Genesee County Bills State $1M for Flint Water Crisis: Watch

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FLINT, MI – Officials in Genesee County said Monday the state should pay them $1 million for the county’s costs to respond to the water crisis in Flint, where residents have been exposed to dangerous levels of lead in their public drinking water supply.

In a news conference, County Commission Chairman Jamie Curtis said the county spent more than $1 million over the past six months to deal with the contamination, and that the state should provide reimbursement as part of Gov. Rick Snyder’s pledge to fix the problem.

Curtis said the county may have to lay off a couple of dozen employees and its bond rating may fall without the state’s help, Michigan Public Radio reports. The county is preparing to market $60 million in bonds to pay for upgrades to the Genesee County water plant.

The request for reimbursement didn’t include an itemization of the county’s expenses, according to The Flint Journal.

The county responded to concerns about the tainted water and a spike in Legionnaires' disease months before the city, which was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, and the state, Curtis said.

Snyder has repeatedly called the crisis a failure of government at all levels, including during congressional hearings before the U.S. House Oversight Committee on Government Reform last week.

“When he makes the statement that all levels of government have failed, that’s incorrect,” Curtis said. “Genesee County didn’t fail.”

Genesee County declared a public health emergency in October months ahead of Snyder’s January declaration of a state of emergency in Flint.

The county declared the emergency shortly after Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, pediatric residency director at Flint’s Hurley Children’s Hospital, released a study showing the number of children with above-average levels of lead in their blood had nearly doubled since the city began getting its water from the Flint River.

The financially struggling city turned off the taps to water from Detroit, which gets its supply from Lake Huron, and switched to water from the Flint River in a money-saving move in 2014. The more corrosive river water caused lead in aging pipes to leach, contaminating Flint’s water supply.