The US pop star Cher has announced she will be sending bottled Icelandic water to the 100,000 inhabitants of Flint Michigan who have been without safe drinking water since April 2014. US Weekly reports that a total of 181,440 bottles of water from water distributor Icelandic Glacial will be shipped to the city. The first shipments are to leave today, Monday.
The water in Flint contains dangerous levels of lead, some samples registering high enough to be classified as toxic waste, according to the Washington Post. In a statement on Saturday January 16 Cher thanked Icelandic Glacial for joining her in an attempt to help the people of Flint:
This is a tragedy of staggering proportion and shocking that it's happening in the middle of our country … I am so grateful that Icelandic Glacial has come on-board to help the city of Flint. I cannot wait for the water to get there to help these people who have been poisoned because the water they've been getting out of their taps has been polluted for so long and remains that way without the state or federal government stepping in with any substantial plan to resolve this problem.
US weekly reports that once the bottles are empty they will be recycled and the money used to fund local food banks.
Icelandic Glacial has been exporting water from a spring in Ölfus, in South Iceland, since 2005. The US distributor for Icelandic Glacial is Anheusher-Busch, which holds a 20% stake in the company.
The water supply of the city has been contaminated with lead since an emergency manager, appointed by the republican governor Rick Snyder to tackle a financial crisis the struggling city was facing, stopped buying water from Detroit. The chemical composition of the new water led to extensive corrosion of the city’s pipeline system, causing elevated levels of lead in the water.
The citizens of Flint noticed immediately that something was wrong with their water, which smelled and looked strange, but the city refused to acknowledge the problem until October 2015. The governor declared a state of emergency in Flint on January 5, and US President Barack Obama declared a Federal emergency on January 16.
The US pop star Cher has announced she will be sending bottled Icelandic water to the 100,000 inhabitants of Flint Michigan who have been without safe drinking water since April 2014. US Weekly reports that a total of 181,440 bottles of water from water distributor Icelandic Glacial will be shipped to the city. The first shipments are to leave today, Monday.
The water in Flint contains dangerous levels of lead, some samples registering high enough to be classified as toxic waste, according to the Washington Post. In a statement on Saturday January 16 Cher thanked Icelandic Glacial for joining her in an attempt to help the people of Flint:
This is a tragedy of staggering proportion and shocking that it's happening in the middle of our country … I am so grateful that Icelandic Glacial has come on-board to help the city of Flint. I cannot wait for the water to get there to help these people who have been poisoned because the water they've been getting out of their taps has been polluted for so long and remains that way without the state or federal government stepping in with any substantial plan to resolve this problem.
US weekly reports that once the bottles are empty they will be recycled and the money used to fund local food banks.
Icelandic Glacial has been exporting water from a spring in Ölfus, in South Iceland, since 2005. The US distributor for Icelandic Glacial is Anheusher-Busch, which holds a 20% stake in the company.
The water supply of the city has been contaminated with lead since an emergency manager, appointed by the republican governor Rick Snyder to tackle a financial crisis the struggling city was facing, stopped buying water from Detroit. The chemical composition of the new water led to extensive corrosion of the city’s pipeline system, causing elevated levels of lead in the water.
The citizens of Flint noticed immediately that something was wrong with their water, which smelled and looked strange, but the city refused to acknowledge the problem until October 2015. The governor declared a state of emergency in Flint on January 5, and US President Barack Obama declared a Federal emergency on January 16.
