Problems in Detroit, Flint show rift over emergency managers

On Jan. 16, President Barack Obama announced a state of emergency for the impoverished city of Flint, Mich. The city is facing a water crisis which stemmed from city officials’ decision to change the source of the city’s water from Lake Huron to the Flint River. At the very least. Finally, 19 months after the first complaints were made, tests by experts from Virginia Tech and the local Hurley Medical Center showed lead levels were more than twice what they should have been.

If Snyder is holding himself accountable for the crisis, it is because he is indeed responsible for it – not because he is a hero who is not afraid to admit he is wrong.

Damon, who is the co-founder of the nonprofit Water.org, was at the festival to call attention to the desperate need for clean water in impoverished regions around the world.

The city of Detroit had charged Flint a fortune to supply its water for years.

The recommendations from the Flint Water Advisory Task Force include: work with the EPA staff on a comprehensive lead-sampling program; hire an unbiased third-party to assess and declare when Flint drinking water is safe; seek help from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in assessing an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease and its cause.

“He’s going to the challenge”, the Republican presidential candidate told CNN’s State of the Union.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency knew about the problem since April, and said nothing. “This is a tragedy that we ought to focus; instead of blaming people, what he’s doing is creating a strategy to fix it because it is a complete disaster”.

On Sunday, about 30 members of the Genesee County Volunteer Militia held a rally and protest outside of City Hall to demand accountability.

‘If it means having to take up arms in defense… we will do that as well’. But Keith Creagh said the state has “legal and factual concerns” with an EPA order a day earlier taking state and city officials to task for their efforts so far and requiring them to take specific actions.

“We’ve had a city in the United States of America where the population, which is poor in many ways and majority African-American, has been drinking and bathing in lead-contaminated water”.

It also allocates an increase of nurses in school and to replace fixtures in some public places.

In his address, Snyder called on legislators to appropriate $28 million to help address the problem.

Flint had serious fiscal problems of its own, and from 2011 to 2015 its finances were under the control of a series of emergency managers appointed by Snyder’s administration.