Buy Photo The federal agency FEMA has sent two officials to Michigan to monitor the Flint drinking water crisis. (Photo: Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo 
 
 Michigan State Police troopers and other state officials will start a door-to-door sweep of Flint on Tuesday to hand out bottled water and water filters, and the White House says it is monitoring the situation "very closely." 
 
 The move, announced by the state Sunday, is intended to help address the ongoing water crisis in the city. Flint's drinking water was contaminated with lead, and an unknown number of children were poisoned while the city was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager in 2014 and 2015. The emergency manager, to cut costs, switched Flint's water supply source from Lake Huron, supplied by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, to the more polluted and corrosive Flint River. 
 
 The door-to-door distribution follows an announcement Saturday that water would be available free at fire stations throughout the city. 
 
 The state said that if no one is at home during door-to-door visits, a flyer with information on how to get free water resources will be left. 
 
 The announcement came as the White House said Sunday during "Meet the Press" that it was monitoring the situation as part of a discussion on growing mistrust in government. The chief of staff to President Barack Obama said the White House is watching the Flint situation "very closely." 
 
 The discussion on the NBC News program hosted by Chuck Todd is the latest example of national media attention given to the crisis. The Flint public health emergency has also been featured prominently in the New York Times and on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show." 
 
 The ongoing controversy in Flint also drew the attention of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who is traveling to Detroit for a fundraiser on Tuesday. She said Sunday evening that no parent should have to worry whether the water they and their kids are drinking is safe. 
 
 "Thousands of children may have been exposed to lead, which could irreversibly harm their health and brain functioning. Plus the catastrophe - which was caused by a zeal to save money at all costs - could actually cost $1.5 billion in infrastructure costs," Clinton, the former First Lady and Secretary of State, said in a statement. 
 
 Three liaison officers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are in Michigan assisting state officials after Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in the crisis Tuesday. The state asked for the help, but Snyder has not yet made a request through FEMA for federal financial aid, an official said Saturday. 
 
 On Sunday, Snyder spokesman Dave Murray said once the initial response phase is over, state officials will work with the federal government on what additional resources may be available. 
 
 Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, would not give a direct answer when Todd asked whether FEMA was going to intervene further. 
 
 The administration is "obviously very concerned about it, but I don't have any news to make with you on that today," McDonough said. 
 
 "We're watching it very closely, but nobody has asked us anything yet." 
 
 During a panel discussion, Todd said Donald Trump, a billionaire businessman and reality TV star who has been the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination "talks about distrust in political leaders." 
 
 "And what do we have in Michigan?" he asked. "This Flint, Mich., where clearly the governor's office — someone in the governor's office — was too passive about it." 
 
 Todd said Snyder, like Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is under fire over failures of the police department, is not seen as overly partisan. 
 
 "They're not ideological warriors, they're technocrats who we thought, at a minimum, were the competent guys," Todd said. 
 
 Panelist Helene Cooper of the New York Times said water is "so basic" that the Flint catastrophe "really feeds to this distrust people have." 
 
 "This is from — this is not a third world country," she said. 
 
 Residents with questions or who need to obtain water or other supplies should call 2-1-1. 
 
 Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660, pegan@freepress.com or on Twitter @paulegan4. Staff writer Kathleen Gray contributed to this report. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1P0aNjE ||||| As National Guard troops patrol Flint handing out bottled water, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder defended his handling of the crisis and defied calls for him to resign. 
 
 “As soon as I became aware of elevated lead levels in blood,” Snyder said on Jan. 14 in an exclusive interview with TIME at his office in Lansing, “we took action.” 
 
 The crisis in the struggling industrial city of 100,000 dates to April 2014, when Flint switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River in order to save money. The river water turned out to be highly corrosive to the city’s pipes, leaching toxic levels of lead into water being used for drinking, cooking and bathing. Shortly after the switch, residents began complaining of discoloration in the water, bad odors and health effects like headaches and rashes. Last summer, researchers at Virginia Tech found that the water in some homes contained enough lead to be considered toxic waste. On Jan. 5, months after testing revealed the city’s water supply was unsafe, Snyder declared a state of emergency. Nine days later, the governor announced that he had asked the Obama administration to designate the county surrounding Flint as a federal emergency area. 
 
 What the state and its governor, a Republican who was re-elected in 2014 after helping Detroit emerge from bankruptcy, knew and when they knew it have emerged as critical questions as the crisis stretches into its 19th month. Residents and a growing number of local and national officials have accused Snyder of ignoring a public health emergency, with some calling for him to step down as a result. 
 
