The mayor of the Michigan city in crisis over contaminated drinking water met with a senior White House official Tuesday and may get the chance to speak with President Obama to make her case for more federal assistance.
Flint Mayor Karen Weaver is in Washington Tuesday for a conference of the nation’s mayors, but she also is using the trip as an opportunity to take her city’s crisis to the national level.
Flint, a city of a little less than 100,000 people in eastern Michigan, is grappling with lead contaminating the city’s drinking water. On Saturday, Obama signed an emergency declaration, freeing up $5 million in federal aid for the city.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Tuesday it was important for White House officials to hear about the crisis directly from Weaver.
“She’s got a lot of responsibility she’s trying to juggle so we felt it was important for staff at the White House to hear at some length the challenges that are facing the city,” he said.
Earnest added that Dr. Nicole Lurie, assistant secretary for preparedness and response in the Department of Health and Human Services, will be the lead federal official coordinating the U.S. government’s response to Flint.
Other agencies that will be involved in the response are the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“The city of Flint and the residents of Flint are going through a very difficult time and the United States government wants to do what we can to support state and local officials,” Earnest said.
He said he felt the response from the White House to the crisis has been timely and appropriate, but he declined to comment about the local and state response. The Department of Justice is investigating to see if there was any wrongdoing in how Michigan and Flint handled their response.
In April 2014, Flint switched its water source from the Detroit and Sewer Department, which draws water from Lake Huron, to a local agency that also would take water from the lake.
However, the infrastructure needed to get water from Lake Huron to Flint under the new agency was not yet built, so an emergency manager appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder decided to take water from the Flint River as a temporary measure.
The water from the Flint River is so polluted and acidic that the water ate away at the lead pipes bringing water to the city’s homes.
A study by the Hurley Medical Center found the amount of children with too much lead in their systems rose from 2 percent to 4.1 percent after the change in water supply.
The study also reported the share of children who live in the most affected parts of the city with elevated lead levels in their blood increased from 2.5 percent to 6.3 percent. The number of children in Flint under the age of 15 months who tested positive for higher lead levels increased two-and-a-half times after the switch.
High amounts of lead in blood could lead to drops in IQ, increased risk of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and other negative health effects, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The state Department of Environmental Quality has acknowledged it failed to require the city of Flint to treat the water with a chemical that would have made the water less acidic.
