Ex-Mich. gov. to face water crisis charges
FLINT, Mich. — Flint mother Ariana Hawk struggled to find words. Bittersweet came to mind, as did frustrated.
“I literally could have cried,” said Hawk, sitting in her car after learning former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and others in his administration were expected to be charged in a water crisis blamed with causing learning disabilities in scores of children and other medical problems among adults in the majority Black city about 60 miles northwest of Detroit.
Her son, Sincere Smith, was 2 years old when Hawk noticed something wasn’t right with the family’s tap water. Sometimes the water they drank and used for cooking and bathing was discolored. More concerning was when it gushed out brown.
Residents had been complaining about the discolored discharge as early as 2014 after the financially strapped city — while under state oversight — switched from water pumped from Detroit to the Flint River to save money.
State and some city officials insisted the water was safe to use — until a group of doctors in September 2015 urged Flint to change its water source after finding high levels of lead in children’s blood.
The water, it turned out, had not been treated to reduce corrosion — causing the toxic metal to leach from old pipes and spoil the distribution system used by nearly 100,000 residents.
Seven years after the water was first switched, Snyder, his health director and other ex-officials have been told they’re being charged in a crisis that has been highlighted as an example of environmental injustice and racism.
A news conference is scheduled for Thursday.
Leon Abdullah El-Alamin said he would like to see Snyder charged with a felony. El-Alamin’s son, now 7, has suffered hair loss and skin rashes due to the contaminated water. He said Snyder “needs to do some kind of time.”
“Again, I don’t know what the charges are going to be and so forth. But I know if it’s just a smack on the wrist, then you just failed this community,” El-Alamin said.
Hawk is skeptical that charges will lead to accountability. Even if there are convictions, who will repair the emotional trauma?
