President says he would be devastated if his children’s health was jeopardized, in reference to contamination that has put health of tens of thousands at risk

Barack Obama’s speech in Detroit on Wednesday was intended to be a triumphant celebration of the renaissance of an automobile industry once on the brink of collapse. But the president’s successful bailout of American carmakers and the subsequent revival of Michigan’s most important industry was eclipsed by a nearby civic emergency: a water crisis in Flint that has threatened the health of tens of thousands of people.



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Sixty-eight miles north by road, thousands of residents of the long-neglected industrial town have been poisoned by lead-contaminated water, the consequence of tight-fisted city authorities who switched the source of the city’s drinking water from Detroit to the Flint river in April 2014. The river water corroded the city’s ageing service lines, which leached dangerously high amounts of lead into Flint’s drinking water and poisoned thousands of children.

It was the risk to the city’s children that moved Obama to mention Flint’s emergency in his remarks.

“If I was a parent up there, I would be beside myself that my kids’ health could be at risk,” Obama said. “And that’s why over the weekend I declared a federal emergency in Flint to send more resources on top of what we’ve already put on the ground.”

“I met with Mayor [Karen] Weaver in the White House, in the Oval Office,” Obama continued, “and told her that we are gonna have her back, and all the people of Flint’s back as they work their way through this terrible tragedy.”

Obama’s pledge rolled into motion on Saturday, when the president signed an emergency declaration authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to provide bottled water, filters and testing supplies for 90 days. The funds come in response to a request from Republican governor Rick Snyder, who has faced calls for his resignation in response to his handling of the crisis. The famously parsimonious Snyder asked Obama for federal assistance on Friday, saying emergency measures could cost the state $41m.

Snyder, who appointed the emergency managers responsible for changing the source of Flint’s drinking water, waited more than a week after a state of public emergency had been declared in October 2015 to acknowledge that mistakes had been made. Officials at Michigan’s department of environmental quality, headed by more Snyder appointees, downplayed concerns from Flint citizens that the city’s water had a foul taste and an orange hue, continuing to insist that Flint’s water was safe to drink.



During Snyder’s state of the state address on Tuesday, the governor announced that he would release all official emails related Flint’s water crisis the following day.

“We will not stop working for the people of Flint until every person has clean water, every single day, no matter what,” the governor said. It’s an extraordinary measure in Michigan, one of only two states in the US where the governor’s office is exempted from the Freedom of Information Act.

The 274-page set of email correspondence released by Snyder’s office purports to cover the entirety of the Flint water crisis, from January 2014 to December 2015. Snyder, in a statement accompanying the email release, said that the release was “in the spirit of transparency and accountability”.

Much of the release is bulked with lengthy reports, advisory leaflets and council minutes pertaining to the town’s switch from Detroit water to Flint river water. The first two pages, which constitute a 3 January 2014 email, are entirely redacted except for the message header, which is attributed to attorney-client privilege. Snyder’s input is often brief. “Please proceed as recommended,” is his reply to a lengthy set of revisions to a press release on 3 December 2015.

Obama cited Flint’s water crisis as an example of why the government’s role in public safety is so crucial. “It is a reminder of why you can’t shortchange basic services that we provide to our people and that we, together, provide as a government” to assure the health and safety of the American public is preserved, Obama said.

Although Flint’s water was reconnected to Detroit’s supply following the declaration of a state of emergency in October, it’s little consolation for the people of Flint. The city’s service lines are hopelessly corroded, tainting the new water supply with lead concentrations far above federal action levels.

At the state of the state address, roughly 350 protesters chanted “clean water is a right, not just for the rich and white” and “Flint lives matter” as they called for Snyder’s resignation and arrest.

Flint resident Richard Vasquez told the Guardian that his water has been tainted for months, and that despite the dangerous concentration of lead, he had still been expected to pay exorbitant utility bills for undrinkable water.



“We are not a third world. This is America, this should not happen here,” Vasquez said. “That’s why we have people from all over the city and world here, supporting Flint. Because it can happen to you, it can happen in your city.”