 In an interview with TIME shortly before he announced the federal emergency request, Snyder says he first knew about potentially serious problems with the water supply on Oct. 1, 2015, when testing by state environmental officials confirmed elevated levels of lead. Pressed on whether that was the first time he became aware of any concern with Flint’s water, Snyder says, “Obviously, I knew there were water issues in Flint. But did I know there were unsafe blood levels? No.” 
 
 Read more: Michigan Governor Sends Bottled Water to Flint 
 
 In a recently-released email from July 2015, Snyder’s former chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, wrote to a state health department official that he was concerned that Flint residents believed they were getting “blown off” by state officials. Snyder says the email shows that his office was not neglecting the city, and Muchmore was “concerned that we were getting straight answers so he asked tough questions and he got answers.” 
 
 Asked if he waited too long to declare a state of emergency, Snyder defended the state’s response. “There was some time period where we were offering filters, we were working hard to get water. All these kind of things. But not enough of it was being accepted. Now we’re to the point now where hopefully we’re fully engaged and have everyone working hard to make sure everyone in Flint has access to a water filter.” 
 
 Snyder did fault the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which repeatedly told Flint residents the water was safe to drink despite reports within the department that some Flint homes showed extremely high lead levels, for “being probably too technical in their interpretation of things or following a traditional pattern of doing things rather than stepping back to look at what else you might see in data.” 
 
 “There were issues in terms of getting appropriate answers,” Snyder tells TIME. “That was unfortunate. It would’ve been good to have that information sooner. And I am responsible for those people. I don’t deny that.” 
 
 Read more: Toxic Water Isn’t Just in Michigan 
 
 Flint has since stopped using the river for its water, but concern remains that the system’s pipes will continue to release lead. State officials are now focused on providing water filters and drinking water to Flint residents. But protesters, who marched onto the Michigan Capitol Building Thursday, say they’re going to keep the pressure on the governor, who admits that it will be a challenge to regain residents’ support. 
 
 “We are working hard to earn their trust back,” Snyder says. “I can appreciate the concerns that they have and we’re trying to work hard to show them that we really do care.” ||||| Flint — The questionable quality of the city’s drinking water made headlines again this week, but not much of it has been news to Ashley Holt. 
 
 For almost a year, the water from her faucet has looked “like urine,” smelled “like the sewer” and, if you’re brave enough to sip it, hasn’t tasted “normal,” the 25-year-old Flint resident said. It’s why she’s limited for months how often her children — ages 5, 6 and 12 — come in contact with it. 
 
 But following last week’s revelation that Flint children are showing higher amounts of lead in their blood, the situation has escalated for her cash-strapped family. 
 
 In a city where 41.5 percent of the population is below the poverty line, a lack of money is the reason Holt was walking instead of driving downtown this week to pick up her children from school. She scrambles to find enough to buy them bottled water. 
 
 “The only option I’ve got is just to not drink the water and stick with pop and juice,” Holt said. “(I) go to the store and get a gallon of water a day, if I can afford it at the time.” 
 
 The hardships experienced by residents here are having public health and political ripple effects that are being felt from city hall to the governor’s office. Gov. Rick Snyder said Tuesday he could unveil “more action steps” as early as the end of this week. 
 
 Researchers from Virginia Tech and Hurley Children’s Hospital in Flint said last week that lead levels in local children have risen since the city, under Snyder’s appointed emergency manager, started getting its water from the Flint River instead of the Detroit Water & Sewerage System. Studies showed that in some areas lead levels doubled and, in two local zip codes, the levels tripled. 
 
 Lead poisoning can cause learning disabilities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevent. At very high levels, it also can lead to seizures, coma and even death. 
 
 Water quality has become the central issue in the mayoral election that is a month away. It also has put Snyder’s administration — particularly the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality — under the microscope. There are questions about how the DEQ tests water quality, as well as the governor’s back-channel efforts this summer to send 1,500 water filters to Flint families when state officials insisted the water was fine. 
 
 Sommer Adams said there are doctor’s visits in the future for her three kids because she fears they may have been exposed to lead. 
 
 “Even though I don’t see it in my water or haven’t experienced no type of (problems) with drinking it, you never know,” said Adams, 23. 
 
 Governor questioned 
 
 The idea of switching water systems seemed to make sense. Municipal officials didn’t like the rates residents were forced to pay and wanted to be part of a new supply system being built to draw from Lake Huron, just like Detroit’s system. 
 
