Snyder Survives Recall Over Flint Water Crisis

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich posted this photo of water from Flint on her public Facebook page earlier this year after residents questioned the safety of their drinking water supply. (Photo via Facebook)

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An effort to oust Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder over his handling of the tainted Flint water controversy has failed after the Board of State Canvassers voted, 4-0, Friday to reject a recall petition.

The board said the offenses alleged in the petition didn’t occur during his current term, and that the petition was neither clear nor factual, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Detroit pastor Angelo Scott Brown, who led the recall effort, said he plans to file a revised petition. He thinks Snyder is culpable in the water debacle in Flint, which was under state-appointed emergency management when a cost-saving decision was made to switch customers from a system managed by the city of Detroit, which gets its water from Lake Huron, to a system supplied by the Flint River.

The corrosive water from the Flint River had unsafe levels of lead, which can cause brain damage in children. The state initially denied, but later admitted that the decision to draw the city’s water from the Flint River was an economic one.

After the switch to the Flint River in 2013, water customers complained for months about what many called “third world water” and “poop water,” raising concerns that the river remained polluted from toxins left behind by heavy industrial activity in the past.

Officials brushed aside the concerns, saying the river was cleaner than it had been for years, but recent disclosures showed the residents’ fears weren’t unfounded.

In September, pediatricians at a Flint hospital reported dangerous spikes in children’s blood-lead levels, corroborating earlier testing from a Virginia Tech researcher that the water exceeded tolerable lead levels. The switch back to water from Lake Huron occurred last month.

Related

• Environmental Activist Erin Brockovich Keeping Eye on Flint’s ‘Poop Water’

John Pirich, the attorney representing Snyder, said the governor didn’t approve the initial switch, which occurred in 2013, before his 2014 election to a second term. He said the recall petition is “fatally flawed” and contains “conclusory opinions” rather than statements of fact, as required by law.

Brown told reporters that he didn’t say Snyder was responsible, only that he was culpable.

“The sad thing is, the events happened in both terms,” Brown said.