Gov. Rick Snyder "will be known from this time forward as the governor whose team poisoned potentially thousands of children," Rochelle Riley says Sunday in a column near the sharply worded editorial.
Gov. Rick Snyder has been wimpy and shameful in his response to the Flint water crisis, which is particularly heartbreaking because children there may face lifelong health problems caused by lead.
The Free Press editorial board, which endorsed the Republican in 2010 and 2014, slams him in a biting editorial Sunday:
Governor Snyder: When are you going to turn your relentless, positive action toward assuaging the misery your administration has heaped upon the people of Flint?
Right now, the State of Michigan should be able to say that it has ensured the delivery of bottled water and water filters to every Flint resident whose drinking water has been contaminated by lead. Right now, the State of Michigan should be able to say it has taken the first steps to craft nutritional and educational interventions for lead-poisoned Flint kids. Right now, the State of Michigan should be able to say it is using funds made available by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to replace aging lead water service lines in Flint.
Instead, the governor is offering placid responses and slow-walking important remedies, while the investigation into how one of Michigan’s greatest man-made public health crises unfolded comes up with explanations in dribs and drabs.
It’s not just derelict — it invokes inglorious comparison to other callous and insensitive official responses to tragedy. Think of the shameful federal response to Hurricane Katrina, where the same lack of urgency delayed life-saving aid. The poverty rate in Flint is 40%; 52% of Flint residents are African-American. And so we are prompted to ask: How would the state have responded to a crisis of such proportions in a community with more wealth and power?
Under the guidance of an emergency manager appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder, Flint began, almost two years ago, to draw its drinking water from the Flint River. Because the local treatment plant, with the approval of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, didn't add the right chemicals to that river water, lead leached from aging service lines and into the city's drinking water. Thousands of Flint residents — including vulnerable infants and expectant mothers — were exposed to a toxic contaminant that can cause irreversible behavioral and developmental problems.
The Atlantic magazine dusts off a Watergate-era question this weekend.
Freep editorial page editor Stephen Henderson links to the editorial from his Facebook page with a comment saying Snyder was "elected twice by a majority of voters to lead, to manage and, yes, to act like he gives a damn. Everyone in Michigan has a rightful expectation to see him fulfill those duties in Flint - instead of acting like W. after Katrina."
In the paper's Sunday opinion pages, columnist Rochelle Riley also slaps the state's chief executive for heading an administration that apparently "just didn't care:"
He will be known from this time forward as the governor whose team poisoned potentially thousands of children with lead.
The ravages of lead poisoning — which affects mental and physical development — linger for years and are irreversible. . . .
Negligence is defined as "failure to use reasonable care, resulting in damage or injury to another." That is the definition the lawsuits will use.
And at a national magazine's website, Michigan's top elected official is the target of a question (right) this weekend from The Atlantic that has been used during American political scandals since Sen. Howard Baker, R-Tenn., first asked it about Richard Nixon during Senate Watergate Committee hearings just four decades ago.
