FLINT, MI — Thousands of requests for reconsideration and appeals of claims seeking a piece of the $626-million Flint water crisis settlement fund have helped delay the payment of more than 27,000 approved claims — none of which have been paid more than three years after the settlement was approved.
A new report from the special master assigned to oversee the settlement in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan details the “complicated and lengthy” settlement process that has frustrated residents and others who maintain they were harmed by Flint’s lead-tainted water.
The report comes in the same week that one of Flint’s most important institutions — the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation — publically challenged the slow pace of the settlement process, saying residents “deserve so much more than they have been given.”…