Michigan Governor Seeks Obama’s Help in Water Crisis

Those powers were stripped from the mayor’s office when Snyder appointed the first of a series of emergency managers to run the city of Flint in 2011.

“It’s hard when people are paying for water they can’t use”, she said.

“Higher royalty rates will result in higher electricity costs, which is in effect a regressive tax on the middle class and the poor communities”, said Adam Gimbel, an employee at Cloud Peak Energy who spoke at a hearing held last August in Denver.

Flint’s tap water became contaminated with lead after the city switched water supplies in 2014 while a new pipeline was under construction.

Meanwhile, the city is still billing people for tap water. “We weren’t ready for it”. The water supplied by the city of Flint to many residents has been contaminated with poisonous amounts of lead and other toxins for over two years.

He also talked about the request for federal aid.

FEMA and the White House declined to offer a timetable for a decision.

Then, on Friday, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced he had opened an investigation to find out if the state violated any laws leading up to the contamination’s discovery. The groups have long said the government’s fee rates for coal mining on federal land encouraged production of a product that contributes to global warming. He added, “In terms of who could be to blame, what actions state officials took both before this incident and in its immediate aftermath, (those) are questions that are being investigated by the Department of Justice”. They couldn’t see that lead was also being leached out of the pipes.

“It is possible that in this unusual case, that the level of lead in the water was so high, that her children did not have to drink it to be exposed”.

“We’ve been actively engaged with the State of MI as it works to resolve the water issues in Flint”, Hendricks said. They said they were investigating whether there might be a connection. “EPA immediately conveyed those concerns to MDEQ – because MDEQ is the agency responsible for implementing and enforcing federal drinking water regulations in MI”, it said.

The mayor says bottled water and other supplies have come from Lansing, private organizations in and out of state, and the UAW. With 40 percent of the city below the poverty line, many are confused as to why they still have to pay for the water they are unable to consume. On Jan. 5, months after testing revealed the city’s water supply was unsafe, Snyder declared a state of emergency.

Kildee said in a statement that “thousands of children of Flint who have been poisoned are the victims in this situation”.

“It kind of scares me”, she said.

Hanna-Attisha, in an interview with CNN, noted that lead poisoning is irreversible.

The Michigan Republican Party says it plans to collect bottled water for Flint residents on the Capitol steps before and during the protest.

Still, there are occasional flashes of grim humor. Even as the water source is relocated, the lead pipes servicing Flint will still be compromised. “But I think it was a culture that was not inquisitive enough to bring new data in, to have a more substantive conversation around the appropriate outcome”.

The state has applied for a federal disaster declaration, which the Obama administration will consider.