Two years after the start of the Flint, Michigan water crisis, and a year after Gov. Rick Snyder's acknowledgement of the lead contamination, activists gathered in Lansing on Wednesday to protest the slow pace of help on the part of state and federal government.
Flint activists Melissa Mays of Water You Fighting For and Nakiya Wakes and Nayyirah Shariff of Flint Rising said many residents still don’t have access to properly installed and maintained lead filters and many others who do have filters don’t trust the devices to deliver safe water.
At a press conference the women complained that the help and temporary fixes in place were ineffective, including a 211 number that residents may use for water delivery.
Ron Leix, a spokesman for the Michigan State Police's Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division, said calls to 211 are logged and needed supplies are generally delivered within 24 hours.
"Since January, we have made more than 69,400 visits to those who have dialed 211," Leix said.
Meanwhile, the state’s Department of Environmental Quality most recent lead readings suggest things are slowly improving in Flint.
The latest testing results of unfiltered Flint tap water, released Wednesday by the DEQ, show that more than 90% of the samples were better than the federal lead action level of 15 parts per billion, for the fifth month in a row. Of 157 samples analyzed in the latest round of testing, 93.6% were at or below the action level, the agency said.
However, after a year only 163 out of thousands of miles of lead pipes in the city have been replaced, according to Mays. The state has provided $234 million for pipe replacement, and Congress is said to have approved $170 million in federal funds as part of a water resources bill, but it won’t be voted on until after the election on Nov. 8.