U.S. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Michigan on Saturday and ordered federal aid for state and local response efforts in the county where the city of Flint has been contending with lead-contaminated drinking water.
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder had asked the president to declare both an emergency and an expedited major disaster in Genesee County to protect the safety of Flint residents.
Obama is authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts there, the White House said in a statement.
The action is being taken to “lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in Genesee County,” it said.
Snyder sent the Michigan National Guard to distribute bottled water and other supplies in the area earlier this week.
A financially struggling city, Flint was under control of a state-appointed emergency manager when it switched its source of tap water from Detroit’s system to the nearby Flint River in April 2014 to save money.
Flint, which is about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Detroit, returned to using that city’s water in October after tests found elevated levels of lead in the water and in the blood of some children.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington and Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-michigan-water-idUSKCN0UU13G
“Snyder sent the Michigan National Guard to distribute bottled water and other supplies in the area earlier this week.”
Oh…isn’t he a hero, coming to the rescue of his constituents with clean water?
Reuters conveniently “forgot” to mention that there’s a pending lawsuit claiming that Snyder intentionally allowed Flint’s water to become poisoned, and there are documents to prove it.
There were public demonstrations calling for his arrest over this, and if the documents no longer exist, they were the reason for the recent break-in where they were held.
Clean water? Who needs that? Grow some hair on your chest. Whack it like a monkey, only pus boys need clean water. Here, try this gasoline contaminated water. Almost tastes like Kool Aid, huh?
I travel all over the country on a daily basis, and therefore sample all of the water all over the country. Florida ,Georgia and pretty much a lot of the southeast forget about it ,it taste like sulfur therefore taste like shit. To me, the best water that I’ve tasted is upper New York , anything up near Canada any of those states up there taste great, but anything south of that, the water just it starts tasting stranger and stranger and stranger. The northern area of the country, the northeast states, the water taste the best , anything south of Nebraska the water starts tasting shittier and shittier and shittier .
I buy the Walmart bottled spring water, and keep 4 gallons at a time of that in the truck. To me it tastes the best, considering what I have to deal with out here.
Any of the mountainous regions, the water taste pretty good. But once you’re down into the city it just turns horrible.
“Obama is authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts there, the White House said in a statement.”
FEMA???
Those people are SCREWED!!!
Michigan, the GM cesspool of industrial contaminants, will never see some of the “”Superfund” sites grow grass again. Just go to Flint and ask for a drink of water. You’ll, no doubt, get a “taste” of the problem.