FLINT, MI — Ira James Dorsey aka “Bootleg” of the legendary Dayton Family, a hip hop rap group from Flint, has created a scathing video exposing recent findings by recent findings from a section of the scientific community, along with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA.
Below are excerpts from the powerful video.
Flint residents still don’t trust their water supply. Research suggests local water is safe as long as a filter is used. Many residents like Ira Dorsey are not buying it. “That’s a flat-out blatant lie! Until I see those experts come to Flint, live here for 30 days, 60 days, and drink the water every day that’s how you prove to the people it’s safe.”
Researchers at Virginia Tech University, including one who helped uncover the Flint Water Crisis found lead levels in Flint water to meet Federal standards. But residents are still being urged to use bottled water or filtered tap water. Dorsey says, “If it’s so safe then why do they recommend us to use filters? If it’s safe then only why can’t I just turn on my tap on and drink it anyway I want to drink it?”
Distrust in the city is rampant and some still rely on bottled water for basic tasks.
Resident Vivian Kelly: “I still use the bottled water to brush my teeth. I use it to make my coffee. I use it to cook with, whatever foods I have to boil. I always use bottled water because I really don’t trust cooking with that tap water”
Lead levels in Flint water were announced safe in January, 2017. Shortly after, Michigan officials ended a program that discounted residents’ water bills.
Dorsey says: “Why are we paying water bills if we got to use bottled water? How can you charge us for something we can’t use? At the end of the day, that filter Game is just an indirect way to say that the water is dirty. It’s still unclean. It’s still unsafe.”
Officials plan to replace some 20,000 lead tainted water lines by 2020. 3,700 have been replaced so far. Omar Burton, a student at University of Michigan-Flint, says: “The water was actually declared safe a couple of months back and then we realized that it wasn’t so, we were lied to. I just don’t want to keep being lied to about a basic necessity of life.”
See video: facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/1048680651940108/
Flint, Michigan is one of the worst examples of a huge problem all over the country – lack of clean water. This problem can be fixed but it takes money that both major political parties would rather spend on the military. Peoples’ health is meaningless to them. We are expendable.