On the recordFebruary 4, 2016
as all of our colleagues know, we have been working very hard to come together around a reasonable path to provide some support and assistance to the people of Flint, MI, who got up this morning--if they took a shower, it was with bottled water. If they were getting breakfast for their children, if a mom was mixing baby food formula, it was with bottled water. That has gone on now, for some people, 18 months or more. I mean, originally, they were told the water was safe, and they were drinking it and then found incredibly high lead levels in their children. Now it is bottled water. We have businesses downtown who have gone to the expense of creating their own water systems that are totally safe, but no one will come. Doors are closing. We have small businesses in neighborhoods--we have a revitalization effort in downtown Flint that has been really quite extraordinary. The chamber, a wide variety of organizations, the University of Michigan- Flint, a whole range of groups investing in downtown Flint. This is all collapsing because of the fact that people are afraid to come and to drink the water or to eat food mixed with the water, even though our businesses downtown are doing things to rectify this right now. The citizens of Flint, rightly, are in a position where they have been told that the water was safe to drink. They gave it to their children. It wasn't. They are poisoned. Now they are in a situation where they have great despair and great anger.…
