Flint Investigation Lays Blame For Water Crisis Squarely On The State

An investigatory panel tasked by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) laid the blame for the contamination of Flint’s drinking water with lead and other toxins on the state in a final report released Wednesday. “[T]he state is fundamentally accountable for what happened in Flint,” it states. “The Flint water crisis is a story of government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction, and environmental injustice.”...
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/03/23/3762859/flint-investigation-state/

Independent Investigators: State Officials Mostly To Blame For Flint Water Crisis

"The Flint water crisis is a story of government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction, and environmental injustice." That's how an independent task force opened its final report on the lead-tainted water crisis in Flint....
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/23/471585633/independent-investigators-state-officials-mostly-to-blame-for-flint-water-crisis?sc=tw

The Referendum That Might Have Headed Off Flint’s Water Crisis

The tragic lead poisoning of the Flint water supply in Michigan is a study in bureaucratic bungling, racial inequity and national media inattention. But the fallout from the crisis has obscured another lesson: There are consequences when those in power are able simply to circumvent the public will....
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-referendum-that-might-have-headed-off-flints-water-crisis

Why didn't Flint treat its water? An answer, at last

...But testimony at a legislative hearing this week from the city's utilities chief may help explain: When Flint began to pump drinking water from the Flint River, the city's water treatment plant wasn't capable of adding corrosion control treatment, not without equipment upgrades the broke city couldn't afford...
http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/2016/03/30/flint-water-crisis/82421546/

Water Works & Indiana Death Threats (Freedom From Religion Foundation, Forethought Radio)

FFRF staff attorney Sam Grover updates us on our amended complaint adding more plaintiffs to our lawsuit (filed along with the ACLU) challenging the live nativity scene performed by Concord High School in Elkhart, Indiana, and the accompanying harassment and death threats. Then Abigail Cantor, an award-winning national water management expert (as well as musician) tells us about the science behind what needs to be done in Flint, Michigan (and other cities) to improve water quality.
Interview:
https://ffrf.org/news/radio/show-items/item/25767-freethought-radio-february-13-2016

America's 'Lead Wars' Go Beyond Flint, Mich.: 'It's Now Really Everywhere'

Flint, Mich., isn't the only American city with a lead problem. Though the health crisis in Flint has highlighted the use of lead in water pipes, author David Rosner tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that lead, which is a neurotoxin, can be found throughout the U.S. on walls, in soil and in the air.

"The problem with lead is that it's now really everywhere, and we've created a terribly toxic environment in all sorts of ways," he says.

Lead is particularly dangerous to young children. In their book, Lead Wars, Rosner and co-author Gerald Markowitz describe the ways in which even small exposures can interfere with a child's brain development and cause lasting learning challenges.

"It causes IQ loss. It causes behavioral problems. It causes attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, dyslexia," Markowitz says.

Rosner adds that even a small amount of lead can have a lasting effect on a child's health. "As early as the 1910s and 1920s, [doctors] were documenting children who had absorbed lead on their fingers as dust and had put their hands in their mouth and actually began going into convulsions," he says. "It's not like you need a lot of it."
Interview:

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/03/469039064/americas-lead-wars-go-beyond-flint-mich-its-now-really-everywhere

Toxic chemical found in upstate New York's water

https://youtu.be/lFVoBaeGvVA

Before Flint, Lead-Contaminated Water Plagued Schools Across U.S.

"We don't use the water from the building for cooking, not at all," say cafeteria worker LaShawn Thompson, shaking her head.
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/16/470512927/before-flint-lead-contaminated-water-plagued-schools-across-u-s