Rick Snyder apologizes for the Flint drinking water crisis

tay

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Lead can cause irreversible brain damage in children and has also been linked to behavioral problems.

Gov. Rick Snyder apologized to the City of Flint Tuesday for the Flint drinking water crisis that has left children poisoned by lead and announced he has accepted the resignation of Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant.

The governor, who had previously stood by his DEQ director amid the controversy, said,

The Free Press reported Thursday that records obtained by the Michigan ACLU and Virginia Tech researcher Marc Edwards show elevated lead levels in Flint's drinking water would have spurred action months sooner if the results of city testing that wrapped up in June had not been revised by the DEQ to wrongly indicate the water was safe to drink.

Flint, which was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager at the time of the cost-cutting move, switched its drinking water source, starting in April 2014, from Lake Huron water supplied by Detroit to the much more polluted and corrosive water from the Flint River.

The state has acknowledged it misinterpreted a federal rule and failed to require Flint to add needed corrosion control chemicals which would have prevented lead from leaching into the drinking water from pipes, connections and fixtures.

That change in the drinking water source brought immediate complaints from Flint residents about the taste, smell and appearance of the water. The lead tests of the water could have spurred action in July, but instead it was not until October, after blood test results analyzed by Hurley Children's Hospital pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha showed elevated lead levels in Flint children, that the DEQ admitted making a mistake by failing to require the addition of corrosion control chemicals to the Flint River water. The state also then provided funds to help Flint reconnect to Lake Huron water supplied by Detroit.

Lead can cause irreversible brain damage in children and has also been linked to behavioral problems.

Melissa Mays, a Flint resident who drank the contaminated water along with her three boys, said she was more shocked by Snyder's apology than by Wyant's resignation. She welcomed the announcements but said more DEQ officials need to be removed because Flint residents can't trust those same officials to make sure their water is safe to drink today.

"This all should have happened a long time ago, and it's also not enough," she said.

more....

Snyder apologizes, Wyant resigns in Flint water crisis
 

Highball

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This is another example of incompetent or corrupt government officials simply resigning and walking away without being held accountable. Many Flint citizens are ill and the full impact of this criminal fiasco will not be known fully for at last a decade. Think of the damage to the vital organs of the human body this badly contaminated water is doing.
 

tay

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This is another example of incompetent or corrupt government officials simply resigning and walking away without being held accountable. Many Flint citizens are ill and the full impact of this criminal fiasco will not be known fully for at last a decade. Think of the damage to the vital organs of the human body this badly contaminated water is doing.



What has happened in many parts of Michigan is the Snyder abused his ability to fire government workers and elected people to put in his own people .........


Michigan's appalling, undemocratic "Emergency Manager" system that allows Governor Rick Snyder (R), unilaterally, to appoint anyone of his choosing to completely replace local democratically elected officials, including the Mayor and the entire City Council, in any city he likes, for whatever reason he determines.

It was, in fact, one of Snyder's hand-selected Emergency Managers who switched the city's water supply from the clean Lake Huron to the corrosive Flint River without bothering to put the appropriate filtering system first. As he notes at Vox, it's "inconceivable" that this problem would have occurred or, at least, gone this horribly wrong, "had Flint residents been able to threaten incumbents at the ballot box." But with the Emergency Manager system, there is no such accountability.

"Flint may be the most dramatic example of that system having gone wrong," he tells me. "But I think about all of the cities that have been under Emergency Managers -- Pontiac, Detroit [also Highland Park, Benton Harbor and elsewhere] -- it hasn't really gone right anywhere. Emergency Management doesn't work ethically, but it also doesn't work practically. It just flat out does not work."

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/20/10789810/flint-michigan-water-crisis
 

Walter

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Who made the decision in 2014 to switch from Detroit water to Flint water?
 

TenPenny

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At some point, someone decided to change the water source, and either did not check for water quality, or ignored the results. That person, and everyone above that person in the chain of command, should be fired and/or jailed for negligence.
 

tay

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Who made the decision in 2014 to switch from Detroit water to Flint water?

The non elected Emergency Managers were installed by Gov Snyder and told to save money where ever they could......

It was, in fact, one of Snyder's hand-selected Emergency Managers who switched the city's water supply from the clean Lake Huron to the corrosive Flint River

Flint, Michigan's water crisis: what the national media got wrong - Vox


Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder committed one of the worst sins imaginable for a public servant: He poisoned his own people. Why? To pinch a penny.

