MDEQ employees suspended in Flint water crisis

“Bringing Detroit back to a solid fiscal foundation has allowed the city to restore services, and we’ve watched its economy grow, creating jobs and better opportunities”, the statement said. Government, on the other hand, exists for the benefit of the common good.

The emergency order EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy issued Thursday acknowledges the state notified EPA officials in April 2015 that Flint was not treating the river water with additives to prevent corrosion from pipes. But he could not understand why the state would be responsible for the crisis, even as Flint was taken over by a state-appointed emergency manager who chose to switch the water supply.

As a cost-cutting move, the city began temporarily drawing its drinking water from the Flint River and treating it at the city water treatment plant while it waited for a new water pipeline to Lake Huron to be completed. The change instantly resulted in foul, discolored tap water and triggered complaints of rashes and hair loss. In fact, a recent report published by The Guardian showed that public water supplies across the country were experiencing similar issues.

Rick Snyder says MI will commit $28 million in the short term to pay for filters, bottled water and health professionals in Flint’s water crisis.

The governor’s office was dismissive, and some state agencies tried to discredit the doctor’s work. General Motors stopped using the new city water in October 2014, stating that it corroded their parts.

Now, finally, the truth is being acknowledged.

Calls for Snyder to resign have intensified as it has grown increasingly clear that the MI governor ignored warnings that the water supply of Flint had been tainted.

Specialist Raymond Hood with the Army National Guard sits in a warehouse full of bottled water for Flint residents.

Could this crisis have been averted had the city been more focused on the public welfare than on cutting costs? Those upgrades were never made.

“It’s a shame what’s happening in Flint, Michigan”.

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. “An elected official, if you have a problem in your district, people are coming up and complaining and talking to you, (so) you take care of that issue”, Scott said.

Among them were 21-year-old Myosha Reed, a math student at Michigan’s Delta college, who drove 40 minutes from Saginaw to participate in her first relief effort as a newly minted Red Cross volunteer; and 13-year-old Brendan Johnson who came with his mom.

“I know that if I was a parent up there, I would be beside myself that my kid’s health could be at risk”, he said in Detroit on Wednesday. “Perhaps it’s time America was run like a business”.

“Rather than invest in the city and help revive its fortunes, the state enacted the most punitive form of austerity”.

“The success or failure of any government, in the final analysis, must be measured by the well-being of its citizens”.

After a 20-year study, sociologist Robert Bullard found “race to be more important than socioeconomic status in predicting the location of the nation’s commercial hazardous waste facilities”.