 Tapping the river for a year or two was supposed to provide water until the Karegondi Water Authority was up and running. Almost immediately after the switch in April 2014, there were complaints about the treated river water’s appearance, smell and taste. 
 
 A year later, the state-appointed successor emergency manager, Jerry Ambrose, rejected the city council’s attempts to tie back to the Detroit system as “incomprehensible.” 
 
 “(Lake Huron) water from Detroit is no safer than water from Flint,” Ambrose said at the time. 
 
 The Snyder administration’s confirmation Tuesday that it helped an anonymous donor send 1,500 water filters to Flint families seemed to undercut the decision. At an unrelated Wednesday press conference, the Capitol press corps grilled the governor about Flint’s woes. 
 
 “It appears that lead levels could be higher or have increased... ,” Snyder said. “We’re looking at making sure they’re within safe limits, according to the federal government.” 
 
 Mayor election a focus 
 
 The water problems have ratcheted up interest in the Nov. 3 mayoral election, which figured to draw more scrutiny anyway since Flint emerged from state control in late April. 
 
 Business owner and candidate Karen Weaver has attacked incumbent Mayor Dayne Walling for failing to take back total control of the government from the city administrator left in place by the state’s emergency manager. After the reporting of the lead results, Weaver has claimed that Walling knew about the problem as far back as June, thanks to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report that flagged the situation. 
 
 “You didn’t speak up,” she said Wednesday. “Yes, the emergency manager had power to make the final decision, but nobody takes your voice.” 
 
 Walling countered that the first time he heard of the elevated lead levels was Sept. 21, a few days before the results were made public. 
 
 “I’m asking everyone to carefully consider my record because it has been a complicated four years with four different emergency managers that each involved myself and city council in different ways at different times,” Walling said. 
 
 This month, Walling wrote to Snyder requesting the state help with $30 million in new infrastructure improvement aid. 
 
 Public Information Officer Jason Lorenz said the city hasn’t received a response. 
 
 Old pipes complicate testing 
 
 Shervon Goss, 32, paints a disturbing picture of what she experiences in her townhouse complex in Flint’s south end. Her tap water has an odor, Goss said, and showers result in dry skin and rashes. 
 
 “It’s a complex with a whole lot of people and a whole lot of babies there,” she said. “These are people who probably can’t afford to go and buy bottled water. So they get forced into drinking the (tap) water that’s unhealthy.” 
 
 Like many residents, Goss wonders how this happened. 
 
 State officials admitted it is difficult to do consistent lead testing on water being pumped through old lead plumbing and service connection lines. Water tested at intake or upon release from the treatment plant can be exposed to lead when it reaches old lead connections on private property, the officials said. 
 
 “The testing protocol that we have tends to offer a systemwide assessment of how water interacts with that line and home plumbing,” said Brad Wurfel, DEQ’s spokesman. “There’s a lot we unfortunately don’t know about those (home lead) levels.” 
 
 Some local groups have stepped up to provide free water to residents. The House of Prayer Missionary Baptist Church gave away bottled water Wednesday, drawing a line of cars. 
 
 On Thursday, the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan will ship packages of diapers combined with gallon jugs of water to area social service organizations. 
 
 Local activists are prepared to hold protests and urge residents to stop paying their water bills if state and city officials don’t make the switch back to water from Detroit, said Rev. Alfred Harris, pastor of Saints Church in Flint. 
 
 “We’re praying that the governor will say we’ve got to go back to Detroit water,” Harris said. 
 
 jlynch@detroitnews.com 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/1KNivPc ||||| In a photo from Jan. 2, 2016, Sherri Miller and her son, Jameer, 7, a first-grader, are seen at Freeman Elementary School in Flint, Mich., where Jameer was getting his finger-prick blood sample tested... (Associated Press) 
 
 FLINT, Mich. (AP) — The longest line at Freeman Elementary School's Family Fun Night was not for face painting or food. It was for lead testing. 
 
 For three months, families in the former auto manufacturing hub of Flint have taken their children for blood tests and lived on bottled water after doctors found high levels of lead in the bodies of the community's youngest people. 
 
 "It really is a scary situation to know that we can't get clean drinking water," said Sherri Miller, who brought her first-grade son, Jameer, to have a finger-prick blood sample tested. "It really is scary to think someone knew about this" and did nothing. 
 
 Nearly two years have passed since safe drinking water flowed from Flint faucets. The financially troubled city began drawing its water from the Flint River in 2014 to save money. Officials failed to treat the corrosive water properly to prevent metal leaching from old pipes. Worse, residents didn't learn they were drinking tainted water until the state issued warnings a year and a half after the switch was made. 
 
