Flint Water Task Force: Review Emergency Manager Law

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FLINT, MI – A task force appointed by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has called for a review of the state’s emergency law in a searing 116-page report that characterized the Flint water crisis as a man-made catastrophe resulting from "government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction and environmental injustice."

In calling for a review of the state emergency manager law, which took local control away from Flint’s elected officials and gave it to the state, the task force said Snyder should seek alternatives that retain local control.

According to the report, released Wednesday, the crisis occurred “when state-appointed emergency managers replaced local representative decision-making in Flint, removing the checks and balances and public accountability that come with public decision-making.”

"Emergency managers made key decisions that contributed to the crisis, from the use of the Flint River to delays in reconnecting to DWSD (the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department) once water quality problems were encountered,” the report said. "Given the demographics of Flint, the implications for environmental injustice cannot be ignored or dismissed."

In cost-cutting move while under emergency management in 2014, the city switched its drinking water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The more corrosive water caused lead to leach from old pipes, exposing residents of the city of 100,000 to dangerously high levels of lead.

Snyder appointed the task force shortly after Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, pediatric residency director at Flint’s Hurley Children’s Hospital, released a study showing the number of children with above-average levels of lead in their blood had nearly doubled since the city began getting its water from the Flint River.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality shoulders most of the blame in the report, but it also points fingers at all levels of government, including Snyder and his office, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Flint emergency managers, Flint city officials, the Genesee County Health Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Among the recommendations in the report is the creation of a Flint Toxic Exposure Registry that includes all children and adults who lived in the city from April 2014 to the present.

Read the full report below.