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For months, almost no one would listen to residents’ fears about their odd-looking drinking water. Now, it seems, everyone is listening — and sending truckloads of bottled water, water filters and baby wipes, and cash donations and television news crews that set up along Saginaw Street downtown. ... But five months after state authorities announced that it was unsafe to drink unfiltered water because of high lead levels caused by government errors over the past two years, federal officials said here last week that the water still was not safe, and, as testing goes on, offered no promise for when it would be. (Davey, 3/6)

Crews in Flint are starting to dig up old lead pipes connecting water mains to homes as part of efforts to allay the city’s contaminated water crisis. Mayor Karen Weaver says work starting Friday will target lead service lines at homes in neighborhoods with the highest number of children under 6 years old, senior citizens, pregnant women, people with compromised immune systems and homes where water tests indicate high levels of lead at the tap. (3/4)

The tragic lead poisoning of the Flint water supply in Michigan is a study in bureaucratic bungling, racial inequity and national media inattention. But the fallout from the crisis has obscured another lesson: There are consequences when those in power are able simply to circumvent the public will. For two decades, Michigan has used emergency managers to supplant local elected officials and bring order to its most financially troubled cities. Flint has been overseen since 2011 by a succession of these state appointees, who have power to cut spending and sell off assets to raise money. (MacGillis, 3/4)