 For the city's 100,000 residents, daily life is now all about lead. 
 
 Before the crisis, Flint, about an hour's drive north of Detroit, had become a symbol of the decline of the U.S. auto industry, having suffered waves of auto plant layoffs and the loss of half its population. Forty-one percent of the population falls below the poverty line. 
 
 These days, it's a place where parents fear for the health of young children, who can develop learning disabilities and behavior problems from lead exposure. 
 
 "It has such damning, lifelong and generational consequences," said Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, director of pediatric residency at Hurley Children's Hospital, where more than 2,000 children have been tested. She is credited with bringing the problem to the public's attention after state agencies initially dismissed her concerns. 
 
 "It was frustrating that it went on for so long," Hanna-Attisha said, complaining that even since the state began taking action, "everything has been slow." 
 
 Gov. Rick Snyder finally acknowledged in late September that the water was unsafe, saying the consequences of switching to Flint River water were not "fully understood." The decision to use the river was made while a Snyder-appointed emergency manager was running city government. 
 
 The city, which had been under state supervision since 2011, returned to local control last April. 
 
 Flint went back to Detroit water in October, but some fear the old pipes were so damaged that they must be replaced, at costs estimated as high as $1.5 billion. 
 
 On Monday, Snyder apologized to Flint and pledged that officials would contact every household to ensure families have bottled water and a filter and to check whether they want to be tested for lead exposure. 
 
 He also promised to seek a long-term solution. 
 
 "This is a crisis," the governor said. "So we're responding appropriately. There's more work to be done." 
 
 Snyder's many critics got louder at midweek, when the governor announced that two spikes in Legionnaires' disease had occurred in the county that includes Flint during the time Flint River water was used. Ten people died. Michigan health officials said they cannot conclude that the outbreak stemmed from Flint's water, but others argued it probably had. 
 
 Late Thursday, Snyder asked President Barack Obama to issue a federal disaster declaration in an effort to get federal aid, a move critics countered should have been taken sooner. The president signed an emergency declaration on Saturday and ordered federal aid for the city. 
 
 After Snyder declared a state of emergency Jan. 5, residents could go to fire stations to pick up a daily ration of one case of bottled water per household and a water filter. But even that effort fell short. 
 
 The following Monday, a pile of empty filter boxes was stacked against the wall at one station. One woman came back three times in the hope of getting one. Hours later, even the water was gone after volunteers had given out almost 900 cases. And the fire station had not received any of the lead test kits that had been promised. 
 
 Volunteers also began going door-to-door to distribute water. Snyder called on the National Guard to help. 
 
 For angry residents, it's still not enough. 
 
 "The state was telling everybody, 'It's fine, relax. ... It's safe,'" even as people complained that the water looked cloudy and tasted bad, said community activist Melissa Mays. "They lied." 
 
 Mays, her husband and three sons ages 11, 12 and 17 are taking medication to reduce high lead and other heavy metal levels in their blood. 
 
 "Like everybody else, we drank and cooked with it because they told us it was safe," she said. 
 
 Rabecka Cordell said she learned from her doctor that both she and her 5-year-old son, Dayne, have lead poisoning. She said she also has leukemia, and her son has learning and speech disabilities. 
 
 She won't even bathe in the water and won't wash her son in it. 
 
 "It's ridiculous," Cordell said. 
 
 At the elementary school's lead testing on Tuesday, more than 50 kids lined up. One was fifth-grader Maleah Gill. 
 
 "You wonder how long has it been in her system?" said her father, Matt Gill. "How much has she taken in? What's the effects? 
 
 Hurley Children's Hospital is distributing 10,000 booklets on mitigating the effects of lead on children, including recipes high in iron, calcium and vitamin C. Adding to the challenge is that there are few grocers with fresh produce within Flint city limits. At a local farmers market, the hospital offers weekly recipe and cooking demonstrations with lead in mind. The first one was hearty egg burritos. 
 
 Nutrition "has a huge mitigating role," Hanna-Attisha said. 
 
 She urged parents to consult early and often with a pediatrician. 
 
 In consultations, the doctor said, "we need to give families hope that with secondary prevention interventions, not every kid is going to have problems." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Roger Schneider on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rogschneider. ||||| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday it was joining a criminal investigation of lead-contaminated drinking water in Flint, Michigan, exploring whether laws were broken in a crisis that has captured international attention. 
 
