Latest news with #FlintWaterCrisis
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Mona Hanna says federal funding cuts reminiscent of precursor to Flint water crisis
Howard Crawford, left, Matt Elliott, center, and Mona Hanna, right, speaks at a panel about the impact of cutting federal funds for higher education research during the Mackinac Policy Conference on Mackinac Island, Mich., on May 27, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance) MACKINAC ISLAND – Dr. Mona Hanna says federal funding cuts by the administration of President Donald Trump are reminiscent of the circumstances that led to the Flint Water Crisis she helped expose. 'It wasn't just the austerity of changing the water to save money,' Hanna said. 'It was years of austerity in state government and federal government that really had hollowed out our bureaucracies – our Department of Natural Resources at the time, our public health departments that had become skeletons of themselves and they only really could react to crises, and they didn't have the infrastructure to really be proactive and to prevent issues.' She said that when those institutions failed, researchers stepped up. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 'It was research that was the scientific safety net,' Hanna said. 'It was the source of truth. It was the check and balance to kind of protect a community.' Among the programs that have already seen its funding cut is the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, Hanna said. Hanna was speaking during a panel at the Mackinac Policy Conference sponsored by Michigan State University. University President Kevin Guskiewicz said other projects at MSU that are either at risk of losing funding or already have include a project to create more resilient crops, research to improve health outcomes for expectant mothers and babies, and a Detroit wastewater surveillance program that was among the first to detect COVID-19. 'Federal investment enables high risk, early stage innovation that commercial entities wouldn't likely fund,' Guskiewicz said. 'It's the starter fuel, as we like to say, for breakthroughs in health, security and technology.' Howard Crawford, senior scientist and scientific director at Henry Ford, researches pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer patients have a median survival of about 10 months, Crawford said. 'The first thing they usually hear from their doctor is to get their affairs in order,' Crawford said. 'And the thing that I always want to tell everyone that ever hears that … is get yourself to a university hospital, because that's where the second opinions are going to come, that's where the clinical trials are being conducted, and that's your best hope.' But he said the research he and others have done is already starting to make an impact, with the five-year survival rate more than doubling since he began 25 years ago, largely due to work done in university hospitals. 'This progress we've made, this is stuff that started 40 years ago, not four years ago, and what we have to have is a continuity of research so that we can make this progress mean something,' Crawford said. While scientists could be on the verge of a breakthrough in treatment, Crawford said that work is jeopardized by the ongoing uncertainty around funding. He said that's in part because the public doesn't understand the impact of the work researchers do. 'We spend all of our time writing papers and writing grants, and that's what we have to do to function, but if the public doesn't understand that's what we're doing, why we're doing it, what is happening in the laboratory, what we're bringing to them in the next few years, that's our goal, and we need to be better,' Crawford said. Hanna added that 'we need to get out of our ivory towers, classrooms and labs and clinics, and get more comfortable in these public spaces.'
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Michigan House hears testimony on baby cash payment program amid Trump ‘baby bonuses' proposal
Rx Kids Director Dr. Mona Hanna testifies before the Michigan state House Families and Veterans Committee on May 20, 2025. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols When moms get cash payments to help navigate pregnancy and in the first months after giving birth, they consistently use the funds to attend more medical appointments with their child and make choices that lead to better outcomes for them and their baby, Rx Kids Director Dr. Mona Hanna told Michigan lawmakers Tuesday. Hanna told the Michigan state House Families and Veterans Committee that has been the result for moms who've accessed cash payments through Rx Kids, which began as a program to address infant poverty in Flint, but has expanded to Kalamazoo and the Upper Peninsula, with other locations in Michigan to be served soon. Hanna, a Flint-area physician who sounded alarm bells about the long-term health impacts of the Flint Water Crisis in 2014, said the number one thing moms buy with the $500 monthly cash payments the program gives moms after they give birth is diapers. And in Flint, Hanna said the program has distributed $10 million to more than 2,000 families and has seen reductions in smoking in mothers, increased birth weights and less reports of abuse or neglect. The program is funded with money from the state government as well as local governments and private groups and also affords participants a one-time $1,500 cash payment during pregnancy. 'When we think about child welfare, it is one of the biggest cost items in our state budget and in our federal budget,' Hanna said. 