You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Lawmakers Close Probe of Flint Water Crisis, as Water is Still Unsafe to Drink

HeadlineJan 26, 2017

Republican lawmakers have closed the investigation into the lead poisoning of the water system in Flint, Michigan. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s findings blamed state officials, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA. The closing of the investigation comes as Flint Mayor Karen Weaver told residents they should still not drink the water. The city’s lead pipes have not yet been replaced. At the Women’s March on Washington, Democracy Now! spoke with Flint resident and community organizer Melissa Mays.

Melissa Mays: Now we have a president that made it very clear that he has no intentions to keep the EPA or clean air and water regulations. So we feel even worse. The day after the election, we just sat there and said, ’We’ve had to work an uphill battle with the Republican state government. Now we have a Republican federal government, and we’re going to get nowhere.’”

The Flint water crisis began when the city’s unelected emergency manager, appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, switched the source of Flint’s drinking water from the Detroit system to the corrosive Flint River. The water corroded Flint’s aging pipes, causing poisonous levels of lead to leach into the drinking water.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top