 A Flint River sign is seen along the Flint river in Flint, Michigan in this December 16, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/Files 
 
 Federal prosecutors in Michigan were working with an investigative team that included the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General and the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit said. 
 
 An FBI spokeswoman said the agency was determining whether federal laws were broken, but declined further comment. 
 
 EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy met with officials and community leaders in Flint and told reporters she could not give a timeline for fixing the problem. She said the agency was examining where it may have fallen short, but declined to address the criminal probes. 
 
 The city, about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Detroit, was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager when it switched the source of its tap water from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in April 2014. 
 
 Flint switched back last October after tests found high levels of lead in blood samples taken from children. The more corrosive water from the river leached more lead from the city pipes than Detroit water did. Lead is a toxic agent that can damage the nervous system. 
 
 Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, who extended a state of emergency in Flint until April 14, has repeatedly apologized for the state’s poor handling of the matter. 
 
 The Flint River is seen flowing thru downtown in Flint, Michigan, December 16, 2015. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook 
 
 The ability to seek criminal charges under U.S. environmental laws is limited, according to Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and a former federal prosecutor. Prosecutors would need to find something egregious like a knowingly false statement. 
 
 “You need something that is false to build a case,” he said. Simply failing to recognize the seriousness of the situation would not rise to that level, Henning added. 
 
 In Washington, Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, Democrats from Michigan, pushed for $600 million in aid, mostly in federal funds, to help Flint replace pipes and provide healthcare. 
 
 Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who chairs an environmental committee, said an agreement to help Flint was close and would be a combination of revolving funds and other aid. Money from a revolving fund is like a loan, with the money going to the recipient and then being repaid so there is no net cost to U.S. taxpayers. 
 
 Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, said aid to Flint must not add to U.S. budget deficits for “what is a local and state problem.” 
 
 U.S. Representative Candice Miller, a Michigan Republican, proposed an emergency bill to provide $1 billion in funds to be used to replace Flint’s water pipes. 
 
 The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday on the Flint crisis. The head of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Keith Creagh, will apologize for its handling of the case, and an EPA water official will tell the committee that reforms must be enacted to prevent a repeat, according to advance testimony. 
 
 The committee on Tuesday evening subpoenaed Flint’s former emergency manager, Darnell Earley, to appear at the hearing, CNN reported, citing a committee staffer. 
 
 But Earley’s attorney said the subpoena was not issued in time for his client to testify, according to CNN. ||||| CLOSE Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder says help is being given to Flint residents affected by the city's water woes while officials work on a long-term solution. The governor made his remarks during a tour of the Detroit auto show. (Jan. 12) AP 
 
 Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder activated the National Guard to help the American Red Cross distribute water to Flint residents to help them deal with the lead contamination that is in the City of Flint's water supply. (Photo: Getty Images) 
 
 Corrections and clarifications: This article has been updated to clarify the health experts recommend that all of Flint’s children be treated as though they have been exposed to lead. 
 
 FLINT, Mich. — In order to address the public health crisis in Flint, every Flint child under 6 years of age -- 8,657 children, based on an analysis of Census data -- should be considered exposed to lead. 
 
 The direction came earlier this week from the doctor who forced the state to acknowledge Flint’s lead problem and the state itself. 
 
 The exposure began in April 2014 after the city switched from using Detroit’s water system, which pumps water out of Lake Huron, to its own treatment plant, which drew water from the Flint River. 
 
 In recommendations to the state on Monday, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha said all kids under the age of 6 should be treated with some kind of prevention actions. 
 
 Eden Wells, the state's chief medical executive, reiterated in a news conference Monday the fact that all children who drank the city's water since April 2014 have been exposed to lead. "It is important when we think about a public health perspective that we consider the whole cohort ... exposed to the drinking water, especially 6 years and under since April 2014, as exposed, regardless of what their blood level is on Jan. 11." 
 
 The state's most recent report, based on tests conducted between October and December 2015, shows that 43 people — only a small portion of the number exposed — had elevated blood lead levels. That's because these tests measure only the amount of lead in a person's blood, which decreases after about 30 days, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
 
 That means testing done today does not represent past exposure. Once lead is present in the bloodstream, it is distributed throughout the body, primarily to bones, teeth and soft tissue. Lead accumulates in the body over time. Blood-lead tests used to identify recent or ongoing exposure to lead, do not measure the overall lead burden in the body. 
 