'The peak age of child welfare involvement is zero to one, that first year of life, more than double any other age of life and that's largely because of poverty.' And as Michigan officials on the local and statewide level seek solutions to grow the state's population as it's predicted to decline over the next few years, the Trump administration is looking to address declining birth rates. A recent proposal by the Trump administration of a $5,000 'baby bonus' for moms after they give birth has made headlines around the country and is being matched by public discourse surrounding the high costs associated with pregnancy, giving birth and parenthood. A group of Michigan Senate Democrats stood alongside Hanna at the state Capitol in march as they unveiled their plan to decrease the costs of parenthood in Michigan, which included interest in making Rx Kids a statewide program. When asked if the Republican-led House would consider supporting Senate Democrats plan or propose their own population growth plan during an April 24 news conference, Michigan Speaker of the House Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) didn't respond directly to questioning about the potential of 'baby bonuses' from the Michigan Advance, but said the chamber is reviewing its options and is working on policies to make life more affordable for Michiganders across the board. Discussions about the state budget are being had right now, but chair of the House Families and Veterans Committee, Kathy Schmaltz (R-Jackson), didn't confirm with the Advance after the Tuesday committee meeting if a statewide expansion of baby cash payments is on the table. 'I think it's important that we bring in organizations that are here to help families. It's not that we agree with everything that goes on. It's just that we need to hear from different agencies who are out there and what they're doing for families and babies and what's available,' Schmaltz said. 'We will take all the information and we'll sift through it and find out what works, what doesn't work and what should be funded and what shouldn't be funded.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘We have not forgotten you' – Residents remain without relief 5 years after failure of Edenville Dam
Attorney Ven Johnson stands in front of the Midland County Courthouse for a press conference marking the five year anniversary of the Edenville Dam failure on May 19, 2025. | Screenshot Marking the five year anniversary of the 2020 Edenville Dam failure, a host of residents whose homes were damaged by the dam's collapse gathered outside the Midland County Courthouse Monday, calling for the state to step up and make things right with those impacted by the flood. 'Not a single dime has been collected. Let me repeat that, not a single dime has been collected by these folks behind me, the true victims and survivors, nor on behalf of their attorneys. Not a single dime has been offered by the state of Michigan to step up to do the right thing,' attorney Ven Johnson told reporters, arguing the state's response to residents seeking accountability through the courts had been to 'defend, delay, deny.' Johnson recounted the past 5 years of legal proceedings, as residents impacted by the flooding seek damages from the Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy and the Department of Natural Resources, alleging the state knew the dam was not safe for continued operations, but still authorized the dam operator, Boyce Hydro, to raise the water levels within the lake created by the dam. The state attributes the dam's failure to 'historic levels of rainfall.' More than 11,000 people and 2,500 structures were damaged due to flooding, with the state's initial estimate for damages coming out to $250 million. While a federal judge later found Boyce Hydro responsible for the dam's failure, ordering the dam's former owner Lee Mueller to pay $119 million in environmental damage, Johnson argued the state had yet to properly respond to the complaint filed by residents shortly after the dam collapsed. He pointed to an order filed by Court of Claims Judge Douglas Shapiro in October 2023, which notes 'this case was filed over three years ago and that no Answer has ever been filed and that no discovery has yet occurred.' Shapiro called the state's repeated requests to reverse a previous order, which partly denied the state's effort to resolve the case without bringing it to trial, 'time-consuming and unsuccessful.' While Court of Claims Judge James Robert Redford last week denied another request to resolve the case in favor of the state without going to trial, Johnson predicted the state would appeal the decision, noting that the government retains an automatic right of appeal. Johnson said he would be objecting to that request, as would the attorneys standing beside him at the conference. 'Sadly, this is a months, plural, long process,' he said. Johnson repeatedly compared the state's legal approach to the way it handled legal proceedings in the Flint Water Crisis where the state was ordered to pay $600 million to Flint residents and property owners whose water was contaminated. 'There's your blueprint for how the state of Michigan deals with infrastructure failure. No one went to jail, no one was prosecuted, and it was the Civil lawyers who did what they did and exactly what we're doing in this case to try to bring some semblance of justice,' Johnson said. 'That took them eight and a half years before the State of Michigan stepped up and began to take responsibility and pay for the damage….But even so, that litigation, in many respects, is ongoing even today.' While the state pursued several state officials, including Republican former Gov. Rick Snyder for their role and response in the Flint water crisis, the efforts failed to return any convictions after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 2022 the charges were invalid. The residents pursuing the state for the dam collapse are scheduled to go to trial in January 2026, Johnson said. However, if the case is allowed to proceed, he expects the state will take the case all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court. In the meantime, Mike and Lisa Callan, whose home was destroyed by the flooding, said the burden is getting greater and greater each year. 'We have a couple mortgages we're still paying on this property. And, you know, now, now we have a water assessment coming. You know, my water assessment is about $48,000 for a piece of property that has absolutely, you know, nothing there,' Mike Callan said. Carl Hamman, a member of the Sanford Village Council, warned that residents could lose their homes over the assessment fees the state is requiring to rebuild the Edenville, as well as the Sanford Dam, which was located downstream. 'If they're living on —and I'm on Social Security — If you're living only on Social Security, I can't afford another $5,000 a year tax. Can't do it. I'll have to walk away from the place that I've been at for 35 years,' Hamman said. Kevin Carlson, another attorney working on residents' behalf, said the dam failure was not just a natural disaster but a failure of government and a breach of trust. 