MI panel offers plan of returning safe water to Flint

In April 2014, the governor’s appointee switched the city’s water source from Lake Huron (from which Detroit had supplied pure water to Flint) to the Flint River. The White House gave its full support to the Detroit bankruptcy that led to Flint’s decision to disconnect from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, and the Obama administration took no action for months in the face of mounting popular protests and a growing body of scientific evidence that Flint’s water was poisoned.

To reassure customers, Koegel’s posted a response on the company’s website titled, “Koegel Meats is NOT Connected to the City of Flint Water System”.

Marketplace Weekend host Lizzie O’Leary is on the ground in Flint, speaking with parents, farmers and small business owners about how the water crisis in Flint is affecting their lives.

Darnell Earley didn’t come up with the plan to channel corrosive river water into the water system in Flint, Michigan, and he isn’t responsible for the fiscal collapse of Detroit’s schools.

Residents complained about the water within weeks of the change in supplies, but officials did not take action until October 2015 after tests showed some tap water and children with elevated levels of lead, a neurotoxin that causes brain damage and other health issues.

“As Gov. Snyder said in his State of the State Address earlier this week, government at all levels failed the people of Flint”. Flint, a poorer, mostly African-American city of 100,000 about an hour north of Detroit.

“We are praying for you”, Snyder said.

What’s more, nobody is certain how many lead service pipes there are in Flint. “And we can walk through this process so we can correct it. I want to know the facts”. Fewer than 8,000 GM jobs remain.

Paul Mohai, a professor at the University of MI in Ann Arbor, has studied environmental burdens and their disproportionate impact on low-income and minority communities since the late 1990s. “We funded the study and provided expertise”, he said.

“Due to the intense media demand and severity of this issue, we are assisting the governor’s team so that they are able to dedicate their focus and resources to helping the people of Flint”, Mercury said in an e-mail to NBC News.

Shortly before Snyder’s announcement, the Michigan Treasurer said Mayor Weaver who was elected in November to lead the city that is in receivership, can now hire and fire the city administrator and department heads. It wasn’t immediately clear how much would go to Flint.

In December, Snyder learned that the task force he appointed to investigate the crisis had concluded that the Department of Environmental Quality was primarily to blame.

While about 47 percent of patients who fell ill from Legionnaires’ disease drank tainted water from the Flint River, an even larger share had visited McLaren Regional Medical Center hospital, which may have served as an incubator for bacteria from municipal water.