Rick Snyder Monday morning with the impression that he’s through talking about bottled water for the city.
She believes the city is entitled to continued state-funded supplies of bottled water as a gesture of goodwill, because state officials caused the water crisis the brought the need for bottled water.
Snyder believes two years of water testing have shown Flint’s drinking water is safe again and there is no legal obligation for the state to continue paying nearly $2 million a month to buy and distribute bottled water.
"They had a candid and open discussion about continuing to move Flint forward now that the water quality has been fully restored and that fact has been confirmed by independent testing," Snyder’s spokeswoman Anna Heaton said.
Weaver said Snyder basically told her "we need to get over it" when she tried to bring up bottled water and reopening the four PODs on Monday morning.
She wanted to talk about alternatives to scale back the four PODs sites to two and reduce staffing rather than cutting off the bottled water supply entirely, because many residents don’t trust the quality of the water.
"I said they gave us their word that they would see us through this lead and galvanized service line replacement, and we would have PODS stay open until then and they backed out on what they said," Weaver said in a statement after the meeting.
Weaver said her administration is exploring a lawsuit against the state to bring back at least some of the PODs at the state’s expense.
She sent the state a letter in March 2016 preserving the city’s right to file a lawsuit, if necessary.
“As a result of the state and their employees we are here, and these are things that we have to look at as far as their negligence and gross negligence.” Weaver’s letter in 2016 points out much of the blame for the water crisis rests with state employees with the Department of Environmental Quality, who promised in April 2014 that Flint River water would be a safe alternative for the city’s water supply.