Michigan and Flint just agreed to replace 18,000 lead-tainted pipes

By Brady Dennis March 27 at 6:55 PM

Michigan and the city of Flint have agreed to spend the next several years replacing roughly 18,000 aging underground pipes as part of a far-reaching legal settlement over the city’s ongoing crisis involving lead-tainted water.

A proposed settlement filed Monday will require the state to fund Flint’s efforts to replace the lead and galvanized water service lines by 2020. Under the agreement, the state will agree to pay $87 million for the undertaking and will keep another $10 million in reserve in case more pipes than expected need replacing. About $30 million of that money will come from the $100 million that Congress approved late last year in aid to Flint. The state will be responsible for the remainder.

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Under the terms of the deal, state officials also must continue to deliver bottled water to housebound residents and must continue to operate free bottled water distribution centers around the city through early September, though it could begin to phase out some sites after May 1 if demand fades. The state also will continue to go door to door in the city through December 2018 to make sure people have properly installed water filters and to provide new filters and replacement cartridges.

EPA awards $100 million to upgrade Flint water system

3/17/17

By Valerie Volcovici | WASHINGTON

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday it had awarded $100 million to upgrade Flint, Michigan’s drinking water infrastructure to address a crisis that exposed thousands of children to lead poisoning.

The grant to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality will enable the city to “accelerate and expand” its work to replace lead pipes and make other improvements, according to the EPA. Estimates of the upgrade’s cost range from $200 million to $400 million.

Friday’s announcement made the disbursement official. Last year, Congress passed and former president Barack Obama signed the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act to allocate $100 million to aid Flint.

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In January, 1,700 Flint residents filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Michigan, saying the EPA failed to warn them of the dangers of the toxic water or take steps to ensure that state and local authorities were addressing the crisis. The plaintiffs seek $722 million in damages.

EPA awards $100 million to upgrade Flint water system

A New Report Reveals a Powerful Factor That Led to the Flint Water Crisis

tpfnews:

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission validated for many Americans who’ve been following the Flint water crisis unfold what they likely already knew – systemic racism had a role in it. In a report released by the group Friday, “The Flint Water Crisis: Systemic Racism Through The Lens of Flint,” provided an in-depth analysis of the crisis.

“The people of Flint have been subjected to unprecedented harm and hardship, much of it caused by structural and systemic discrimination and racism that have corroded your city, your institutions, and your water pipes, for generations,” the 129-page report stated.

The civil rights commission embarked on a year-long investigation which included three public hearings and testimony from over 150 city residents to ensure “another Flint” doesn’t happen in Michigan or elsewhere.

The report stated that “de facto discrimination,” which included housing segregation and the implicit racial bias of government were at “the heart and soul of this crisis.” Nearly 57 percent of Flint residents are black, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census, and charges of environmental racism have clung to the crisis since its early days in 2015.

“If this was in a white area, in a rich area, there would have been something done. I mean let’s get real here. We know the truth,” said one Flint resident in the report.

The commission also provided recommendations to ensure that the crisis doesn’t replicate itself, which involved the state creating an environmental justice plan, restricting or replacing the emergency manager law, and training for state employees on implicit bias.

The commission’s report comes only days after the state’s government informed the city in a letter on Feb. 7 that since a recent testing showed that the water in Flint met federal standards, it would stop extending state-funded water credits to the city’s citizens and paying for the city’s water bill on Feb. 28.

“In summary, the governor said that he was done with the credits and the state has met their obligation as far as the credits are concerned,” Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said on Feb. 14. “What I was told by the governor is Flint water quality meets the same as any other community in Michigan and meets all federal quality standards, and he feels he has upheld his end of the bargain.”

Despite the state’s claims that the water is safe, there are still an estimated 20,000 lead-ridden pipes still are intact in Flint which means that people may be at risk if they drink it without a filter.

“In summary, the governor said that he was done with the credits and the state has met their obligation as far as the credits are concerned,” Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said on Feb. 14. “What I was told by the governor is Flint water quality meets the same as any other community in Michigan and meets all federal quality standards, and he feels he has upheld his end of the bargain.”

A New Report Reveals a Powerful Factor That Led to the Flint Water Crisis

House GOP Quietly Closes Flint, Mich. Water Investigation

Well, I suppose that this means that Gov Snyder has successfully avoided any responsibility in the mess, despite the fact that it was his appointed Emergency Manager – usurping all local government control over this decision and disenfranchising Flint voters – who made the decision in the first place.

From the linked article:

While the Republican chairman signaled the apparent conclusion of the inquiry — Congress ended its two-year session last week — the panel’s senior Democrat insisted the investigation should continue and accused Michigan’s Republican governor of stonewalling the committee over documents related to the Flint water crisis.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, senior Democrat on the oversight panel, said he wants Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to produce key Flint-related documents within 30 days. Cummings said Snyder and his administration have obstructed the committee’s investigation into the Flint crisis for a year, refusing to provide — or even search for — key documents.

Snyder’s intransigence has thwarted committee efforts to answer critical questions about what he knew as the crisis unfolded and why he didn’t act sooner to fix Flint’s water problem, Cummings said.

House GOP Quietly Closes Flint, Mich. Water Investigation

drst:

micdotcom:

Now it appears Michigan’s governor and other officials may be more guilty than previously thought.

Oh please, Snyder fucking knew the entire time that he was forcing these people to consume poison. The problem is there’s too much public awareness of what lead poisoning does to kids and now that a huge percentage of children in Flint are testing positive for lead exposure, the feds are going to show up and hopefully throw his ass in jail if we’re lucky.

This was intentional, because Snyder doesn’t give a shit about poor black people and thought he could get away with poisoning them.

What’s even more unsettling for me is that the change in water supply was put into effect under MI’s emergency manager’s authority. This was someone appointed by the governor’s office to run the Flint city government. Basically, the governor’s office determined that Flint “wasn’t being run properly” and so took over running the city government, superseded the authority of the city’s elected officials and thereby disenfranchised every voter in that city. Somehow, when the chips are down, the answer to the problems faced by impoverished communities in MI was to get rid of democracy. The emergency manager was never accountable to the citizens of Flint, only to the state government. And this is what makes this kind of disaster possible.

Source: mic.com