Flint water crisis

Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) spoke on the Senate floor on Thursday about the Flint community’s struggles in the wake of the Flint water crisis. Slotkin said the community’s still in pain, and in the process of seeking accountability and justice for a water crisis they didn’t cause.

The lawsuits allege lax EPA oversight and agency negligence are partly to blame for the length of time Flint residents lived with lead contamination in their drinking water.

An online portal started processing payments for about 7,000 property damage claims since December 12. According to the official settlement website, 2,854 payments had been made as of Tuesday evening.

People in Flint should start receiving letters in the mail this week informing them how much money they will receive from the Flint water settlement fund.

Friday's court order says a letter will be sent to each claimant with instructions on how to set up their payment. There's more than $600 million in the settlement fund.

In a federal court filing Friday, Special Master Deborah Greenspan wrote the payments would range from approximately $100,000 to $1,000.

Starting in 2014, tens of thousands of people living and working in Flint were exposed to lead and other contaminants in their drinking water. The exposure began after the ill-fated decision to change the source of the city’s tap water.

Flint, Michigan, is nearly finished replacing lead pipes 11 years after the water crisis. Financial struggles still cloud the water system's future.

The study involved data on 300,000 second through eleventh graders and their exposure to lead.

In May 2020, the Edenville and Sanford dams in mid-Michigan failed following heavy flooding. Thousands of residents were forced to evacuate, and many homes were destroyed. A formal investigation followed, and the disaster has since led to an ongoing lawsuit seeking to hold the state of Michigan accountable for what happened.