'What the state officials knew here, by January of 2020 at the very latest, was that the Edenville Dam did not meet the minimum safety requirements for a dam to continue operating in the state of Michigan…. The people behind me, the people that live downstream from this dam, they didn't know that,' Carlson said. 'They couldn't take matters into their own hands and start evacuating early. They count on the state acting behind closed doors to know that when a dam is unsafe for continued operation, there's one thing you shouldn't do to it: load up the lake behind it with more water. That's what the state authorized the dam operator to do.' Danny Wimmer, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Attorney General, which is representing EGLE and the DNR, said the failure of the dam was tragic, but noted it was not a state-owned dam and that survivors of the flood had already sued the dam owner and forced liquidation of their assets. 'Despite the claims of plaintiffs' attorney Johnson today, the litigation still pending in the Court of Claims is nothing like the Flint water litigation, and there is no appeal pending in it,' Wimmer said. 'Plaintiffs in this litigation already lost their lawsuit against the county governments because they did not have evidence to back up their allegations. We expect the same thing will happen in the Court of Claims. The plaintiffs do not have the evidence to support their allegations. Instead, the evidence confirms that the state agencies are not responsible for the dam's failure,' Wimmer said, before noting the department's sympathies lie with those affected by the dam failures. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Midland area floods: Victims still searching for justice 5-years-later
The Brief It has been five years since the historic floods raged from a dam system failure around Midland. Five years later most victims say they still have not received justice. The Attorney General's Office said in a statement that the plaintiffs have already lost their lawsuit against the country's governments due to lack of evidence. DETROIT (FOX 2) - Five years ago Monday night, many in Metro Detroit with property in the Saginaw and Midland areas lost everything as historic floods raged from a staggering dam system failure. The backstory Five years later most victims say they still have not received justice. And a local attorney is shining a light on the problems that remain. Attorney Ven Johnson hosted a press conference in Midland outlining what he says have been massive failures in state government to do right by the many victims of those devastating floods. While there is an eventual trial date for January 2026, many say it's not so simple with so many delays already. What they're saying Nearly everything Kurt Yockey owned and loved at his house in the Great Lakes Bay Region was lost to raging waters in the 2020 dam failures that caused never-before-seen flooding in Midland, Saginaw and Gladwin Counties. "The entire lower level was full of water and than up to about your waist on the first floor," he said. "Everything had to get thrown out. Furniture, most of the clothing, but in particular things like the pictures of kids and I had pictures of every high school team that I had ever coached from 1973 through the time of the event - all that, lost." He says he's among many victims still waiting for justice, five years later and followed the press conference hosted by Detroit Attorney Ven Johnson, a Saginaw native, who says several state agencies keep kicking the can down the road. "The state has completely waived taxpayer money and time by trying to file motions to get out of the case and appeal every adverse ruling that they've gotten," Johnson said. It is something that he says, and does not seem to be changing with what he calls another adverse ruling handed down. "Because they are a governmental entity, and they have an automatic right of appeal that the rest of us don't enjoy. If we were in a lawsuit - but they do because the law says they can - which needs to change right away - it's despicable," he said. What's next Things have worked out a little better for Autumn Pontseele's family since the historic flood. "I know my mom is still making changes to the house. She's always showing me pictures of what she's doing," she said. "It came out to be an okay situation. At the end of things, thankfully, with the grant that we got, we were able to rebuild." But that's not the case for so many others who would like to see a fund created to help with long-term recovery, like what took place after the Flint Water Crisis. Johnson says there should be a process that fairly compensates the victims for the right value of their losses. "We're five years and, we're really not that close to getting a trial date," he said. The Attorney General's Office said in a statement that the plaintiffs have already lost their lawsuit against the country's governments due to lack of evidence. We expect the same thing will happen in the Court of Claims. The plaintiffs do not have the evidence to support their allegations. Instead, the evidence confirms that the state agencies are not responsible for the dam's failure.
E&E News
19-05-2025
- Health
- E&E News
EPA ends emergency order for Flint's water
EPA has officially lifted its 2016 order declaring a drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, the agency said Monday. Once contaminated with dangerous levels of toxic lead, the drinking water in the city of Flint is now in compliance with federal standards, EPA said. The city has replaced more than 97 percent of the lead pipes that carry water to people's homes and completed all requirements stipulated by the agency. 'Lifting this emergency order is a cause for great celebration for residents of Flint who worked so hard and sacrificed so much to get to this point,' EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said. Advertisement The announcement marks a milestone in a yearslong battle that put a national spotlight on lead water pipes, which can leach the neurotoxin into tap water in homes, businesses and schools. Some 9 million lead pipes remain in service across the nation.
