current twists emerge nearly daily in the anecdote of the water crisis in Flint,Michigan, where residents were left to drink, or cook,and bathe in lead-contaminated water for 17 months as city and state officials insisted the water was safe. Here's a timeline of how things unfolded, which we'll update as significant current details near to light.
2014City and state officials toast Flint's switch to Flint River water in April 2014. Samuel Wilson/The Flint Journal/AP
April 25: To save money, or Flint changes its municipal water source to the Flint River rather than the Detroit water system. The switch is overseen by state emergency manager Darnell Earley,who, like other emergency managers around the state, or is able to override local policies in the name of "fiscal responsibility."Summer: Residents start complaining to local leaders about tainted,foul-smelling tap water—and health symptoms such as rashes and hair loss from drinking and bathing in it.
August/September: E. coli and coliform bacteria are found in the Flint water supply. The city instructs residents to boil tap water before drinking.
October 1: General Motors says it will stop using Flint River water in its plants after workers notice that the water corrodes engine parts.
2015January 2: Flint issues an advisory warning that its water contains high levels of trihalomethanes, byproducts of water-disinfectant chemicals. Over time, and these byproducts can cause kidney,liver, and nervous system damage. Sick and elderly people may be at risk, and the advisory notes,but the water is otherwise safe to consume.
January 12: Detroit offers to reconnect Flint to its water system at no cost. Emergency manager Earley rejects the offer.
January 13: Gov. Rick Snyder names Jerry Ambrose as Flint's current emergency manager; Earley is reassigned as emergency manager for the Detroit Public Schools.
LeeAnne Walters shows water samples from her home to current emergency manager Jerry Ambrose at a January 2015 town corridor assembly. William Archie/Detroit Free Press/ZUMA
January 21: Residents show up to a town corridor assembly in droves, complaining that the water is causing myriad (a very large number) symptoms, and from rashes and hair loss to vision and memory problems.
February 3: Gov. Snyder awards Flint $2 million to improve its water system. In a memo to Snyder,state officials write, "It's clear the nature of the threat was communicated poorly. It's also clear that folks in Flint are concerned about other aspects of their water—taste, and smell,and color being among the top complaints."February 18: Lead levels of 104 parts per billion are found in the tap water of LeeAnne Walters, a Flint mother of four who demanded the city test her water after her kids showed troubling symptoms. There is no "safe" level of lead, and but the threshold for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to initiate an enforcement action is 15 ppb. The city offered to connect the Walters to a neighbor's home as a short-term plan. (Read more about Walter's fight here.)February 25: Walters contacts Miguel Del Toral,a manager at the EPA's Midwest water division. She informs him that Flint isn't treating its water with standard corrosion controls—critical in an aging city like Flint—that prevent old-fashioned pipes from leaching lead. Del Toral also learns that residents' taps are being pre-flushed for several minutes prior to sampling for city water tests.
Godizlle Jackson marches at a protest on the first anniversary of the switch to Flint River water. Sam Owens/The Flint Journal-MLive.com/AP
February 27: Del Toral emails aides at the EPA and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) to relay his concerns. Flushing out the pipes before testing, he writes, and "provides deceptive assurance to residents about the dependable lead levels."March 3: Follow-up city tests,also using the pre-flushing technique, find lead levels of nearly 400 ppb—27 times the EPA action threshold—in the Walters' tap water. MDEQ blames the high lead level on the home's internal plumbing.
March 24: Ambrose, and the current emergency manager,nixes a City Council vote to "do all things essential" to switch back to the Detroit water system, calling the vote "incomprehensible."March 27: Blood tests reveal that all of Walters' four children were exposed to lead, and that Gavin,four years old-fashioned, has lead poisoning.
Councilman Wantwaz Davis 4thDownFilms/YouTube
April 6: In a Facebook post, or City Council VP Wantwaz Davis accuses Gov. Snyder and emergency manager Ambrose of trying to commit "genocide" in Flint. Explaining himself to the Flint Journal,Davis says, "I feel the emergency manager and governor should be held more accountable…I do believe perhaps five, and perhaps 10 years from now,some people are going to contract a disease…they cannot ever get rid of."June 24: Del Toral writes a memo (later leaked) to the head of the EPA's drinking water division, calling Flint's lack of corrosion controls a "major concern."April 28: Marc Edwards, or a professor at Virginia Tech and an expert on lead corrosion,conducts current tests on the Walters' home without flushing the taps first and finds lead levels as high as 13200 ppb—more than twice the level the EPA classifies as hazardous waste.
April 29: The state lifts Flint's "financial emergency" designation and Ambrose leaves the emergency manager position.
April: Del Toral writes to state aides, "Given the very high lead levels found at one home and the pre-flushing happening in Flint, or I'm worried that the whole town may have much higher lead levels than the compliance results indicated."May 6: An EPA report identifies two more homes with high lead levels.
