PHOTO: DAVE OLDS, MICHIGAN SENATE DEMOCRATS
FLINT, MI — Claiming that the water is now safe, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has launched a surprise attack on the long-suffering residents of Flint, Michigan. When they announced that the state-funded water centers a.k.a. (PODS) where bottled water is distributed would close. Panic and desperation set in across the city as lines upon lines of cars waited and waited, sometimes up to an hour, to get bottled water. Within days, the water was gone and the (a.k.a. PODS) were completely closed. Over two busloads gathered at the Capitol the following day disrupting the legislature to protest the action.
When Flint Mayor Karen Weaver met with Governor Snyder days later to keep the PODS open, the governor said, among other things, ‘Get over it.’
Just days before the announcement to shut off Flint’s bottled water source, the same MDEQ announced that the Nestlé company would be allowed to increase withdrawals of groundwater—400 gallons per minute for $200 a year in Osceola County. The state of Michigan giveth to the corporations (Nestlé) and taketh from the people (Flint).
The water crisis is alive and well in Flint, Michigan, but so is the resistance. The struggle continues . . .
