CORRECTION: The column excerpt at the end of this story should have been attributed to Ian Shetron, a part-time Flint resident and a researcher for Luntz Global Partners, not freelance writer Dennis Lennox.

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The ongoing political battle for the high ground in Flint, a circus-like, hyper-partisan blame-game between Republicans and Democrats, is long overdue for a truce.

When Michael Moore and Cher and Fox News and Congress each throw in their two cents, what we have is a skirmish that doesn’t make a dime’s worth of difference for the victims of this man-made crisis – the residents of Flint.

Both sides have made their points. Both have produced timelines and documentation that refutes some of the “facts” stated by the opposition. But both have to concede that how and why Flint began using the Flint River as a drinking water source is a different topic from what happened and why after the problems with the tap water surfaced.

The foot-dragging and the cover-up after brown, smelly water turned into something much more disturbing – water used for drinking, bathing and cooking with high lead levels — is a scandalous chronology with tentacles that reach into state and federal government agencies.

The partial release by the governor of internal emails regarding the crisis remains insufficient. Some would say it’s about as transparent as a glass of Flint water.

But the reasons why Flint temporarily switched to the city’s river water were far from sinister. City officials supported the move. As the transition to the Flint River was celebrated, the former mayor called it “an important day.” The river had been a backup source of drinking water in case of emergency for many years and it played that role in routine testing four times annually.

Those who portray the governor and his administration as heartless government ruffians forcing the river water down the throats of Flint children are merely playing political games.

A price must be paid by those who let the lead-tainted water continue to flow for several months after the dangers were discovered.

But I’m convinced that, in the end, the main Flint water story will not be about bureaucratic intransigence or criminal negligence but rather incompetence at the heart of the matter – at the Flint water plant.

Ian Shetron, a part-time Flint resident and a researcher for Luntz Global Partners, has written a column for the conservative Daily Caller website in which he offers a bit of an insider’s perspective on the interim switch to river water:

“… The city has considered the Flint River a backup water source for decades. I was in meetings in 2008, two years before Rick Snyder was first elected, where community leaders of all political stripes backed the Flint River option as Detroit continued to raise rates — the reason Flint and surrounding areas had decided to build their own pipeline in the first place.

“And the blame rests with more than just elected officials. Unelected bureaucrats and city workers responsible for providing clean water
were clearly negligent from start to finish. Ignored emails to city and county departments from the state bear that out. For their unresponsiveness to complaints from citizens, and their inability to
adequately clean the water in the first place, many of them deserve to lose their jobs, be investigated and, if necessary, face prosecution.”