Rachel Maddow has been on this Flint lead poisoning- Governor Snyder-Emergency Manager clusterfuck!
Kudo, Ms. Maddow.
RECAP here:
Liza: “Snyder (most likely) thinks there were enough screw-ups and enough complicit players in this evil scheme that he can point fingers and survive. Like I been saying, the elephant in the room is the disgusting, putrid, foul Flint River water. Where is the chemical analysis, where is the treatment plan? How did you plan to turn filthy Flint River water into drinking water that would be in compliance with EPA regulations?”
We’ll post the entire video of the town hall soon.
https://twitter.com/vicenews/status/693101911050960896
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/693114643779313665
https://twitter.com/MotherJones/status/693120313396166657
https://twitter.com/AP/status/693129753570742272
Year-old document shows Snyder admin knew Flint water substandard
Rachel Maddow shares a new report from the Detroit Free Press showing a year-old e-mail acknowledging that the public water in Flint “does not meet treatment requirements” for state employees to drink, even as the Snyder administration was assuring Flint residents about the integrity of their water.
Document: Snyder Admin Trucked In Clean Water for State Building in January 2015
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
News from Progress Michigan
January 28, 2016
Contact: Sam Inglot, 616-916-0574, sam@progressmichigan.org
Document: Snyder Admin Trucked In Clean Water for State Building in January 2015
Latest revelation shows unequal treatment in Flint Water Crisis
LANSING — The Snyder administration quietly trucked in water to state buildings in January of 2015 – ten months prior to Governor Snyder publicly admitting there was reason for concern in Flint, according to a document obtained by Progress Michigan.
The document is a Facility Notification sent by the Department of Technology, Management and Budget (DTMB) in response to poor water quality in Flint. The notification stated that water coolers were being installed on each occupied floor next to the drinking fountains so that state workers could choose to continue to drink Flint water or a safe alternative.
“It appears the state wasn’t as slow as we first thought in responding the Flint Water Crisis. Sadly, the only response was to protect the Snyder administration from future liability and not to protect the children of Flint from lead poisoning,” said Lonnie Scott, executive director of Progress Michigan. “While residents were being told to relax and not worry about the water, the Snyder administration was taking steps to limit exposure in its own building.”
An email chain connected to the document shows that the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) was aware of the notification and action taken to limit state workers exposure to Flint’s water.
“Another day and another example of the Snyder administration’s lackluster response to this crisis. Worse yet, this shows that the response was not only late and so far ineffective, but it was also unequal,” Scott continued. “Governor Snyder needs to explain to the people of Flint why his administration trucked water into a state building while allowing residents to drink unsafe water.”
http://www.progressmichigan.org/2016/01/document-snyder-admin-trucked-in-clean-water-for-state-building-in-january-2015/
Bad Data — And Worse Decisions — Poisoned Flint
By JODY AVIRGAN
Last year, when Flint, Michigan, asked its residents to help test the city’s water, officials made a number of basic errors. Residents were asked to flush the water out of their tap before collecting a sample, which potentially washed away many of the contaminants that may have collected in the pipes. Flint homeowners were also given narrow-neck bottles that they had to fill using a smaller stream of water than the full stream used when, say, filling a glass of drinking water. This in turn meant fewer contaminants rushing through the pipes.
These seemingly minor data-collection mistakes attest to the more widespread negligence on the part of city and state officials. Now, we are beginning to understand the ramifications. Not long after the city switched from Lake Huron to the Flint River as its main water supply, residents began to complain about the taste and smell of the water; they also began to experience troubling health problems. Michigan officials, however, expressed skepticism about the “data” collected by health researchers in Flint. We know now that the polluted Flint River water was not only causing health problems on its own, but it was also corroding the city’s antiquated pipes, leaching lead into the residents’ taps.
On this week’s episode of our podcast What’s The Point, FiveThirtyEight’s Anna Maria Barry-Jester traces the data trail in Flint, from poor sample collection to officials’ skepticism about basic water and health science. She also discusses how it was residents armed with their own amateur research who made the biggest strides in uncovering the troubling health patterns.
To listen, stream or download the full episode above. Below, find a transcript of interview highlights. And be sure to read Anna’s full piece on the Flint water crisis.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bad-data-and-worse-decisions-poisoned-flint/
Michigan Officials Quietly Gave Bottled Water To State Employees Months Before Flint Residents
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.”
For residents, however, it took researchers uncovering elevated levels of lead in children’s bloodstreams for a lead advisory to finally be issued in September of 2015. Residents were told not to drink the water and a public health emergency was declared by the Genesee County Health Department in October, and Flint’s mayor declared a state of emergency in December. The National Guard was activated in January of this year to distribute water from five fire stations — a full year after water was brought in for state employees out of concern over water quality.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R), who some have said made the decision to switch to the Flint River himself, has claimed he didn’t know about the water problems until recently. But the plan to use that source was evaluated and rejected by the city’s emergency manager in 2012, according to a deposition. And while the purported reason for making the change in the first place was to save money while another pipeline was being built, leaked emails show that the city could have stayed with Detroit’s water and saved the same amount of money anyway.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/01/28/3743987/flint-water-state-employees/
https://twitter.com/bhodisvaha/status/692785114653151232
And we all know that in order to receive an effect, there has to be a CAUSE
DIRTY, FOUL, LEAD-POISONED WATER
Ametia, TY for posting my comment. I like the elephants.
And by the time this is all over, it would have cost multiple times what it would have cost to stay with the original source…and that’s excluding the cost of damage done to human beings…
Penny wise and all that..
https://twitter.com/GetWisdomDude/status/692749274283692032
Governor Synder’s AZZ belongs in JAIL
Thank you so much for posting this Ametia, I missed it..
Was in meetings that ran late…
I’m so glad this was spotlighted by Rachel…
You’re welcome, elihass. Hopefully, we can post the entire town hall, especially the Q & As
A city of predominantly poor black people’s drinking water poisoned and no one has gone to jail? What in the ever living hell?
An American city poisoned. JAIL THE CRIMINALS!
The Flint disaster is Rick Snyder’s fault
By Dana Milbank Opinion writer January 25
Jeb Bush explained Sunday why he still thinks Rick Snyder has been “a great governor for Michigan” even after the mass lead poisoning because of tainted tap water in Flint.
The disgrace over Flint’s water, the Republican presidential prospect told ABC’s “This Week,” “is related to the fact that we’ve created this complex, no-responsibility regulatory system, where the federal government, the state government, a regional government, local and county governments are all pointing fingers at one another.”
Um, no. (YOU GOT THAT RIGHT, DANA.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-flint-disaster-is-rick-snyders-fault/2016/01/25/9c77e036-c3b1-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html