Free Republic

The state of Michigan is “fundamentally accountable” for Flint’s lead-contaminated water crisis because of decisions made by its environmental regulators and state-appointed emergency managers who controlled the city, an investigatory task force concluded Wednesday. The panel, appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder to review the disaster, said in a withering report that what happened in Flint is “a story of government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction, and environmental injustice.” …

In something rarely seen in politics, a public official made a plea in a statewide newspaper hoping to exonerate himself from a growing crisis. In October 2015, Darnell Earley, who had been the emergency manager for Flint from September 2013 until January 2015, made his nearly 600-word plea in The Detroit News. Earley said he wasn’t at fault for the city of Flint’s decision to take water from the Flint River, which wasn't properly treated and was more prone to leach lead from pipes. He pointed the finger instead at the decision by the Detroit Water and Sewer Department in...

EPA regional chief FINALLY resigns over Flint crisis - 22 months after residents first started complaining about the high levels of lead in the water A regional director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has resigned in connection with the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Susan Hedman, the head of the agency's regional office in Chicago whose jurisdiction includes the state, will step down on February 1 so the government can focus solely on the crisis in the city. High levels of lead have been detected in the impoverished city's water since officials switched from the Detroit municipal system...

...now it gets interesting.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder apologized to the residents of Flint for a water crisis that has prompted outrage, federal scrutiny and lawsuits, vowing to seek long-term assistance for the city’s residents. In his State of the State address on Tuesday night, Snyder said he was asking state lawmakers for $28 million to help residents reeling after Flint’s drinking water became contaminated with dangerously high levels of lead. He also vowed to release his emails related to Flint from 2014 and 2015.

DETROIT -- Commenting for the first time on the lead contamination in the drinking water of Flint, Mich., President Obama said Wednesday that he "would be beside myself" if he were a parent in the city. Mr. Obama said that in a White House meeting on Tuesday with Flint's mayor, Karen Weaver, "I told her that we are going to have her back, and all of the people of Flint's back, as they work their way through this terrible tragedy." The long-running crisis, which has poisoned dozens of Flint residents, at least, and left tens of thousands of others unsure...