Open Letter to Oakland Co Commissioner Nash on Lead and Copper Rule

  MICHIGAN CHAPTER

           

July 10th, 2019

Dear Commissioner Nash:

We appreciate our long working relationship with you as a former volunteer leader with the Sierra Club, and your work to protect water quality in Oakland County. Your work to stop sewage overflows and address nonpoint source pollution is important and aligns with the Sierra Club’s goals for protecting water quality.

However, your current position on the Michigan Lead and Copper Rule is at odds with ours. We are writing to clarify the Sierra Club’s position on the Michigan Lead and Copper Rule (MLCR). Sierra Club supports the MLCR as proposed. The reformed MLCR outlaws partial lead service line replacements and requires the state’s utilities to eventually replace all the lead and copper service lines in Michigan. Public education and notification requirements were also included in the reformed MLCR. All of these measures have the support of Sierra Club, and we are working hard to assure that these are implemented statewide.

Michigan is leading the nation as the first state to mandate the removal of all lead and copper service lines, ban the partial replacement of lead service lines (with an exception for extreme circumstances), and require water utilities to pay for the entire lead service line replacement. As you know, Sierra Club joined with many other organizations in seeking to assist the people of Flint after the disastrous poisoning of hundreds of thousands of people because of the disturbing policies of the Snyder administration. The measures in the MLCR cannot make up for the damage done to the residents of Flint, but they are an important step towards addressing the racially charged injustices that lead to the poisoning of a city.

In this important regard, the MLCR aligns with the Sierra Club’s position on environmental justice. Children and those living in neighborhoods with high rates of poverty and aging infrastructure face the greatest risk, and their health and safety must not be compromised by weakening the MLCR. Residents of communities with aging infrastructure are disproportionately people of color and/or low-income, magnifying the importance of environmental justice concerns and accessible public notification/education materials. The MLCR works to address these inequalities.

There is no safe amount of lead in drinking water, and due to the life-long effects of lead poisoning, support of the MLCR is particularly important to Sierra Club members. Michigan can never again allow its children and citizens to be poisoned by drinking lead contaminated water, and the Sierra Club backs the revised MLCR’s mandate to get the lead service lines out of the ground.Sierra Club asks that instead of litigating against the MLCR that you join us in supporting the MLCR and implementing it. Furthermore we ask you to join us in advocating for federal and state funding to assist with the implementation of the MLCR for any communities that cannot bear the cost of lead service line replacement. If you have any questions or need additional information please feel free to contact us.


Sincerely,

Gail Philbin, Michigan Chapter Director 
Anne Woiwode, Michigan Chapter Chair

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109 E. Cesar Chavez Ave. (formerly Grand River) • Lansing, Michigan 48906 • (517) 484-2372
www.michigan.sierraclub.org

ACTION ALERT: Clean Water For Flint!

Demand Clean Public Water for Flint!

On Friday, April 6, Governor Snyder notified the Flint community through a press release that the State of Michigan would no longer provide bottled water once the existing supply ran out, despite continuing concerns about water safety. As of Tuesday, April 10, the supply of bottled water dried up, leaving residents scrambling to secure clean water for drinking, cooking and other daily needs.

Contact Governor Snyder and Lieutenant Governor Calley to tell them Flint needs bottled water until after all lead service lines are replaced, and their accountability and transparency are necessary for all of Michigan! 

Lead service lines are being replaced quickly when weather allows - and replacing the remaining thousands of lead service lines will at least take until the end of 2019. When the pipes are replaced, lead is released into the water supply - potentially spiking lead levels for months after pipes are replaced in neighborhoods housing tens of thousands of Flint residents. There is no safe level of lead in drinking water, and effects are especially dangerous for children and pregnant residents.

The State of Michigan has not earned the public's trust in ensuring the safety of Flint's tap water supply, and has evaded accountability for addressing the water crisis it caused. Examples from 2018 include:

• State officials ignored repeated community demands for transparency about comprehensive water quality measures, including fluctuating levels of lead and bacteria-killing chlorine. 

• Governor Snyder publicly discredited and intimidated researchers examining concerning bacteria levels in Flint point-of-use water filters, including by pulling research funding. 

