to deliver safe drinking water to the citizens of Flint in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The suit names as defendants the city of Flint, state Treasurer Nick Khouri – who continues to have budget powers as the city transitions away from state management – state-appointed officials on the Flint’s Receivership Transition Advisory Board and city administrator Natasha Henderson, who was hired by one of Flint’s former emergency managers. Because the Flint River water required high levels of chlorine to disinfect, the water became acidic and started destroying the coating of lead pipes in the water system.

“Would more have been done, and at a much faster pace, if almost 40 percent of Flint residents were not living below the poverty line?” They had no enforcement abilities, but called on Detroit officials to restore water to those unable to pay.

Lead can cause irreversible brain and developmental damage in children and infants who ingest it through water or lead-based paint.