January 20, 2016
By Evan Osnos
Last July, (click here) after more than a year of public complaints about the drinking water in Flint, Michigan—water so pungent and foamy that a local pastor had stopped using it for baptisms—reporters were calling the state’s Department of Environmental Quality. The response from the department was of limited urgency. In an internal e-mail to colleagues, a spokeswoman, Karen Tommasulo, wrote, “Apparently it’s going to be a thing now.”...
The emails prove all that was on the mind of Michigan government was politics. No one took responsibility to end the danger. That is the issue.
What was Mr. Snyder thinking would come out of this emails? He was the highest form of Michigan government, the Executive Branch if you will. He had all the power to end the nightmare before it became a nightmare. He did nothing. Absolutely nothing.
This was an entire year plus. This is endangering the public, First take control of the problem and then run the investigation to find out who allowed such horrible threats to people and their children.
I'll put it this way. It should never have happened. The water causing this problem should have been tested before it ever was allowed to enter the Flint water pipes. It should have been tested immediately after it entered the Flint water pipes. The water should have been tested regularly for quality anyway. Where are those records. I want to see the records for the last two years of Flint's water department and their quality testing.
By Evan Osnos
Last July, (click here) after more than a year of public complaints about the drinking water in Flint, Michigan—water so pungent and foamy that a local pastor had stopped using it for baptisms—reporters were calling the state’s Department of Environmental Quality. The response from the department was of limited urgency. In an internal e-mail to colleagues, a spokeswoman, Karen Tommasulo, wrote, “Apparently it’s going to be a thing now.”...
The emails prove all that was on the mind of Michigan government was politics. No one took responsibility to end the danger. That is the issue.
What was Mr. Snyder thinking would come out of this emails? He was the highest form of Michigan government, the Executive Branch if you will. He had all the power to end the nightmare before it became a nightmare. He did nothing. Absolutely nothing.
This was an entire year plus. This is endangering the public, First take control of the problem and then run the investigation to find out who allowed such horrible threats to people and their children.
I'll put it this way. It should never have happened. The water causing this problem should have been tested before it ever was allowed to enter the Flint water pipes. It should have been tested immediately after it entered the Flint water pipes. The water should have been tested regularly for quality anyway. Where are those records. I want to see the records for the last two years of Flint's water department and their quality testing.
