ONCE AGAIN RESIDENCE IN THE CITY OF FLINT HAVE BEEN FAILED BY CITY OFFICIALS

As residence in the City of Flint, Michigan continue to fight the battle of contaminated drinking water residence are now faced with a new issue.

Residence have expressed concerns not just to our News Agency however also to City and State officials in regards to the water filters in which City officials provided their residence after officials were notified about the water in which the city had been pumping from Flint river had been contaminated with lead.

Residence tell us that “The water filters in which had been provided to residence of Flint by city officials is not doing the job of removing the enormous amounts of lead out of their drinking water”

Residence continued to say that “ they are very dissatisfied with the actions of city officials, some residence stated they feel city officials knew that the rivers water contained high amounts of lead however city officials did not care about the residence instead only cared about “More Money” being placed in city officials pockets”

One resident expressed to us that “instead of city officials being a leader of their community and ensuring the people of the communities health would not be affected they totally ignored the health and safety of their residence in order to cut financial cost and place more money in their pockets”

Prior to officials being notified about the flint river water issue, City officials was notified months earlier by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that the city of Flint had not been properly addressing nor complying with The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 by not testing their drinking water nor implementing a solution to combat the water’s corrosion problem.

According to the EPA the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 (SDWA) federal code

“42 U.S.C. §300f et seq. (1974)” states

“The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was established to protect the quality of drinking water in the U.S. This law focuses on all waters actually or potentially designed for drinking use, whether from above ground or underground sources.

The Act authorizes EPA to establish minimum standards to protect tap water and requires all owners or operators of public water systems to comply with these primary (health-related) standards. The 1996 amendments to SDWA require that EPA consider a detailed risk and cost assessment, and best available peer-reviewed science, when developing these standards.

State governments, which can be approved to implement these rules for EPA, also encourage attainment of secondary standards (nuisance-related). Under the Act, EPA also establishes minimum standards for state programs to protect underground sources of drinking water from endangerment by underground injection of fluids.”

However prior to the unlawful amount of lead in Flint’s water officials had been notified prior to this issue that the city was not properly addressing nor implemented any solution in regards to the stabilizing corrosion in the cities drinking water.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) “Lead serves no useful purpose in the human body, but its presence in the body can lead to toxic effects, regardless of exposure pathway, stated agency officials.

The CDC continued to state that “The exposure to high amounts of lead can cause numerous of health and mental issues in the human body and can be very harmful”

The CDC’s in-depth review of lead exposure can be found on the agencies website and officials encourage all to log-on and take a look at the in-depth review in order to possess a much greater understanding of the cause and effects of being exposed to high amounts of lead.

Since the rise of this issue more than 4 different law suits have been filed against the city of Flint in regards to City officials knowingly poisoning their residence with high amounts of lead.

Celebrities among other high profiled public officials have been contributing their time, efforts and money to assist residence in the City of Flint with obtaining clean drinking water and to bring awareness to this issue. On January 29, 2016 Gov. Rick Snyder, signed a $28 million budget supplemental which assists Flint residents by addressing the city’s on-going water crisis.

The supplemental, which Snyder called for in his State of the State Address January 19th, was approved by the legislature Thursday and signed by the Governor.

“I thank the Legislature for their quick action to make this additional $28 million a reality. It is a necessary next-step in ongoing recovery efforts for the city,” Snyder said. “We know that more money will be needed to address long-term concerns and I want to reassure the families of Flint that I remain dedicated to fixing this problem.” Stated Gov. Snyder

House Bill 5220, approved unanimously in both the House and Senate, will help ensure Flint residents have access to safe, clean drinking water in addition to the following:

* Supply free bottled water, faucet filters, and testing kits for Flint residents;

* Put nine nurses in local schools to monitor student health and well-being;

* Provide better nutrition for students and infants through WIC and in-school nutrition programs;

* Replace fixtures in schools, daycares, nursing homes and hospitals;

* Provide for an infrastructure study using independent experts;

* Treat any children who have high lead levels in the blood, using diagnostic testing, nurse visits and environmental assessments in the home.

Gov. Snyder will propose a long-term funding solution to address the ongoing needs of Flint in his Feb. 10 formal budget recommendation to the legislature.

In an article released on the cities website states In the continuing effort to identify the location of lead pipes and other components of Flint’s water infrastructure, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) experts from the

City of Flint, State of Michigan, the University of Michigan–Flint, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have translated hundreds of hand-drawn plat maps and hand-written notes from the 1980’s into digitized maps. The maps are helping the State target its response and determine where safe water is needed.

“Since most of the water system infrastructure is underground, we can’t simply walk out and survey it,” said Capt. Chris A. Kelenske, deputy state director of emergency management and homeland security and commander of the Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division. “This mapping will be a critical component of the State’s coordinated response in Flint.”

Once maps are fully digitized, they will be synced with 2015 parcel data and can then be overlaid with Census and infrastructure information which will allow analysts to pinpoint which inhabited homes have lead service lines.

Additionally, efforts continue to ensure city-wide distribution of bottled water, filters, water replacement cartridges and water testing kits.

As this crisis continues residence feel this issue will never go away and if it does than it will take well over a few years for implementations to be placed into effect to ensure this crisis never arises again and to ensure the future safety and wellbeing of the cities residence will never be placed in jeopardy as it has been for the last 2-3 years now.

#FlintWaterIssue #GovernorRickSnyder