• Rich Baird, Governor Snyder's lead cabinet employee for the Flint water crisis response, stole a Flint-based researcher's proposal for a comprehensive school water testing program that would intentionally involve members of the school community to build trust in the water testing results. He commissioned an outside researcher to do a watered-down version of the program without a component to rebuild trust. 

• During recent water testing of Flint school faucets, State officials changed the water sampling procedure mid-way through three rounds of testing, apparently to obtain desired results for lead levels in the water. These test results were used by the State to declare that the water crisis was over, which lead to the abrupt end of bottled water for Flint residents. 

• Meanwhile, as Flint residents pay one of the highest drinking water rates in the nation, the State nearly doubled the amount of water that Nestle can extract from Michigan to bottle and sell for profit, despite more thank 85,000 public comments against this move. Privatizing Michigan water is unjust for all of Michigan residents and signals a worrying trend in our state government.

Contact Governor Snyder and Lieutenant Governor Calley to tell them Flint needs bottled water until after all lead service lines are replaced, and their accountability and transparency are necessary for all of Michigan!

Sierra Club Response to Governor Snyder's State of the State Address

We are glad Governor Snyder acknowledged that the people in Flint have been without clean drinking water for over 2 years now. It is beyond time to fix this problem and the underlying issues that caused it” said Mike Berkowitz, Legislative Director of the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter. “We call on Governor Snyder and the state legislature to repeal the emergency manager law, improve Michigan’s Lead and Copper Rule, establish citizen oversight for the Department of Environmental Quality, and create jobs for Michigan workers by funding environmentally sustainable infrastructure.”

Sierra Club Calls for Urgent Action, Probe of MDEQ in Flint Public Health Crisis

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, October 2, 2015

Media Contact:  David Holtz, david@davidholtz.org/313-300-4454

LANSING—Sierra Club today called on Gov. Rick Snyder to act decisively and urgently to implement plans to end the public health crisis in Flint and to support an independent investigation into the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s oversight of federal drinking water laws.

“Given the clear risks to vulnerable populations and the state’s public health responsibilities this is a time for strong leadership and accountability from state public health authorities and the governor,” said David Holtz, Sierra Club Michigan Chair.  “The governor, finally, is assuming direct responsibility for responding to a crisis that every day is damaging the health of Flint’s children. His actions should be much stronger, however, and he needs to find out how we got to the point where Flint children are drinking lead and what the MDEQ’s role was in those decisions and actions.”

The Snyder administration today outlined a series of steps they will take to address Flint’s public health crisis.   They include accelerated and expanded water treatment, providing filters to some residents, expanded testing of residents and an examination of whether to temporarily switch back to the Detroit water system.  Replacing Flint’s lead pipes over time were also on the administration’s to-do list.

Sierra Club Michigan Director Gail Philbin said only independent testing of Flint’s water for lead will be credible because of questions raised regarding the city and MDEQ’s handling of past test results.

“Parents need to know drinking water is safe for their children,” said Philbin.  “Immediately they need credible testing for lead and alternatives to contaminated water.  The likely best way to ensure safe drinking water in Flint is to change to a safe and reliable drinking water source and that’s Detroit’s water system and to eliminate lead pipes.”

Investigations by the ACLU and nationally recognized drinking water expert Marc Edwards at Virginia Tech University have pointed to failures in testing and enforcement of federal drinking water standards by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.   An MDEQ spokesman reportedly attacked Virginia Tech’s results and complained about the “near-hysteria” over Flint’s water supply. The Virginia Tech researcher documented what he called “mistakes and deception” involving the MDEQ’s handling of Flint’s drinking water problem.

“Along with ensuring Flint residents aren’t drinking lead, we need for the governor to ensure that the public gets answers to what happened and why we ended up with a public health crisis in Flint,” said Holtz.   “That will require an independent investigation.  If that’s something Governor Snyder is unwilling to do we need federal authorities to determine to what extent, if any, state officials who are responsible for implementing federal drinking water standards are accountable for the public health crisis in Flint.”

The Greater Flint Health Coalition, a group of health professionals in the Flint community, has concluded that Flint’s drinking water is unsafe because of elevated lead blood levels. The city of Flint began using the Flint River as a water source in April 2014 following a decision made by emergency manager Darnell Earley. 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studies show that lead in drinking water can cause serious health problems and that the greatest risk of lead exposure is to infants, young children and pregnant women.  Scientists have linked the effects of lead on the brain with lowered IQ in children.

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