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1 of 1- Goose
- Cogito ergo sum
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- Registered: 1/29/2015
- Posts: 13,427
As Water Problems Grew, Officials Belittled Complaints From Flint
As Water Problems Grew, Officials Belittled Complaints From Flint
By JULIE BOSMAN, MONICA DAVEY and MITCH SMITH
JAN. 20, 2016
LANSING, Mich. — A top aide to Michigan’s governor referred to people raising questions about the quality of Flint’s water as an “anti-everything group.” Other critics were accused of turning complaints about water into a “political football.” And worrisome findings about lead by a concerned pediatrician were dismissed as “data,” in quotes.
That view of how the administration of Gov. Rick Snyder initially dealt with the water crisis in the poverty-stricken, black-majority city of Flint emerged from 274 pages of emails, made public by the governor on Wednesday.
The correspondence records mounting complaints by the public and elected officials, as well as growing irritation by state officials over the reluctance to accept their assurances.
It was not until late in 2015, after months of complaints, that state officials finally conceded what critics had been contending: that Flint was in the midst of a major public health emergency, as tap water pouring into families’ homes contained enough lead to show up in the blood of dozens of people in the city. Even small amounts of lead could cause lasting health and developmental problems in children.
The emails were released late in the day, after Mr. Snyder’s State of the State address Tuesday night in which he profusely apologized to the residents of Flint and promised to help remedy the problem and get to the bottom of how it occurred. The Michigan House on Wednesday approved $28 million requested by the governor to assist the city.
Though Mr. Snyder issued the emails as part of an effort to reveal the administration’s transparency on the matter, the documents provide a glimpse of state leaders who were at times dismissive of the concerns of residents, seemed eager to place responsibility with local government and, even as the scientific testing was hinting at a larger problem, were reluctant to acknowledge it.
We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.