Flint water crisis: President Obama drinks filtered water during press conference — Transcript

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1. 0:01Obama drinks water from Flint amid lead
2. 0:03contamination
3. 0:12crisis I really did need a glass of
4. 0:14water this is not a
5. 0:17stunt US President Barack Obama asked
6. 0:20for a drink of water while giving a
7. 0:21speech in Flint Michigan on Wednesday
8. 0:23keep in mind Flint is in the middle of a
9. 0:25lead contamination crisis Flint
10. 0:28previously changed their water source
11. 0:29from the Detroit system which draws
12. 0:31water from Lake hon to the Flint River
13. 0:33in April 2014 as a cost-saving option
14. 0:36but reports found Flint River's water is
15. 0:38more corrosive than Lake Hons and caused
16. 0:40high levels of lead to leech out of the
17. 0:42city's aging pipes into the water supply
18. 0:44initial studies done on the water showed
19. 0:46that it had exorbitantly high amounts of
20. 0:48bacteria and chemical pollutants which
21. 0:50necessitated high levels of chlorination
22. 0:52a year and a half after the change in
23. 0:54Flint's water source many residents
24. 0:55reported experiencing hair loss and
25. 0:58rashes based on records there are
26. 1:014,376 known lead pipes throughout the
27. 1:03city an estimated 4,000 plus lines may
28. 1:06also contain lead bringing the total to
29. 1:08more than 8,000 a state of emergency was
30. 1:11declared in Flint in January which
31. 1:13prompted officials to distribute water
32. 1:14filters and clean bottled water
33. 1:16President Obama is even urging local
34. 1:18residents to get blood tests for their
35. 1:20children but he also assured residents
36. 1:22they would be fine in the longterm even
37. 1:25as he admitted that there had been a
38. 1:26complete screw up and that it would take
39. 1:28more than 2 years to replace the agent
40. 1:30pipes in the city but he drank some
41. 1:32water while in Flint so obviously
42. 1:35everything will be just fine