By Salman Haqqi
In an outrageous example of corporate hijacking of government, (click here) Nestlé is about to get permission from the state of Michigan to nearly double the amount of groundwater it draws from a plant in Evart to 210 million gallons a year.
Michigan Live reported that the request is in conjunction with a $36 million expansion of its Ice Mountain bottling plant.
The kicker is that Michigan is about to sell 100 million gallons of groundwater for $200 a year — to a company that is currently worth almost $212 billion. Regulators say that is because under state law, the bottling plant in Evart is considered to be a private well.
Residents are understandably outraged, especially in the aftermath of the Flint water crisis, in which public officials switched water sources and caused lead to contaminate the city’s water in order to save money.
Nestlé’s plant at Evart is just 120 miles from Flint, where the Guardian reported the water is still unsafe to drink unfiltered....
Why hasn't Snyder cut a deal for Flint? And it was NOT the city that originally switched the water supply, it was Snyder's emergency manager that did this. Can the media please get that fact straight!
The city originally switched its water source to save $5 million (click here)
August 8, 2016
The water crisis in Flint, Mich.,that exposed an estimated 8,000 children to lead and other toxins could amount to almost $400 million in future costs to the city and thousands of cumulative years of poor health for those affected, according to a new estimate released Monday.
Peter Muennig, a professor of public health at Columbia University, calculates that the elevated blood lead levels found in more than 8,000 Flint children since 2014 will lead to $395 million in social costs based on the likelihood of lower IQ levels for those exposed, leading to lost economic productivity, reliance on welfare and costs to the criminal justice system. Muennig estimates those losses will amount to 18,000 fewer healthy years for those exposed....
What will occur in the Michigan court system is the recognition that, "Oh, your one of the Flint kids, huh?"
Those costs are going to increase over time when "Growing Up Flint" will take decades to play out. $395 million are estimated costs today, but, in ten years from now and when they are adults the outcomes will be far more expensive. There needs to be a class action lawsuit to compensate victims of this crime by Governor Snyder.
Those costs are going to increase over time when "Growing Up Flint" will take decades to play out. $395 million are estimated costs today, but, in ten years from now and when they are adults the outcomes will be far more expensive. There needs to be a class action lawsuit to compensate victims of this crime by Governor Snyder.