 There is no safe level of lead in the body, but the impacts of lead are considered most severe on the developing brains and nervous systems of children and fetuses. And even the 8,657 Flint children younger than 6 exposed to lead may be a low estimate; It doesn't include unborn children whose mothers drank tainted water during their pregnancies, or children and pregnant women who reside outside Flint but were exposed while visiting relatives, childcare centers or hospitals inside city limits. 
 
 See a map of the number of Flint children less than six years of age by block group. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1RrPONo ||||| Musicians horrified and heartbroken by the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan, are donating money and water to local nonprofits — and calling on their fans to do the same. 
 
 Related Who Poisoned Flint, Michigan? A writer returns home to find a toxic disaster, giant government failure and countless children exposed to lead 
 
 Pearl Jam on Friday announced it would be donating $300,000 to the United Way of Genesee County’s Flint Water Fund, and encouraged others to pitch in on CrowdRise. At press time, supporters had contributed $5,000 so far. 
 
 Rapper Big Sean, who made a personal donation of $10,000 through his charity The Sean Anderson Foundation, also started a CrowdRise for kids in Flint. His fund had raised some $16,000 on Friday. 
 
 It has been 637 days since the city of Flint switched from using water piped in from the Great Lakes, using the toxic Flint River instead. As Rolling Stone writer and Flint native Stephen Rodrick explains in "Who Poisoned Flint, Michigan?” the move saved a nominal amount of money for the city, but consequences have been devastating for its residents. 
 
 The city stopped treating its water for lead and jacked up the amount of chlorine to dangerous levels in order to ward off bacteria. Lead poisoning can lead to both stunted mental development and physical growth. It’s also irreversible — impacted children will carry the effects of poisoning with them for the rest of their lives. 
 
 For months, local and state officials lied to residents about the danger the water in their homes might post to their health, and they stalled efforts to fix the problem. Last week, President Obama declared a state of emergency in the city. 
 
 "I am devastated by the water crisis that has put the entire city of Flint in a state of emergency," Big Sean, who grew up an hour away from Flint in Detroit, said in a statement. "It is my hope that we can help by raising the money needed to ensure that the children who have been hit the hardest receive the care that they need today and well into the future." 
 
 Meek Mill reportedly made a donation to Flint Child and Family Health Development Fund as well, and sent 60,000 bottles of water to the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan. Cher (and the bottled water brand Icelandic Glacial) sent the food bank an additional 181,440 bottles of water on Wednesday. 
 
 Donations to the Flint Water Fund will go directly toward the purchase of water filters and bottled water, as well as emergency support services and prevention efforts, according to the United Way. The nonprofit it has already secured 11,000 filters systems and 5,000 replacement filters already. Any money left over after immediate needs have been met will go toward the Flint Child Health and Development Fund. Donations to Sean’s Crowdrise will go to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, Michigan. 
 
 Karen Weaver, the newly-elected mayor of Flint, sent thanks to the celebrities who had pitched in via a TMZ cameraman while on a recent trip to DC to discuss the crisis. "I appreciate it and the residents of the city of Flint love you for that," she said.
– Flint, Michigan's water woes are officially a federal emergency—nearly two years after the city took the money-saving move of switching from using Lake Huron water treated in Detroit to water from the Flint River. That water was found to be highly corrosive to lead pipes still in use in the city, causing lead to leach into residents' drinking water. On Saturday President Obama declared a federal emergency in the city of 100,000, thereby unleashing federal funding and authorizing FEMA to provide water, filters, cartridges, and other items for 90 days, per the AP and Detroit Free Press. Gov. Rich Snyder puts the cost of the aforementioned water distribution and filtering items at $41 million. More: Sanders vs. Snyder: Speaking of Snyder, Bernie Sanders called for his resignation Saturday. "The governor long ago knew about the lead in Flint's water. He did nothing. As a result, hundreds of children were poisoned." Timeline: The AP has a timelines of the crisis, which dates to the April 2014 switch. Notable: In October 2014, a GM engine plant stopped using Flint's water, stating that it was rusting parts. Visualized: The Washington Post has a jarring and informative series of graphics that illustrate "how toxic Flint's water really is." One family's water tested at a level that the EPA considers to be "toxic waste." Every kid: The state's chief medical executive, along with the doctor who publicly called for Flint to stop its use of Flint River water, this week said all 8,657 kids under age 6 in Flint should be considered exposed to lead and treated as such, reports USA Today. The residents' ordeal: The AP speaks with some locals. Rabecka Cordell and her 5-year-old son have lead poisoning; she also has leukemia, he has learning and speech disabilities. She refuses to even use the water to bathe.