MI questions some USA demands regarding Flint water
Flint residents pick up bottled water and water filters at a fire station in Flint, Michigan, Jan. 13, 2016.
In some cases, it appears MI health officials suppressed reports warning about the toxicity.
Obama has denied an appeal by Snyder for a federal disaster declaration in Flint, which FEMA has said is “not appropriate for this event”, with the classification typically associated with a natural disaster.
Ariana Hawk is the mother of 2-year-old, Sincere “Sunny” Smith.
One email suggests that a day after doctors reported high levels of lead in local children, one of the governor’s top advisers told him city officials, not state officials, had to “deal with it”, the BBC reported.
Snyder unveiled a $28 million plan during his January 19 State of the State address to combat the city’s water crisis.
Jeb Bush doesn’t believe Michigan Governor Rick Snyder should resign over his state’s handling of the Flint water crisis.
Flint’s water became contaminated with lead when the city switched from the Detroit municipal system and began drawing from the Flint River in April 2014 to save the financially struggling city money.
Over the course of the next 20 months, the Flint River violated National Primary Drinking Water Regulations on at least four occasions.
“And as (Water.org co-founder) Gary (White) said, at a visceral level, we feel it. We see these families, we see these children, and we think of our children”. But in the response required by Friday, he added, “the state has complied with every recent demand” of the EPA.
Pop superstar Cher has also been fighting to get clean water to Flint residents, and she has called for Governor Snyder to step down amid claims he initially played down the controversy and passed the blame on to other civil service officials.
The Flint Water Advisory Task Force says its recommendations are more detailed and comprehensive than what the EPA ordered.
An aide to Snyder raised concerns with the environmental quality department, but those officials dismissed his concerns. Many here, like filmmaker Michael Moore, are under the impression that the grant money was earmarked for Flint’s water crisis.
Mercury LLC, which bills itself as a “high stakes public strategy firm”, said in a statement that it is not being paid with state funds.
Snyder spokesman Dave Murray didn’t reveal how the new team will be paid.
“It is horrific and it is related to the fact that we’ve created this complex, no-responsibility regulatory system, where the federal government, the state government, a regional government, local and county governments are all pointing fingers at one another”, Bush said.
He also said that Water.Org’s mission is “to end that suffering for those children, and those parents” for people around the world.
Could this crisis have been averted had the city been more focused on the public welfare than on cutting costs?
Obama recently denied Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s request for $96M in disaster relief funds, instead allocating $5M for emergency aid and $80M to finance the construction of long-term water infrastructure for the state.
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.
The governor says some agency actions “lacked common sense, and that resulted in this bad tragedy in Flint”.
There was no immediate word from Snyder’s office on the scope of Mercury’s duties or who is paying the firm, which has offices from NY to London, but none in MI.