Amid questions about the timeline of the Michigan state government’s response to lead contamination in Flint, ThinkProgress reports that at least one state office in Flint was concerned enough about the water quality to provide bottled water coolers to all employees:
The Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget decided to haul water coolers into the Flint state building in January of 2015 out of concern over the city’s water quality, a year before bottled water was being made available to residents, according to documents obtained by Progress Michigan.
Flint switched its water source from Detroit to the Flint River in April 2014, which is now known to have caused lead to leach into the city’s tap water. After two boil advisories were issued in August and September of 2014, the city sent residents a notice that the level of trihalomethanes (TTHMs), which can cause liver and kidney problems, had exceed federal limits, although they were told that it was still fine to use the water and no corrective actions needed to be taken.
But concerns raised over water quality were enough for officials in the state’s capitol of Lansing to decide to give state employees the option to drink bottled water from coolers, rather than from water fountains. Coolers were placed next to the fountains on each occupied floor, according to the documents, and were to be provided “as long as the public water does not meet treatment requirements.”
The early timeline of complaints from Flint citizens came from a number of factors and violations in their drinking water supply, including rust, a brown color, and a foul odor. E. coli violations in the water led to increased treatment with chlorine, which then led to the trihalomethanes violations. The lack of anti-corrosive treatment and campaign of downplaying lead testing results in turn led to the presence of lead in the drinking water, which leeched from old pipes.
During each of these phases and even before lead was discovered in the water, the state government constantly shrugged off protests and what was described by one official as “unrest” from people who didn’t want to drink the water. Internal emails from Governor Rick Snyder’s office show broad callousness by state officials for the concerns of Flint’s population and a belief that most of those concerns were overblown. However, the state certainly believed enough of the problems to take care of its own people.