Flint Water Crisis Looms Over State of State Address

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LANSING, MI – The Flint water crisis is expected to loom heavily as Gov. Rick Snyder gives his sixth State of the State address Tuesday.

Snyder, who speaks at 7 p.m. Tuesday, last year talked about the “river of opportunity” ahead for Michigan. This year, Snyder speaks under the cloud of the contaminated Flint River and a firestorm of criticism he is facing in his home state, nationally and on the presidential campaign trail.

On Monday, he said Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has politicized the issue. Clinton said in Sunday night’s Democratic debate that “every single American should be outraged” by what is happening in Flint, where residents were exposed to lead-contaminated water “and the governor of that state acted as though he didn’t really care.”

Clinton’s primary opponent for the Democratic nomination, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, called for Snyder’s resignation in a statement Saturday. He said Snyder knew about the lead in Flint’s water, but did nothing to avert a public health crisis.

“Because of the conduct by Gov. Snyder’s administration and his refusal to take responsibility, families will suffer from lead poisoning for the rest of their lives,” Sanders said. “Children in Flint will be plagued with brain damage and other health problems. The people of Flint deserve more than an apology.”

Speaking in Flint on Sunday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson called Flint “a crime scene.”

Filmmaker and political activist Michael Moore, a Flint native, started a petition on his website calling for Snyder’s arrest claiming that the governor knowingly poisoned the children of Flint. Moore held a rally in the city on Saturday accusing government leaders of intentionally poisoning thousands, saying the crisis was not a mistake.

An outspoken critic of the governor, Cher went on a Twitter rage against Snyder, and later announced she has teamed with Icelandic Glacial to donate 181,440 bottles of water to the residents of Flint. Cher called the situation in Flint, “a tragedy of staggering proportion.”

In an interview with The Detroit News after a Martin Luther King Jr. Day address at the University of Michigan-Flint, Snyder said “politicizing the issue doesn’t help matters.”

“Obviously, I care,” Snyder said. “I’m here today. We’ve done a number of actions. We’re going to keep working on putting solutions in place. … Let’s focus in on the solution and how to deal with the damage that was done and help the citizens of Flint and make Flint a stronger community.”

Flint, a predominantly poor and African-American community, switched its drinking water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River in 2014 as a money-saving move while under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager.

Other state errors followed, and Snyder apologized to Flint residents after announcing he had accepted the resignation of former Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant and after the Flint Water Advisory Task Force found the DEQ was “primarily responsible” for failing to ensure the drinking water was safe. On Saturday, President Barack Obama declared a federal emergency in Flint.

Kelly Rossman-McKinney, a veteran public relations and crisis communications consultant and CEO of Truscott Rossman, told the Detroit Free Press she “can’t think of another governor that really had this level of crisis at a State of the State.”

“It’s probably the most important speech he will give in his entire public career,” Rossman-McKinney said.

Another public relations professional, Matt Friedman, co-founder of the Farmington Hills public relations firm Tanner Friedman, said Snyder needs to address the issue directly at the beginning of his speech and reassure the public about what he has done to deal with the public health crisis, but also he’s done to ensure it won’t happen again as cities across Michigan deal with aging infrastructure.

Apologizing again doesn’t hurt, but “if you keep apologizing, then you’re not really saying anything,” Friedman told the Free Press.

The speech is expected to be broadcast live on public TV and radio stations, as well as on media websites.