National Guard Used For Michigan Water Crisis

Rick Snyder has called in the state’s National Guard to help with the alarming water crisis in Flint.

National Guard members arrived in Flint on Wednesday to aid in the state of Michigan’s water crisis response effort.

The water resource teams are among a number of relief efforts started in the wake of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder declaring an emergency last week.

The American Red Cross has volunteers distributing water testing kits, water filters and bottled water at several locations. Now, residents of nearby Flint, Mich., are dealing with contaminated water. Finally, two research studies in the fall of 2015 found that the new water source was corroding aging water pipes, leaching lead into the system and very likely causing a spike in lead levels in the blood of Flint’s children. “I am responsible for the entire state and our operations, but there are many other good things going on and we’re working hard to recover from this”.

Snyder on Tuesday asked FEMA to coordinate an interagency recovery plan with other federal agencies that could provide resources. In 2014, again as a result of the governor’s decision to appoint an emergency manager in Detroit, drinking water services were cut off for thousands of city residents said to be in arrears on their water bills.

Marc Edwards, a civil engineering professor at Virginia Tech who has been studying water safety for over a decade, told The Washington Post that the cost to undo the lead damage in Flint will far outweigh what were supposed to be the savings from switching water sources.

A comparative chart officials provided shows only 21 cases reported in all of 2012 and 2013.

The National Guard will work with state officials and volunteers to hand out bottled water, water filters, replacement cartridges and testing kits, Snyder said in a statement.

Earlier Tuesday, Genesee County sheriff’s Capt. Casey Tafoya said volunteers and police hoped to get to 500 to 600 houses a day in a city of about 99,000 residents with an estimated 30,000 households.

Chief James Tolbert says in a statement that police have received reports of people selling water filters. Exposure to lead can cause behavior problems and learning disabilities in children. They also want to ensure monitoring protocols are properly followed.

The local General Motors plant announced it would not use Flint River water because of fears of corrosion.

And it was the state that dragged its feet responding to this crisis – finally mobilizing an appropriate emergency response last weekend, more than three months that doctor exposed this serious problem.