Now he's got to turn to his GOP-led state government and the Republican Congress to help foot the $767 million bill to fix Flint's water infrastructure. It seems government's always the problem until you've got a problem—even if you engineered that problem yourself.

The irony hasn't been lost on Democrats, reports Amber Phillips.


"Republicans disparage government all the time as intrusive, too involved, and detrimental to our society. Gov. Rick Snyder is a leading cheerleader of that theory," Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said on the Senate floor on Tuesday. "He denigrates government every single chance he gets. But to whom does he turn when he needs help cleaning up the mess he has created? The federal government."

But it's not just Snyder who is in a tough spot. The GOP-controlled Congress is about to be asked to help with the man-made disaster in Flint, and it's not going to be an easy sell among fiscally conservative Republicans watching their backs in an election year.
But to turn down requests to help provide the most basic service of clean water to a mostly poor, majority-black city will almost certainly invite Democratic attacks like the one Reid launched at Snyder on Tuesday.


...... both Flint and Detroit were under state-appointed emergency managers, accountable only to the governor and empowered to override contracts and laws. And during the same time period, they approved, according to participants, of behind-the-scenes meetings between the governor himself, the emergency managers and the water authorities in Detroit and Flint.


Privatization on Steroids: Emergency Manager Who Switched Flint Water Resigns from Detroit Schools | Democracy Now!
 

tay

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Eight days before the Flint water treatment plant began pumping water from the Flint River for citizens to drink, a city official complained he was being rushed into starting up the plant too quickly.

“I do not anticipate giving the OK to begin sending water out any time soon,” Mike Glasgow, the city's laboratory and water quality supervisor, said in an April 17, 2014, e-mail to Michigan Department of Environmental Quality official Mike Prysby.

“If water is distributed from this plant in the next couple of weeks, it will be against my direction. I need time to adequately train additional staff and to update our monitoring plans before I will feel we are ready."

The e-mail was among a huge batch of Flint water e-mails released Friday by the state government.

Despite Glasgow's objections, city officials in an April 25, 2014, ceremony shut off the tap to the Lake Huron water they had been receiving from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department and began drawing and treating water from the Flint River. They planned to use the river as an interim source while they awaited the completion of a new pipeline to Lake Huron, the Karegnondi Water Authority.

Glasgow said in the e-mail he would "reiterate" his message that the plant was not ready to officials above him, "but they seem to have their own agenda."

E-mails: Flint water plant was rushed into operation
 

Jinentonix

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tay

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A special investigator for the Michigan Attorney General's office said six state employees who were criminally charged Friday hid and manipulated data last summer that showed a change in drinking-water sources was poisoning people here.

An investigation into emails revealed that Department of Environmental Quality employees were involved with altering reports that showed dangerously high levels of lead in the water after the source was changed to the Flint river in April 2014, said Special Agent Jeff Seipenko with the Michigan Attorney General's Office.

Flint's water became contaminated with lead in April 2014 when the city, while under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, switched its drinking water source from Lake Huron water treated by the Detroit water system to Flint River water treated at the Flint Water Treatment Plant. Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials have acknowledged a disastrous mistake when they failed to require the city to add corrosion-control chemicals as part of the treatment process.

The Health and Human Services employees "effectively buried" research indicating high lead levels in children's blood from July through September 2014 could be connected to the switch in water sources and needed further research, Seipenko said.

The epidemiologist researching the tests wasn't yet finished with her report when Peeler and Scott "worked together to produce a graph of elevated blood levels without applying any statistical method. Peeler, relying on this unscientific graph, drafted and sent (an) unfounded email to (Michigan Department of Health and Human Services) management (that) inappropriately concluded that the switch of water sources was not the cause of elevated blood levels within the children," Seipenko said.

Peeler was manager of the Early Childhood Health section of state health department, and Scott is acting coordinator and data manager for the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention program at the health department. Miller was director of the Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention at the health department, Seipenko said.

He said that Miller repeatedly told staff to take no action regarding the research and "effectively concealed" the findings.

At the Department of Environmental Quality, Smith, chief of the Drinking Water Municipal Division, "intentionally misled and took steps to conceal" that the water was unsafe, Seipenko said.

"This water was unsafe as evidenced by presence of E coli., several boil-water alerts, the excessive TTHM (total trihalomethanes, or organic chlorinated chemical compounds) levels and presence of lead," he said.

