This is a story about what happens when a governor cares more about cutting taxes for the wealthy than the health of his own citizens. Republican Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, who pushed through signature tax “reforms" during his first term in 2011, is currently trying to control the damage from a human catastrophe of his and his administration’s making. Decisions he made have led to and prolonged the contamination of the water supply leading to the poisoning of 30,000 households including possibly 10,000 children under the age of 6 who are particularly vulnerable. According to Michigan's chief medical executive, Eden Wells ". . . health officials are now tracking nearly 10,000 children under the age of 6 who were likely exposed to lead, which can be fatal in extreme cases.” NBCNews
This water crisis began in April of 2014, when the city of Flint, in an attempt to save money, stopped getting its water from Detroit and started drawing it from the Flint River. The water was laden with salt, bacteria and other impurities which corroded pipes, leaching lead into the city's domestic supply.
Officials who initially assured citizens that the supply was safe now acknowledge the water was dangerous for 21 months and is still unsafe to drink.
Gov. Rick Snyder, who this week activated the National Guard to distribute bottled water and filters to Flint residents, has been under fire for his handling of the contamination.
Another email from July revealed that Snyder's own chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, had told the state health department that Flint's residents were "rightfully" concerned about lead levels.
"These folks are scared and worried about the health impacts and they are basically getting blown off by us," Muchmore wrote. NBCNews
Records obtained under Michigan's Freedom of Information Act show that Flint's decision to cancel the City of Detroit as its supplier of drinking water went all the way up to the Michigan governor's office. But whose decision it was to draw the city’s drinking water from the contaminated and corrosive Flint River is still murky.
On March 25, 2013, then-state Treasurer Andy Dillon and Gov. Rick Snyder’s chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, held a telephone conversation about “Flint water supply alternatives,” according to records obtained by the Free Press under FOIA.
Later that evening, the Flint City Council, which was under a state-appointed emergency manager, voted 7-1 in favor of a switch in the source of its water supply from the City of Detroit to a new Karegnondi Water Authority, a move that would ultimately lead to Flint using corrosive water from the Flint River as an interim source, which produced drinking water with unsafe levels of lead.
Detroit Free Press
The decision to disconnect from Detroit and adopt a more affordable plan that would draw water from Lake Huron via a pipeline was made in April 2013 by a man named Ed Kurtz, who had been appointed as Flint’s “emergency manager” by Snyder under a program that was controversial from the beginning. Now moving Flint away from Detroit’s water was not necessarily the problem.
The city could not afford the $1.5 million per month it cost to buy it from Detroit. But in between untethering itself from Detroit and the completion of the Lake Huron pipeline, Flint needed to get water from somewhere, and that somewhere ended up being the local Flint River. But that water would turn out to be so corrosive that it stripped lead from the pipes running through the city, raising lead levels in the water far, far above acceptable standards.
When the disconnection was actually made in April 2014 it was being overseen by a second emergency manager, Darnell Earley. Knowing that the Flint River source was tainted, Earley has attempted to distance himself from the decision to pull from the Flint River temporarily.
The decision to separate from (the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department) and go with the Karegnondi Water Authority, including the decision to pump Flint River water in the interim, were both a part of a long-term plan that was approved by Flint’s mayor, and confirmed by a City Council vote of 7-1 in March of 2013 — a full seven months before I began my term as emergency manager.
MLive.com
To add to misery on top of misery, since Flint switched its water source to the Flint River, officials have seen a spike in the number of cases of Legionnaires' disease, a severe form of pneumonia.
Dr. Wells said there have been 87 cases in Genesee County from June 2014 to November 2015 ten of which were fatalities, which is a huge jump from previous years. State officials claim no evidence of a connection between the outbreak and the Flint water, but an expert in drinking water suggested “a very strong likelihood" they were connected.
It may not be clear at this date whether Governor Snyder knew the full extent of the problem in 2014, but it is clear from the email of July 2015 that his office was aware of the lead poisoning and he waited for months to take action.
It would be hard to conjure a more damning piece of evidence than this. Snyder didn’t declare a state of emergency regarding the water crisis until this week, but at least five months ago his top deputy was complaining about the administration having “blown off” the residents of Flint who were “scared and worried about the health impacts” of the water they were being asked to drink.
Detroit Free Press
Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, who ousted former mayor , Dayne Walling, in the last election, said the broke city might need to come up with as much $1.5 billion to fix its water system. How’s that for saving money? If only they could have won Wednesday night’s Lottery. And on top of the infrastructure costs, the human toll is likely to be nothing less than catastrophic. The young children who have been poisoned will face long term if not life long complications requiring costly health care and educational services.
In response to this catastrophe Michael Moore has called for Snyder to resign and be jailed. I’ll end with the text of his petition.
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, along with the premeditated actions of his administrators, has effectively poisoned the children of Flint by allowing lead and other toxins to enter their drinking water. The consequences are devastating now and will be for generations to come.
For this outrageous catastrophe, Gov. Snyder must resign -- and go to jail.
To poison all the children in an historic American city is no small feat. Even international terrorist organizations haven't figured out yet how to do something on a magnitude like this.
I want to be absolutely clear here: If we don't attract national attention to what Gov. Snyder did, what happened in Flint could happen in all of our communities. That's why I need your help to bring Rick Snyder to justice.
Click here to sign his petition.