What's happening with Flint's water is criminal.

More information is coming out every day showing that Governor Snyder and Michigan officials knew that people were getting lead poisoning and dying from legionnaires disease, while they were telling the people of Flint that their water was safe to drink.

We need your help to escalate the calls for justice for Flint families. Will you donate to help hold Michigan public officials accountable for poisoning children?

While short-term measures like water filters and alternative water sources are important to protect people immediately, it's not the ultimate solution Flint needs. We need to make sure that those responsible are held accountable and that all of the corroded lead pipes get replaced.

In 2014, Flint's water was switched over to river water by a state-appointed emergency manager to supposedly save Flint $5 million over two years. Now the city faces at least a $60 million price tag to fix the lead pipes, while the state of Michigan is sitting on a nearly $600 million surplus. We issued calls this week for the State of Michigan to immediately release the funds from their surplus to fix the problem they made.

Lynna Kaucheck, our senior organizer in Michigan, has been working with the Flint community since she was first contacted in March of 2015. Lynna has years of grassroots organizing experience in fighting for safe public water and was critical in winning the fight to get the United Nations involved in Detroit to stop the inhumane water shutoffs. Lynna has helped organize in communities across Michigan to help stop water shutoffs, to make water affordable and to keep our public water systems free from privatization.

Will you donate to help Lynna fight for justice in Flint?

Lynna has been working with Flint residents since she first got a call about the high water rates, water shutoffs and contamination. I'm proud of the work that Lynna and the rest of the Food & Water Watch team have done in Flint:

• March 2015: Flint residents contacted us about unaffordable water bills, water shutoffs and problems with water contamination.
• May 2015: Met with Flint residents and learned about the ongoing and escalating concerns with water quality in the city.
• June 2015: Worked locally to put pressure on elected officials to switch the Flint water system back to the previous clean water source from the Detroit Water system.
• July 2015: Filed FOIAs (Freedom of Information Act requests) to the city of Flint about water quality, water rates and communications explaining the switch from Detroit water to Flint river water. We reached out to Food & Water Watch supporters (in an email written by Flint resident Melissa Mays) alerting them to the water crisis in Flint and asking them to petition local officials to switch the City of Flint back to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department; over 27,000 people took action.
• August 2015: We worked with Melissa and Pastor Allen Overton of Concerned Pastors for Social Action to deliver the petitions to former Mayor Walling and city administrator Natasha Henderson calling for the water to be fixed.
• September 2015: We activated our Michigan Food & Water Watch supporters to call former Mayor Walling asking for the water to be switched back to the Detroit water system.
• October 2015: Flint water was switched back to the Detroit water system.
• November 2015: Flint elected a new mayor. Our community contacts confirmed that the Flint water infrastructure has been damaged and is still poisoning children and residents with lead and other contaminants.
• January 2016: We called on President Obama to declare an emergency and release funds to help Flint residents. We delivered more than 27,000 petition signatures to the Department of Health and Human Services on January 15. President Obama declared an emergency the next day, freeing up $5 million in federal relief.
• January 2016: We gathered more than 90,000 petitions calling on the Department of Justice to investigate Governor Synder in Michigan and bring forward charges for his role in this disaster.
• January 2016: We send more than 25,000 petitions to Governor Snyder asking him to reimburse the cost of water bills in Flint since the crisis started, and to put a moratorium on water shutoffs in the city of Flint.
• February 2016: We demand that Governor Snyder be called to testify in Congress, after hearings begin and he isn't on the list to give testimony. We coordinated media outreach and planning with two busloads of people who came from Flint to the hearings in D.C. to share their experiences. We call on the Michigan legislature to immediately release the funds from the state budget surplus that are necessary to fix Flint's water infrastructure.

As the situation in Flint continues to unfold, we will be there to help get justice for residents. Will you donate to help demand justice for Flint?

What happened in Flint is the result of what happens when the government tries to operate like a business. While we stand with the people of Flint for justice, we're also fighting in communities throughout the U.S. to stop other people from facing the same disasters. For far too long, communities have looked to privatizing our most essential resources, like our safe drinking water, to make a quick buck, or fix a budget shortfall.

Water is a human right, and we will work to stop water privatization everywhere it pops up, because we can't live without safe clean water. Will you donate to help us keep water a human right for all communities?

Flint is not alone. We will continue our work in Flint until there is justice for the families that have been impacted, but Flint is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to communities facing a water infrastructure crisis.

With your financial support, we can work to make sure the families of Flint and all of our families have access to clean drinking water. And we’ll continue to educate and mobilize everyday people to make our democracy work. It’s not glitzy or glamorous, but it is the determined hard work we must do in order to stand up to corporations that put profits before people and make our democracy work for people and the environment.

I hope you can stand with us today to continue to fight for water for all.

Thanks for your support,

Wenonah Hauter

Executive Director

Food & Water Watch

wenonah(at)fwwatch(dot)org