Detroit Free Press Editorial Board

Governor Snyder: When are you going to turn your relentless, positive action toward assuaging the misery your administration has heaped upon the people of Flint?

Right now, the State of Michigan should be able to say that it has ensured the delivery of bottled water and water filters to every Flint resident whose drinking water has been contaminated by lead. Right now, the State of Michigan should be able to say it has taken the first steps to craft nutritional and educational interventions for lead-poisoned Flint kids. Right now, the State of Michigan should be able to say it is using funds made available by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to replace aging lead water service lines in Flint.

Instead, the governor is offering placid responses and slow-walking important remedies, while the investigation into how one of Michigan’s greatest man-made public health crises unfolded comes up with explanations in dribs and drabs.

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It’s not just derelict — it invokes inglorious comparison to other callous and insensitive official responses to tragedy. Think of the shameful federal response to Hurricane Katrina, where the same lack of urgency delayed life-saving aid. The poverty rate in Flint is 40%; 52% of Flint residents are African-American. And so we are prompted to ask: How would the state have responded to a crisis of such proportions in a community with more wealth and power?



Under the guidance of an emergency manager appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder, Flint began, almost two years ago, to draw its drinking water from the Flint River. Because the local treatment plant, with the approval of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, didn't add the right chemicals to that river water, lead leached from aging service lines and into the city's drinking water. Thousands of Flint residents — including vulnerable infants and expectant mothers — were exposed to a toxic contaminant that can cause irreversible behavioral and developmental problems.

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When data this spring began to show that the amount of lead in Flint's water was increasing, Snyder and his team stood silent.

As evidence amassed this summer that something had gone terribly wrong in Flint, MDEQ insisted Flint's water was safe. Still, Snyder's chief of staff wrote an e-mail to the state health department expressing concern, the department reassured him. And then nothing.

Data analyzed by a Flint pediatrician this fall showed that a growing percentage of Flint kids had elevated lead levels in their blood; Snyder's team disparaged the doctor's work.

By the end of September, Snyder finally acknowledged that something seemed to be wrong with Flint's water, and that perhaps the switch to Flint River water had not been handled appropriately.

But just last month, Snyder told the Free Press' editorial board and other media outlets that it was important to examine other causes of lead contamination in Flint, like paint and old faucets.

He has insisted repeatedly that a formal state response must await the "after-action report" of a task force he appointed to investigate what happened in Flint — even as that task force says it is releasing its findings piecemeal, because the work is too important to await a final report. (The last interim report released by the task force prompted the resignation of MDEQ chief Dan Wyant and former department spokeman Brad Wurfel.)

It's a maddening pattern of advance and retreat that seems focused on responding to immediate criticism, rather than creating a long-term strategy that begins to serve the needs of Flint residents affected by lead poisoning.

In response to an inquiry this week, Snyder's press secretary, Meegan Holland, says that the state is working to identify the best ways to distribute water and filters to Flint residents, mapping which residents have already received filters, and "figuring out ways" to help residents install those filters and how best to provide replacement filter cartridges. The state is testing blood and water lead levels, and Holland says it is working to improve its website and to coordinate bottled water delivery with the Red Cross.

All of these are reasonable actions for the state to undertake in the immediate aftermath of a crisis. As a snapshot of what the state is doing, months into the crisis, it falls woefully short of the mark.

"There doesn’t seem to be urgency. There seems to be a lot of happy talk," said U.S. Rep Dan Kildee, a Flint Democrat. "I want to see direct support to the people of the City of Flint, and its city government, to correct this mess that is clearly a creation of state government."

Kildee also believes that Snyder should absolve Flint from paying $2 million as its portion of the cost of reconnecting to the Detroit water system. The cash-strapped city could apply those funds to replacing lead service lines.

This newspaper twice endorsed Rick Snyder for the state's highest elected office — and for his re-election in 2014, it was a close call, tipped in the governor’s favor principally by his first-term record of getting things done. Snyder prides himself on relentless, positive action — his mantra — and moved at a frenetic pace of law and policy-making (sometimes to our liking, sometimes not) that argued more strongly for him than his 2014 opponent.

Imagine what would be happening for the people of Flint if that frenzy were guiding the governor’s actions right now.