MI governor pledges contact with every Flint household

Emails show that high-ranking officials in MI were aware of elevated lead levels in Flint’s water six months before the state of emergency was declared. But the city returned to Detroit water in October after testing detected increased lead levels in residential water supplies and in children’s blood.

Shortly after officials switched the source of their drinking water to the Flint River from Lake Huron in April 2014 to save money, residents started complaining that their tap water looked unusual, tasted bad and caused rashes.

And Republican Gov. Rick Snyder deemed that Flint River water would still flow into people’s homes for another year, until they switched the water source back to Lake Huron, last October.

Following revelations that Governor Rick Snyder’s administration knew about severe water quality problems in Flint, Michigan and assured residents there that the water was safe, concerned activists and residents convened today for a rally in front of Flint City Hall to demand that the federal government step in and arrest Governor Snyder.

Audio clip: Listen to audio clip. They were protesting the water issues in the city. It could cost .5 billion to fix the problem, a staggering sum for any city, much less one already struggling as badly as Flint is.

A retired General Motors worker who attended the demonstration told the Detroit Free Press she believed Snyder had knowledge of a health risk to Flint residents long before the state acted to address it, and the governor needs to be held accountable. The Snyder administration responded by posting photos of the state’s emergency operations center on social media and calling attention to stepped-up efforts to get water filters to city residents. The former emergency manager Darnell Earley-who is now overseeing the sell-off of the Detroit public schools to private interests-and the city’s entire political establishment are Democrats.

Even as other problems with Flint’s water were uncovered – bacterial contamination, as well as high levels of other contaminants that can cause liver problems – the lead poisoning remained hidden.

Hanna-Attisha, an animated and passionate young pediatrician with horn-rimmed glasses who everyone calls Dr. Mona, realized there was a way to determine whether the water was affecting kids. Snyder is the midst of a growing scandal over lead in the Flint water system. Thanks to toxic lead getting into the town’s drinking water supply, the water has now become undrinkable for more than 100,000 people. That’s unconscionable, and I applaud the Department of Justice for joining the Environmental Protection Agency in investigating what happened here. Numerous studies, shared over social networks, are connecting lead contaminated water with the risk of brain damage in children. The state could ask for federal help at a later date. Weaver, a clinical psychologist elected a year ago largely on a promise to improve the water, praised Snyder for his emergency declaration, even as she cautioned that major commitments of time and money would be needed.