Michigan governor on Flint: ‘It’s a disaster’

Obama declared Saturday a federal emergency in the Flint area, where residents continue to rely on bottled water and filters due to a lead contamination crisis.

Filmmaker Michael Moore, a native of Flint, also blamed the governor for the water crisis and urged Obama to visit the city.

Flint’s water garnered some attention when leading Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both made a point of mentioning it during Sunday’s debate.

Residents of Flint, Michigan are at the center of a national controversy with toxic levels of lead in their drinking water having already created life-long consequences for children of the low-income town. He acknowledged he was aware in the summer of 2015 about concerns related to lead in the drinking water but said tests showed they weren’t at unsafe levels.

ALEX PEREZ: This morning, the Flint water scandal erupting, protesters rallying outside Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s home. “That’s how I feel”, Hodges said. “We’re going to take care of the problem”, she said.

Clinton said that “if the kids in a rich suburb of Detroit had been drinking contaminated water and being bathed in it, there would have been action”. “I gotta think five years from now, that anything at any point can mess with they brain or alter them in a way”, she said.

Though other Republican candidates have been silent on the issue, the two leading Democratic candidates brought it up during Sunday night’s debate, framing it as not only a serious health crisis but an question of racial justice. US Weekly reports that the empty bottles from Flint will be recycled and the proceeds put towards funding food banks.

When Flint switched its water supply from the Detroit supply to the Flint River in the spring of 2014 to save money, it was intended as a temporary measure until a new water line to Lake Huron could be built.

“That’s not an issue that, right now, we’ve been focused on”, Marco Rubio told The Detroit News before a speech just outside Iowa City.

The Rev. Jackson, speaking at Flint’s Heavenly Host Full Gospel Baptist Church, called the stricken city “a disaster zone” and harkened back to the horrors of Hurricane Katrina.

Unlike a disaster caused by a hurricane, Flint’s water emergency is manmade.

Michigan’s top environmental regulator has resigned over the failure to ensure that the Flint River water was properly treated to keep lead from pipes from leaching into the water.