Six House Democrats will tour Flint, Mich., next week in an effort to get more information from small business owners and others about the federal response to the lead water crisis.
Flint’s congressman, Rep. Dan Kildee, Mich., will lead the delegation, which will include Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, Md., and Reps. Elijah Cummings, Md., Scott Peters, Calif., Brenda Lawrence, Mich., and Debbie Dingell, Mich.
The delegation will meet with small business owners to find out how the water crisis is affecting their business. They will also be briefed by Dr. Nicol Lurie, the assistant secretary for preparedness response at the Department of Health and Human Services, about how the federal government is responding to the crisis.
In April 2014, Flint switched its water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage 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.
But the water from the Flint River is so polluted and acidic that it ate away at the lead pipes bringing water to the city’s homes.
The state did not require Flint to put any corrosion-control chemicals into the water. Those chemicals could have prevented the leaching of lead into the drinking water.
The water is now being treated with those chemicals, but the corrosion controls need to once again build back up on the city’s pipes.
The Justice Department is investigating, as is the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
