Snyder gives $2M for removing Flint’s lead water lines

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) – An artist says he’s used lead-infused paint to create a portrait of Gov. Rick Snyder amid Flint’s crisis with lead-tainted water.

Flint is now back on the Detroit water system as the city replaces pipes that are leaching lead into the water supply.

The state judge also ordered two sides in a lawsuit to discuss how the city must repay its water and sewer fund by $15.7 million, said the attorney, Valdemar L. Washington, also a Flint resident and a retired state judge.

Weaver called for work to begin next week and she would reach out to any resource available to start her to remove lead service lines to the homes with those at the highest risk of lead exposure, including pregnant women, children and those with autoimmune issues.

Even as lead poisoned their water, residents of Flint, Michigan paid the highest prices in the country to keep the tap on, according to a survey of the 500 largest water systems in the United States. The water leached lead from old home plumbing.

Residents of Flint, where more than 40 percent live below the poverty line, were granted some relief from the hefty water bills with a circuit court ruling in August that the city had to cut the rate it charged for water service by a third, finding a 2011 rate hike to have been illegal.

“It’s been very frustrating for many of us here in the Legislature who want to answer the question for the people of Flint: When can they turn on their water and feel safe to use it?” he says.

Snyder’s remarks came in a statement Thursday ahead of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell’s visit to city. Flint’s water system is publicly owned.

There are an estimated 10,000 service lines in the city, but it’s unclear how many are lead, and where those lead lines are. In Oct. 2014, General Motors’s Flint plant stopped using the water when they became anxious it was corroding their metal, MLive.com reported. “We need to get contractors out there now working to fix the problem”. As a result lead, a neurotoxin, and other contaminants seeped into the water through the pipes.

Snyder has also set aside $25 million in supplemental funding as part of his 2017 fiscal year budget for infrastructure work, but the budget has yet to be approved by lawmakers. For months some public officials downplayed evidence that the water was contaminated and the mostly African-American city of 100,000 was exposed to a toxin known to cause brain damage – especially in children.