Rosenthal was an environmental quality analyst with the Office of Drinking Water Municipal Assistance at the state environmental agency, and Cook was a professional engineer in that office.

"In summer 2015, Rosenthal conspired with Cook and others to change lead and copper monitoring reports," concealing the fact that the drinking water was contaminated, Seipenko said.

Smith faces charges of misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty. Cook is charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy to engage in misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty. Rosenthal is charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy to tamper with evidence or engage in misconduct in office, and tampering with evidence as a public officer engaged in a willful neglect of his duty.

Peeler, Miller and Scott are charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy to commit misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty.

Brian Morley, a Lansing, Mich., attorney representing Shekter-Smith, the fired head of the Department of Environmental Quality's drinking water section, said the charges came as a surprise when he received a phone call from investigators about 9:30 a.m. Friday.

I’m really surprised to see criminal charges. I don’t see how this gets to criminal conduct. Lawsuits I can understand,” Morley said.

Nine people have been charge in connection with the Flint water crisis.

Mich. attorney general: 6 charged ignored Flint warning flags
 

Cannuck

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There is much more to this in my opinion. I find it unbelievable that the plant operators didn't do an LSI calculation and know that the water was corrosive. The question for me is did they and what did they do.
 

tay

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So they still haven't fixed this ...........?

A federal judge has ordered bottled water must be delivered to Flint residents unless officials can prove there is an operating, properly-installed water filter in their home.

"The Court today affirmed that all people have the right the safe drinking water, including the people of Flint, Michigan," said Dimple Chaudhary, Senior Attorney with NRDC. "The court correctly recognized that the government created this crisis, and it's the government's responsibility to ensure that all people in Flint have access to safe drinking water."

The decision requires the city and the state to provide door-to-door delivery of four cases of bottled water per week per resident unless the home is exempt from the program.

Homes can only become exempt if they opt out of delivery, refuse to permit the installation and maintenance of a faucet filter, if officials regularly verify a filter is properly installed and maintained at the home or the home is unoccupied.

"This is a very significant victory for the people of Flint, who now have the assurance from a federal court that they will have access to safe drinking water every day," said Pastor Robert Blake, a member of the Concerned Pastors for Social Action. "But there's still much more to do to fix Flint. As I testified in court, poverty is high in Flint, but just because you have impoverished people, we ought not treat them like third-world people."

Check back with Mlive.com for more on this developing story.

Judge orders door-to-door water delivery for Flint residents | MLive.com
 

tay

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"Also, the state said residents switching to bottled water from filtered water would slow the system's recovery, as moving water through the pipes helps distribute a protective coating "

Just make sure to tell people to run their taps every day, they don't have to drink the effing stuff........

Court-ordered Flint water delivery would cost taxpayers $10.5 million per month, state says | MLive.com


Flint residents, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the ACLU of Michigan filed a motion in March asking a federal court to require the delivery of bottled water to people’s homes — particularly as many residents face challenges in picking up free water from the designated distribution centers.

Judge David M. Lawson ruled in their favor on November 10, finding that the government must deliver bottled water to all homes unless it can verify — and continue to ensure — that a home has adequately installed a faucet filter or the residents decline the delivery. He specified that officials had to ensure the delivery of four cases of water per resident each week. This, he wrote, “is intended to provide a rough substitute for the essential service that municipal water systems must furnish: delivery of safe drinking water at the point of use.”

But on Thursday, Michigan officials filed a motion to block the court order, asking for a stay until the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals hears its appeal.

The state argues that the delivery of bottled water is unnecessary and also difficult to carry out, pointing to the cost and logistics required. It estimates that water delivery would cost about $10.5 million a month and require much more warehouse capacity, as well as more trucks and drivers. “It is in the public’s interest to spare taxpayers this great expense while the injunction is appealed,” lawyers wrote in the filing.

Of course the original decisions to switch to the Flint River and not to use corrosion control chemicals, all of which led to the crisis in the first place, were made to save money. But now it’s going to cost far more thanks to water delivery, replacing the city’s pipes, and dealing with the public health and educational consequences.
 

Cannuck

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Just make sure to tell people to run their taps every day, they don't have to drink the effing stuff........

Sure, cuz kids always do what they're told


As I've said, a simple LSI calculation takes 30 seconds. Either the operators are grossly incompetent or, they did the calculations, identified the problem and were instructed to not fix the problem.