Greets and saluts from the brisk but bright NYC metro area. The situation in Flint Michigan should be a front-page above the fold kind of story. A GOP led administration pushing penny pinching that ignores clear science about how dangerous it would be to use river water as even a temporary water source while a new source is being set up. The penny pinchers go ahead and use the river water with inadequate water treatment, exposing the entire city to lead poisoning - with foul smelling water and kids being medically treated for lead poison at many times the EPA safety threshold.

Officials warned Monday that the tap water still isn’t safe to drink, but it took five days after the emergency declaration for the state to start handing out bottled water.

And Flint’s economically challenged citizens are still being billed for water that authorities say they shouldn’t consume or even use to brush their teeth.

(snip)

The crisis began in April 2014 when Flint switched from using Detroit’s water supply to water from the Flint River to save money. The river water was saltier and began corroding the old pipes and leaching lead into the system.

An email obtained by researchers at Virginia Tech revealed that six months ago, the governor’s chief of staff was concerned enough that he told the state health department Flint’s residents were “rightfully” worried about initial reports of lead levels and were “getting blown off” by the state.

Snyder insisted his epiphany about the Flint situation didn’t come until Oct. 1, when testing done by a hospital lab affirmed the results a local doctor had been reporting.

“We started taking actions on Oct. 2,” he said. He blamed the three-month gap between that and the emergency declaration to the need to follow protocol.

The state goes MIA and the emergency manager installed by the state’s GOP governor is essentially MIA as well.

No one should drink the water in Flint until the water is hooked up to a safe water supply (which it was until the GOP decided penny pinching was the way to go) but it took days before the state and city finally brought in bottled water after it was declared unsafe to drink.

Of course, Flint residents are paying for the undrinkable water, and will be paying for years to come for having been exposed to the dangerously leaded water for months - children who were given/drank that water can have lasting medical effects.

Those are costs that the GOP’s penny pinchers inflicted on Flint.

It further shows just how dangerous the GOP is when it comes to clean water/air, the environment generally, and how the anti-science bias affects every corner of GOP thinking. The Michigan DEP claimed the water was safe to drink for months, despite residents saying that there was something wrong with the taste/smell, and doctors began finding elevated lead levels in blood samples of kids in the city (the lead test isn’t something done in the normal course of tests - you do it when you suspect heavy metal poisoning).

This is the lead weight around the neck of the GOP, and Michigan’s situation is the tip of the iceberg of what the GOP wants to do with national environmental protection standards. Every time they call for gutting EPA regs/enforcement, it could lead to people being directly harmed. Every time they deny the science, it could lead to people being harmed.

This is what Democrats need to focus on. The GOP is dangerous.