GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Friday that he hopes the water in Flint might be safe to drink again in three months, but it's impossible to predict because it's not a question of time, but of science.
"It's not based on time," Snyder said during a question-and-answer session following a luncheon speech.
"It's going to be based on tests and science and people believing, including outside experts, that it's safe to drink." He added: "We would all hope sooner rather than later; but it's not based on time, it's based on science, facts and caution."
Snyder said comments he made earlier Friday, in which he said he hoped the Flint water could be safe to drink in three months, may have been taken out of context.
State lawmakers joined Snyder at the luncheon to watch him sign a $28 million supplemental appropriation bill for Flint from the state's 2015-16 budget, which Snyder has described as only one step in addressing the public health and infrastructure catastrophe resulting from lead contamination of city drinking water.
Snyder was scheduled to be on a trade mission to Israel and the Middle East this week, but scrubbed the trip to focus on Flint.
Flint's water became contaminated with lead in April 2014 after the city, while under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, temporarily switched its source from Lake Huron water treated by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to water from the Flint River, treated at the Flint water treatment plant.
Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant resigned in December after acknowledging the department failed to require the addition of needed corrosion-control chemicals to the corrosive Flint River water.
