Lead poisoning from decrepit pipes and a "money-saving" decision by Earley in 2014 to cease Flint's water supply from Detroit and get it from the polluted Flint River (a move rejected in 2012 by a previous emergency manager who recognized the danger) has compromised the health of thousands of Flint residents, including small children who will suffer brain damage later in life.
In January 2015 Detroit offered to reconnect Flint to its water, cost-free. The frugal Darnell Earley for some reason interpreted this in a way no intelligent and reasonable person would: he rejected the offer. The next day, Governor Snyder dismissed him as emergency manager for Flint and gave him another emergency manager job, looking after Detroit's public school system. A man who poisoned the children of Flint was given the task of being responsible for the children of Detroit. Is this America? Yes. Michigan, under Snyder, has acquired some characteristics of a third world dictatorship.
It's January 2016, a year after the child-poisoner Earley was reassigned. State government incompetence and criminal negligence have made life for Flint residents intolerable. Even though their plight has been made known nationally, the problems continue. What did the governor know, and when did he know it? Investigations state and federal are under way. Investigative journalism has uncovered enough bone-headed and evil behavior from Snyder's administration to put several people away for the rest of their lives, if justice ever prevails, rather than the usual situation of corrupt politicians getting away with crimes.
Don't drink the water, don't bathe in it. Do pay your water bills, though. Yes, Flint residents have been paying for the poison ruining their lives. Celebrities have made bottled water donations, Obama has unleashed millions of dollars in federal aid, but the pipes aren't being replaced and, as Snyder puts it, there is no "short-term" plan to do so. He gave over a billion dollars in tax breaks to Michigan corporations, all the while his emergency manager sought to save a few million dollars by making Flint residents drink lead. The latest estimate I've heard on infrastructural replacement and repair for this catastrophe is 787 million dollars. I'll assume that's a low guess. It doesn't take into account the damage to human nervous systems, overall health, and the future difficulties of a generation of special needs children, none of whom ever voted for Snyder, all of whom are his victims.
Vic Neptune
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