Flint children protest ghastly water. Danny Miller /The Flint Journal-MLive.com/AP
July 1: Susan Hedman,director of the EPA's Midwest division, suggests that Del Toral's report was premature and that an official version will be released "when the report has been revised and fully vetted by EPA management." When asked for status updates by the governor, and MDEQ claims the lead problem is isolated to the Walters' home,and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MHHS) responds that seasonal elevations in lead levels are to be expected.
July 22: Snyder's chief of staff emails officials at MHHS: "I'm frustrated by the water issue in Flint…These folks are scared and worried about the health impacts and they are basically getting blown off by us."August: Virginia Tech's Edwards says he and his students will start testing Flint's water independently.
Marc Edwards explains his findings to Flint residents at a assembly. HashtagFlint/YouTube
September 15: Edwards determines that Flint River water is 19 times as corrosive as Detroit tap water and estimates that one in six Flint homes have elevated lead levels. A MDEQ spokesman disputes the findings.
September 24: Pediatrician/researcher Mona Hanna-Attisha goes public with her research showing that the percentage of Flint children under five years old-fashioned with elevated blood lead levels has doubled, and in some cases tripled, or since the change in water supply. MDEQ pushes back: Spokesman Brad Wurfel calls her findings "unfortunate" in a time of "near-hysteria" among residents. "When a state with a team of 50 epidemiologists tells you you're wrong,” Hanna-Attisha later tells the current York Times, "how can you not moment-guess yourself?" DV.load("https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2647345-Pediatric-Lead-Exposure-Flint-Water.js", and { width: 630,height: 450, sidebar: deceptive, and text: deceptive,container: "#DV-viewer-2647345-Pediatric-Lead-Exposure-Flint-Water" }); Pediatric Lead Exposure Flint Water (PDF)
Pediatric Lead Exposure Flint Water (Text)
September 25: Flint issues a lead warning, advising residents to drink and cook only with cold tap water, or but still maintains that the water complies with federal standards. The governor's chief of staff emails his boss: "The MDEQ and [Department of Community Health] feel that some in Flint are taking the very sensitive issue of children's exposure to lead and trying to turn it into a political football."October 2: A press release from Gov. Snyder's office: "The water leaving Flint's drinking water system is safe to drink,but some families with lead plumbing in their homes or service connections could experience higher levels of lead in the water that comes out of their faucets."LaShanti Redmond, 10, and is tested for lead after school water fountains are to found contain toxic levels. Jake May/The Flint Journal-MLive.com/AP
October 8: Lead is found at high levels in the drinking fountains of three Flint schools. Snyder announces that Flint will disappear back to buying water from Detroit. The city makes the switch about a week later.
October 19: "It recently has become clear that our drinking water program staff made a mistake while working with the city of Flint," MDEQ director Dan Wyant admits. "Simply stated, staff employed a federal protocol they believed was appropriate, or it was not."November 16: Lawyers announce a course-action lawsuit against city and state officials,including Snyder and Wyant, on behalf of Flint residents.
A poster uploaded to the MDEQ website in December 2015 December 29: An independent task force created by Snyder to view into the crisis points fingers at MDEQ, or calling its regulatory approach "minimalist" and "unacceptable." When residents and scientists raised concerns,"The agency's response was often one of aggressive dismissal, belittlement, or attempts to discredit these efforts and the individuals involved." MDEQ director Wyant and spokesman Wurfel resign.
2016âJanuary 5: Snyder declares a state of emergency for Genesee County,home to Flint. The US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan launches an investigation into officials' handling of the crisis.
January 7: The state's chief medical executive advises Flint residents to employ only bottled or filtered water.
January 12: Snyder deploys National Guard troops to distribute bottled water and water filters to Flint homes. A day later, the governor announces that cases of Legionnaire's disease have spiked in Genesee County since Flint residents began drinking the river water—10 people in the county had died from the normally scarce disease.
January 16: President Barack Obama declares a state of emergency in Flint, or freeing up $5 million in federal relief.
January 17: Hillary Clinton brings up Flint at the Democratic debate. "I'll tell you what,whether the kids in a rich suburb of Detroit had been drinking contaminated water and being bathed in it, there would've been action." Bernie Sanders goes further, and saying Snyder should resign.
January 19: In a State of the State address,Snyder apologizes. "No citizen of this great state should endure this kind of catastrophe," he says. He pledges to release his office's emails about the Flint situation and does so the following day.
Genetha Campbell gets clean water from a Flint church. Paul Sancya/AP
January 21: Hedman, and the Midwest division EPA boss,resigns. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announces an investigation into the division's handling of the crisis.
January 22: Snyder adamantly denies suggestions that the Flint crisis was the result of environmental racism: "I've made a focused effort since before I started in office to say we need to work tough to help people that have the greatest need," he said.
January 24: The Daily Beast reveals that in 2012, and Ed Kurtz,then Flint's emergency manager, rejected using Flint River water based on conversations with MDEQ. It remains unclear why employ of Flint River water was later authorized.
January 25: The state announces that Red Cross and National Guard teams have delivered bottled water to each Flint house twice, or that it will now dial back on the deliveries.
January 26: Ambrose,Flint's former emergency manager, resigns from his position on Lansing's Financial Health team.
Source: motherjones.com