FLINT, Mich. — A group of 25 Democratic congressmen and women met with a room full of Flint residents to hear personal stories of the lead water crisis enveloping this eastern Michigan town.
Meeting for more than two hours in the Grace Community Baptist Church on the southern side of town, the delegation, led by Flint’s congressman Rep. Dan Kildee and including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, got first-hand stories about how people here are living without being able to drink their tap water.
Pelosi said it’s clear that the bond between the government and the people of Flint has been broken.
“It’s appalling that in the greatest country in the world, [you] have this situation and if you compound it with what we see here in Flint, what we further learned today, we know that we have to act,” Pelosi said. “We’ve come here to listen, to learn, to find out what we have to go put together after this so that we can give hope and healing.”
Since April 2014, Flint’s drinking water has been tainted by lead that leached off old pipes. The lead problem began sometime after April 2014 when the water source was changed from Lake Huron to the Flint River, which is so acidic and polluted that it caused the pipes to corrode.
The meeting was closed to reporters, but the delegation was clearly enraptured by what they heard. What was originally supposed to be a one-hour meeting with residents more than doubled in length. Many of the members who spoke thanked the residents of Flint for sharing their stories and some said the determination of the residents to make it through the crisis gave them goosebumps.
The city is set to host a Democratic presidential primary debate Sunday evening ahead of Michigan’s primary on March 8.
It’s the second congressional delegation led by Kildee to the town and he once again carried the message that the state government needs to help the city.
He said the state has a budget surplus this year and a so-called rainy day fund amounting to $1 billion. He called on Gov. Rick Snyder to use that money to help Flint.
“Gov. Snyder, use your rainy day fund. It’s raining in Flint and these people deserve you to step up and make right what you did to Flint,” he said.
But, the assembled Democrats did not seem confident that would happen. Instead, they sought to assure the residents of Flint that the lawmakers would fight for them in the halls of the Capitol.
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said the trip to Flint had opened his eyes to the situation in Flint. He said the heartfelt stories were “absolutely essential” for lawmakers to hear before they go back to Washington, D.C., and work on several bills to help the city.
Ellison, the chair of the House Progressive Caucus, said his members would fight for Flint.
“The people of Flint are not alone because we are with you,” he said.
