|
|
|
|
As y'all know, I'm really passionate about the Flint water crisis, and I'll do my best to update you along the way until these residents have clean and safe drinking water.
Steps in the right direction are being made, but residents unfortunately are years away from being able to drink unfiltered tap water. Retired National Guard Brig. General Michael McDaniel, who's coordinating the FAST Start Initiative has a high goal of finishing pipe replacements for residents of Flint by 2019. Before we move any further, a little background on the FAST Start Initiative. It was started by Mayor Karen Weaver and the City of Flint in February 2016 in an attempt to get the lead out of Flint's water system. Please, always remember, this has been going on for years, @ least 3 years if I'm not mistaken, some officials such as Mayor Weaver have been doing what they can to rectify the problem, but other officials have gotten in her way, do your research people...helpful hint, it's a blog posts back. Moving forward... The next phase of the project is slated to start in late April and the plan of attack is to replace lines to 4 1/2 homes per day in 10 different zones. This would equal 225 lines/homes per week and 900 lines/homes per month. Of course with such a grand project comes challenges, there's not enough staff to take on this big of a project, inaccurate records on locations of pipes have been discovered, and of course the biggest issue, funding! Funding past this year is uncertain, 2017 funding is covered, half of the funds needed for 2018 are available, but there's no funding to cover the project in 2019. It's estimated that it'll cost $106 to $108 million to finish replacing the estimated 20,000 lines/homes that need to be done. The state of Michigan gave $27 million towards the project, the US gov't (shocker) came through with their promised $100 million to combat the crisis. Another big concern, is the speed of the project. Some residents say the project is going well speed wise, some say it's going slowly. As of last week, there were fewer than 800 homes that had been replace with new copper pipes. My thoughts: I think the fact that there's a plan and somebody's actually doing something is light years ahead of where Flint was. I can understand that because this crisis has been going on so long that residents want it done quickly, I'm right there with them. They deserve to have clean and safe water ASAP and not just because of the hell they've gone through for the past couple of years, but because clean and safe water is a basic human right and necessity. The gravity of this project has to be taken into account, unfortunately, it's not gonna happen over night, it's gonna take some time to accomplish, but I do believe the right people are spearheading this project and they're gonna do their damnedest to get it done as soon as possible, so these people don't have to continue suffering. If you're interested in helping advance the timeline of this monumental project or just want to know how you can help in general, please go here ---> https://www.cityofflint.com/how-can-i-help/
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
|