To The Readers’ Forum:

I would like to respond to the February 10, 2016 P-J Editorial “Playing The Blame Game,” which concluded that the blame for the water crisis in Flint, Michigan should be shared equally by local, state and federal government officials. Because it is my contention that this conclusion is false, I’d like to give readers a bit of background information on the subject of Flint’s water issue, and then show why the editorial’s conclusion is wrong.

A few years ago, the Republican governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, under the auspices of a law passed by the Republican Michigan legislature, appointed an “emergency manager” to take over control of the government of Flint, usurping the power of the legally-elected city officials. Imagine, if you will, Governor Cuomo, with no input from anyone in local government, suddenly appointing an “emergency manager” to assume control of the running of, say, the village of Falconer, booting out the locally-elected mayor! This is exactly what was done in Flint, bizarre as it may seem. (That’s a topic for another time!)

One of the actions that was implemented by the governor-appointed “emergency manager” was to change the source of the water supply for Flint, from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (run by the Great Lakes Water Authority) to the super-chlorinated Flint River. The resultant corrosion of Flint’s lead water pipes, by the unsafe Flint River water, led to the leaching of large quantities of lead into the water, which in turn led to the lead-poisoning of Flint’s population. Most greatly affected were Flint’s children, many of whom now have permanent, irreversible brain damage from drinking the water from the corroded pipes.

When local officials, a Flint doctor and a highly-regarded scientist from West Virginia, told state officials what was happening in Flint, the state officials ridiculed their reports and even went so far as to try to discredit them in the press (the doctor and scientist and the others have since been totally exonerated).

There is no “sharing” of the blame for this shameful debacle. Responsibility lands squarely in the lap of Governor Snyder and his appointed “emergency manager,” who, right up until they were exposed on national television, kept telling Flint residents, “Go ahead and drink the water; it’s okay.” (All the while, of course, supplying state officials working in the Flint area, with bottled water for months before all this came to light!).

This is wholly a matter of Michigan’s state officials lying to cover up corruption and stupidity, until they were forced, by national press coverage, to admit what they had done. They should not only be ashamed, in my opinion, they should resign (as the “emergency manager” already has), and be held accountable for poisoning the people of Flint.

Sandy Low

Lakewood